• Article (book chapter)
• 46 pages
• University level

This article by Mordechai Feingold is the introductory chapter to the 2003 book Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, edited by Feingold and published by The MIT Press. Feingold provides an overview of Jesuit scientists and of the advantages and disadvantages (from a scientific point of view) of doing science within the Jesuit order—an organization whose mission was not scientific but spiritual. Feingold writes:

The aim of this introductory chapter is to get past the stereotypes that surrounded the Society of Jesus during the first 200 years of its existence and evaluate the scientific dimension of its intellectual contribution, independent of its religious mission. It is my contention that, by and large, the scholarly activities and aspirations of Jesuits were indistinguishable from those of other contemporary savants, secular or ordained, irrespective of denomination. True, constraints on the pursuit of secular learning were more stringent among Jesuits, as were the mechanisms regulating their teachings, publications, and contacts with outsiders. But this cannot be automatically construed to mean that the Jesuits harbored a greater number of reactionary, prejudiced, or bigoted scholars than did other Catholic orders (or, for that matter, the various Protestant churches). Indeed, my research indicates that while scholarship often served partisan goals in the charged religious atmosphere of the early modern period, Jesuit scientific practitioners as a group seem to have resisted the temptation to yoke science to other ends as well as did practitioners of any other religious denomination….

It may seem surprising that, notwithstanding [the constraints, and disciplinary measures associated with them] (which must have been applied to hundreds of Jesuit philosophers and mathematicians in the course of the early modern period), only a few Jesuits left or were expelled from the Society as a consequence of such measures. In part, this is a testimony to the gravity with which Jesuit practitioners took their vows. But it is also clear that for most members—who never doubted the primacy of the religious mission of the Society even when they differed on the extent of the dangers that the new philosophies posed to the traditional relations between philosophy and theology—the constraints were a burden to be contended with from within the Order. Many continued to preach the benefit of at least a modicum of philosophical freedom, even in print.

Click here for an excerpt, courtesy of Google Books.

From the publisher, MIT Press:

Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus was viewed for centuries as an impediment to the development of modern science. The Jesuit educational system was deemed conservative and antithetical to creative thought, while the Order and its members were blamed by Galileo, Descartes, and their disciples for virtually every proceeding against the new science. No wonder a consensus emerged that little reason existed for historians to take Jesuit science seriously. Only during the past two decades have scholars begun to question this received view of the Jesuit role in the Scientific Revolution, and this book contributes significantly to that reassessment. Focusing on the institutional setting of Jesuit science, the contributors take a new and broader look at the overall intellectual environment of the Collegio Romano and other Jesuit colleges to see how Jesuit scholars taught and worked, to examine the context of the Jesuit response to the new philosophies, and to chart the Jesuits’ scientific contributions. Their conclusions indicate that Jesuit practitioners were indeed instrumental in elevating the status of mathematics and in stressing the importance of experimental science; yet, at the same time, the Jesuits were members of a religious order with a clearly defined apostolic mission. Understanding both the contributions of Jesuit practitioners and the constraints under which they worked helps us to gain a clearer and more complete perspective on the emergence of the scientific worldview.

• Article
• 10 pages
• University level

A 2013 article by Elio Antonello of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:

Abstract: In the mid 18th century both theoretical and practical astronomy were cultivated in Milan by Barnabites and Jesuits. In 1763 Boscovich was appointed to the chair of mathematics of the University of Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, and the following year he designed an observatory for the Jesuit Collegium of Brera in Milan. The Specola was built in 1765 and it became quickly one of the main european observatories. We discuss the relation between Boscovich and Brera in the framework of a short biography. An account is given of the initial research activity in the Specola, of the departure of Boscovich from Milan in 1773 and his coming back just before his death.

Click here for this article from NASA ADS.

Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.

• Article (PDF)
• 23 pages
• University level

Fr. Michael Buckley, S. J., examines two questions in this scholarly paper: With what legitimacy does the theological question emerge in Newtonian mechanics? How does Newton move methodologically to its resolution?

From Newton and the New Direction in Science (Vatican: Vatican Obs. Publ. 1988), ed: George Coyne, Michael Heller, Jozef Zycinski

[Download PDF]
Buckley God in Newtonian Physics

• Book
• 369 pages
• University level

Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories, is a 2003 book by Agustín Udías, S. J. of the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Universidad Complutenese (Madrid, Spain). From the publisher:

Jesuits established a large number of astronomical, geophysical and meteorological observatories during the 17th and 18th centuries and again during the 19th and 20th centuries throughout the world. The history of these observatories has never been published in a complete form. Many early European astronomical observatories were established in Jesuit colleges.
During the 17th and 18th centuries Jesuits were the first western scientists to enter into contact with China and India. It was through them that western astronomy was first introduced in these countries. They made early astronomical observations in India and China and they directed for 150 years the Imperial Observatory of Beijing.
In the 19th and 20th centuries a new set of observatories were established. Besides astronomy these now included meteorology and geophysics. Jesuits established some of the earliest observatories in Africa, South America and the Far East.
Jesuit observatories constitute an often forgotten chapter of the history of these sciences.

Click here for more information, including a brief preview, from the publisher (Springer).

Click here for a substantial preview from Google Books.

Below are two reviews of this book by astronomers with the Vatican Observatory:

• Book review by Fr. Sabinao Maffeo, S. J., in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2005 (PDF, courtesy of NASA ADS).
• Book review by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., in the Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2007 (PDF).

• Article and book chapter
• Approximately 10 pages each
• High school level and above

Roger Joseph Boscovich (Ruđer Josip Bošković) was a Jesuit scientist with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, ranging from developing better lenses for telescopes, to designing a system to reinforce the dome of St. Peter’s for Pope Benedict XIV, to creating what today might be called a “Theory of Everything” that would explain all physical interactions in the universe. These two articles provide concise overviews of his life and work:

• “Roger Joseph Boscovich: Forerunner of Modern Atomic Theory” by Sr. Mary Mercy Fitzpatrick and Sr. Antonietta Fitzparick (Incarnate Word College, San Antonio, Texas) in The Mathematics Teacher, February 1968, pgs. 167-175. Click here to read this article via JSTOR (many libraries provide complete JSTOR access):

Who was this individual who, almost two hundred years after his death, has aroused such interest among scientists and mathematicians? Roger Joseph Boscovich was a Serbo-Coation Jesuit and a renowned mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher, whose molecular theory of matter antedates by more than a hundred years the birth of modern atomic theory.

• “Roger Joseph Boscovich” in Remarkable Physicists: From Galileo to Yukawa by Ioan James, published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. Click here for a preview from Google Books.

The year 1740 was when Benedict XIV succeeded to the papacy. His reign recalled the best years of the Renaissance. Benedict XIV was a profound scholar and a vivid personality, magnanimous and virtuous in his private life, who surrounded himself with the leading intellectuals of Rome. The Papal Secretary of State, the able and versatile Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, shared Dubrovnik connections with Boscovich, who naturally came to his attention, and Valenti’s residence soon became like a second home to him. During this period of his life he was entrusted with several practical and diplomatic commissions for lay and ecclesiastical authorities, as was not unusual among qualified clergymen of his time.

In 1735 there had been a resurgence of rumours that the long-standing cracks in the dome of St Peter’s basilica – which had been completed in 1590 – presaged an imminent collapse. The new Pope consulted various experts, one of whom recommended demolishing the huge structure and rebuilding it. Others reported that no danger threatened the dome. However, for further reassurance a commission consisting of Boscovich and two French scientists was appointed to investigate the causes and make recommendations. Boscovich drafted the report, which, by analysing the problem in theoretical terms, achieved – despite certain errors – the reputation of a minor classic in architectural statics. He undertook further such work for the Pope later.