• 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.

• Articles (two)
• 29 pages; 32 pages
• High school level and above

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711-1778) of Bologna, Italy is often identified as being the first woman to earn a doctoral degree and the first to be a university professor (where she eventually became the highest paid member of the faculty). Bassi showed great talent when she was young, and became something of a celebrity in Bologna when she earned her first degree. She was awarded a position at the University of Bologna that was somewhat honorary, but managed to eventually turn that into a full position as professor of physics. Bologna’s Archbishop, Prospero Lambertini, supported Bassi (and encouraged other women to pursue higher education in science)—support that became more valuable as Lambertini became Cardinal and then Pope Benedict XIV.  Bassi’s drive and persistence is reflected in the words of someone involved in considering her request to be made a professor:

finally to satisfy, if one ever can, the demands of Signora Laura Bassi who, although she has no right to be admitted among the Professors of the Institute, nevertheless has asked for this well over three Years, having nurtured some hope of this more than once…. she is a celebrated Woman known to the entire Republic of Letters, who truly brings great honor to her Patria, thus it seems that [her request] merits benign attention.

Laura Bassi accomplished her work in the realm of science while also being a wife, and mother of eight children (some sources report twelve children).

The following two articles are available electronically via JSTOR—many libraries provide free access to services, such as JSTOR, that can be used to download the full text of these papers:

Click here to access “Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi,” by Paula Findlen (Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, 1993, vol. 84, pg. 441-469).  This article contains illustrations and focuses primarily on Bassi and her life.

Click here to access “The Desire to Contribute: An Eighteenth-Century Italian Woman of Science,” by Gabriella Berti Logan (American Historical Review, June 1994, pg. 785-812).  This article has a stronger focus on Bassi’s scientific work.

• 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.

• 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
• 8 pages
• University level

A 2013 article by L. Guzzardi, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:

Abstract: On March 13th 1781 Frederick William Herschel observed a bizarre celestial body moving in the sky. Retrospectively, that astral body was not at all new at that point. It was observed by a number of astronomers since the end of 17th century (and maybe earlier). But they failed to find out its motion and catalogued it as a fixed star – each time a different one. On the other hand, Herschel realized it was moving, and catalogued it as a comet. That news of a new finding in the sky rapidly spread throughout Europe, and after some months the `Herschel’s comet’ was correctly recognized as a new planet, which will be named Uranus. The present paper assumes the event of the discovery of Uranus and the assessment of its planetary nature as a system of complicated, interrelated processes which involved a number of actors in the 17th-century astronomical community. In this framework, the role of the Dalmatian-born Jesuit scientist Ruggiero G. Boscovich is emphasized and the meaning of this discovery is discussed as an example of his interest in theoretical research more than in observational science.

Click here for this article from NASA ADS.

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