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INTRODUCTION 1. Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy

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INTRODUCTION 1. Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy INTRODUCTION 1. Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy The Renaissance was one of the most innovative periods in Western civi- lization.1 New waves of expression in fijine arts and literature bloomed in Italy and gradually spread all over Europe. A new approach with a strong philological emphasis, called “humanism” by historians, was also intro- duced to scholarship. The intellectual fecundity of the Renaissance was ensured by the intense activity of the humanists who were engaged in collecting, editing, translating and publishing the ancient literary heri- tage, mostly in Greek and Latin, which had hitherto been scarcely read or entirely unknown to the medieval world. The humanists were active not only in deciphering and interpreting these “newly recovered” texts but also in producing original writings inspired by the ideas and themes they found in the ancient sources. Through these activities, Renaissance humanist culture brought about a remarkable moment in Western intel- lectual history. The effforts and legacy of those humanists, however, have not always been appreciated in their own right by historians of philoso- phy and science.2 In particular, the impact of humanism on the evolution of natural philosophy still awaits thorough research by specialists. 1 By “Renaissance,” I refer to the period expanding roughly from the fijifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the humanist movement begun in Italy was difffused in the transalpine countries. 2 Textbooks on the history of science have often minimized the role of Renaissance humanism. See Pamela H. Smith, “Science on the Move: Recent Trends in the History of Early Modern Science,” Renaissance Quarterly 62 (2009), 345–75, esp. 360–61. Major text- books on humanism have accorded limited attention to natural philosophy, science and medicine. See Pamela Long, “Humanism and Science,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foun- dations, Forms and Legacy, ed. Albert Rabil (Philadelphia, 1988), III: 486–512; Anthony Grafton, “The New Science and the Tradition of Humanism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1996), 203–23. For the ambivalent attitude toward humanism in major textbooks on Renaissance philosophy, see Charles B. Schmitt et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge, 1988); Brian P. Copenhaver and Charles B. Schmitt, “Nature Against Authority: Breaking away from the Classics,” in idem, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford, 1992), 285–328; Miguel A. Granada, “New Visions of the Cosmos,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge, 2007), 270–86. A typical narrative adopted by those who choose Giordano Bruno or Bernardino Telesio as key fijigures emphasizes the “denial” of the ancient authorities and the “break away” from them. 2 introduction The fijield of natural philosophy contemplates the entire world, includ- ing not only the structure of the universe and the properties of creatures such as animals, plants and minerals, but also the human being itself and its position within the cosmic order. Its scope also covers such fundamen- tal issues as the nature of God and of the human soul, which the ancients generally treated in the framework of physica or physiologia, i.e., the study of nature. Precisely in this realm of philosophy, Renaissance humanism led to important innovations, sparking lively debates and a flood of writ- ings, as the readers of the present volume will soon discover. The view that the natural philosophy of this period was only a “transitory” form of scientia, eclectic and insufffijiciently creative, vaguely placed between medieval scholastic university teachings based on Aristotle’s libri natu- rales and the early modern science of René Descartes, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, is a misconception. During the two centuries of the Renaissance, the traditional authorities of university teachings and their doctrines were intensely questioned on the basis of the ideas and views introduced from the newly recovered sources. Natural philosophy thus became a huge “laboratory,” where alternative approaches could be launched and tested by humanist philosophers such as Girolamo Cardano and Bernardino Telesio.3 The legacy of their pursuits is clearly felt in early modern philosophy. For example, anyone who has seriously worked on the writings of Pierre Gassendi, one of the most eminent seventeenth- century philosophers and scientists, will be aware of the degree to which he was a direct heir of Renaissance humanist culture. Similar points can be made for fijigures such as Francis Bacon, Marin Mersenne or Thomas Hobbes. It is therefore regrettable to observe that the impact of Renais- sance humanist culture on the evolution of natural philosophy continues 3 In recent decades, specialized works have gradually come to stress the importance of humanism in the history of science and medicine. See Karen M. Reeds, “Renaissance Humanism and Botany,” Annals of Science 33 (1976), 519–42, reprinted in her Botany in Medieval and Renaissance Universities (New York, 1991); Rudolf Schmitz and Fritz Kraffft (eds.), Humanismus und Naturwissenschaften (Boppard, 1980); Anthony Grafton, Defend- ers of the Text: The Tradition of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge MA, 1991); idem, Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer (Cam- bridge MA, 1999); Anthony Grafton and Nancy G. Siraisi (eds.), Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge MA, 1999); Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa (eds.), Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversa- tions with Aristotle (Aldershot, 1999); Jill Kraye and Martin W.F. Stone (eds.), Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy (London, 2000); Eckhard Kessler and Ian Maclean (eds.), Res et verba in der Renaissance (Wiesbaden, 2002). On the humanists’ sensitivity toward histo- ricity, see Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi (eds.), Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge MA, 2005)..
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