Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology Jed Buchwald, general editor Mordechai Feingold, editor, Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-Box to the Audion Myles Jackson, Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, editors, Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe Alan J. Rocke, Nationalizing Science: Adolphe Wurtz and the Battle for French Chemistry Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters edited by Mordechai Feingold The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. Set in Sabon by The MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jesuit science and the Republic of letters / edited by Mordechai Feingold. p. cm. — (Transformations) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-06234-8 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Religion and science. 2. Jesuits—History. I. Feingold, Mordechai. II. Transformations (MIT Press) BL240.3 .J47 2002 271'.53—dc21 2002066029 Contents Preface vii Jesuits: Savants 1 Mordechai Feingold The Academy of Mathematics of the Collegio Romano from 1553 to 1612 47 Ugo Baldini Galileo’s Jesuit Connections and Their Influence on His Science 99 William A. Wallace The Partial Transformation of Medieval Cosmology by Jesuits in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 127 Edward Grant Descartes and the Jesuits: Doubt, Novelty, and the Eucharist 157 Roger Ariew Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science of His Time 195 Alfredo Dinis Scientific Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum 225 Paula Findlen Pious Ambition: Natural Philosophy and the Jesuit Quest for the Patronage of Printed Books in the Seventeenth Century 285 Martha Baldwin Tradition and Scientific Change in Early Modern Spain: The Role of the Jesuits 331 Víctor Navarro vi Contents Jesuit Science in the Spanish Netherlands 389 G. H. W. Vanpaemel The Storia Letteraria D’Italia and the Rehabilitation of Jesuit Science 433 Brendan Dooley Contributors 475 Index 477 Preface Of the many backhanded compliments the Society of Jesus garnered after its dissolution in 1773, Macaulay’s outshines most in wit, if not in malice. The Jesuits, Macaulay observed, “appear to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation.” And with good reason! While they lacked “no talent or accomplishment into which men can be drilled by elaborate discipline,” Macaulay asserted, “such discipline, though it may bring out the powers of ordinary minds, has a tendency to suffocate, rather than to develop, origi- nal genius.” (History of England to the Death of William III, London, 1967, volume I, pp. 564, 568) Macaulay’s overall perception of the Order and the cultural production of its members was perpetuated by generations of historians, whose interpretative framework has tended to swing between the polemical and the apologetic. Only recently have scholars begun seri- ously to transcend centuries of preconceived belief by granting the Jesuit experience rigorous and disinterested scrutiny. Founded in 1540 as a brotherhood committed to the ideal of itinerant ministry, the Society of Jesus shifted its focus within 20 years as a result of its momentous decision to take on the mission of educating youth. Soon the Society became the greatest of all Catholic teaching orders. It was oper- ating 144 schools by 1580, thrice that number 50 years later, and more than 850 on the eve of its dissolution, with an annual enrollment of hundreds of thousands of pupils (most of them non-paying). Heirs to Renaissance Humanism, the Jesuits proved remarkably successful at modeling their schools on the humanist program—so much so that even their antagonists acknowledged their preeminence in dispensing classical education (John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, Cambridge, Mass., 1993). Nevertheless, histo- rians, insofar as they pay attention to the formative periods of major figures viii Preface of any provenance, have been indifferent to this achievement, not least because of increasing marginalization of the classics. Though humanism was regarded by contemporaries and by historians as the revolutionary “new learning” of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, after 1600 the appellation and its signification were increasingly appropri- ated by proponents of the new philosophies, who argued for their own views in direct counterpoint to ancient learning. The Society of Jesus did not fare well in this new atmosphere. As the “bulwark” of the Counter- Reformation, the Society was officially committed to shunning innovation and to defending Aristotle in philosophy and Saint Thomas in theology; as a result, the will and ability of its members to embrace in public new modes of thought became increasingly problematic. In view of the Society’s official stance, the perception that its members were committed altogether to a ster- ile humanist pedagogy, to Aristotelian philosophy, and to Thomist theology ensured that they would not be considered contributors to subsequent developments. The Jesuits could be dismissed as pedagogues, even as obscu- rantists, who lacked something that has long been deemed central to the emergence of modern science: an explicit and active commitment to novelty and change. Another claim made against the Society was that its members actively persecuted proponents of new scientific ideas. During the early modern period, some found it useful to blame the Jesuits for virtually every proceeding against the new science. Galileo and Descartes did so, as did their disciples, as did their audience, even though the Jesuits were for the most part innocent. Strong anti-Jesuit sentiment nevertheless ensured that these charges stuck and were perpetuated. A consensus emerged that little reason existed for historians to study Jesuit science seriously. During the past two decades, scholars have begun to take a new look at the nature and extent of the Jesuit contribution to the Scientific Revolution, aiming to produce a balanced treatment grounded in documentary evi- dence. To do so requires abjuring both apologetics and an exclusive con- centration on revolutionary scientific figures as the appropriate exemplars against which to measure the Jesuit contribution. Central though they indu- bitably were, figures such as Galileo, Descartes, and Newton did not alone forge the novel ethos and procedures that coalesced during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Many others were involved in these devel- opments, including Jesuits. To show this, historians are now broadening their focus to integrate the corporate and intellectual life of the Order and Preface ix its members into their accounts, and this has resulted in the emergence of a more realistic appraisal of the interaction between Jesuit culture and the new philosophers. The essays in this volume contribute to this effort, pre- senting important evidence that will help us redefine the contours of the Jesuit encounter with the new science. The institutional setting of Jesuit science is central to this reappraisal. Jesuits researched and wrote within their respective colleges, often in con- junction with their teaching. Hence, it is necessary to assess with precision the Jesuit assimilation and dissemination of new ideas both in and outside the classroom. Just such a careful study of Jesuit teachers at the Collegio Romano enables William Wallace to argue for a positive and enduring influ- ence of Jesuit ideas on Galileo. And since a significant proportion of Catholic men of science were educated by Jesuits, the nature and the qual- ity of their education bear directly on their careers. Telling in this respect is a 1618 diary entry in which the Dutch natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman marvels that Descartes, at the age of only 24, is well versed in the works of “many Jesuits and other learned men” (Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Paris, 1964–1974, volume X, p. 52). Philological as well as philosophical erudition was acquired by many others educated by Jesuits who eventually made science their vocation. Jesuit education also had substantial effects on graduates who, though not themselves practi- tioners of the new science, constituted a substantial part of its learned audi- ence, as well as its influential patrons, and could be relied upon to befriend and assist promising younger members of the Order in their efforts to work the new vein. An appreciation of the institutional and structural setting of Jesuit teach- ing also helps us to understand how members of the Order reacted to the new philosophies. As Roger Ariew points out, the Jesuit critique of Descartes was based in part on the implications of his principles for the teaching of philosophy, as well as on the philosophical basis of theology, and not altogether on claims concerning the natural world. That critique involved important pedagogical and methodological concerns with which other Catholics—and Protestants—grappled for decades. Any new theory requires a lengthy process of assimilation, clarification, and modification,