Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus

Chapter 9 Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus

Hiro Hirai

9.1 Introduction

A pregnant woman encounters a wolf in the woods. She is so scared that her strong emotion of fear imprints the wolf’s morphological traces on the fetus in her womb. Another pregnant woman craves strawberries or cherries so intensely that she leaves certain marks or impressions of these fruits on the fetus. The belief that the power of maternal emotions such as desire and fear can imprint certain marks, signs or signatures on the fetus was widespread in the early modern period. This belief was adopted by Renaissance philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525), who intimately connected it to the traditional theory of imagination or phantasia.1 Moreover, folkloric tales about the mysterious and extraordinary psychic powers exerted by special groups of women, who were often labeled as witches and healers, might have reinforced this belief, contributing to the propagation of the idea that their forces could exceed the order of nature. Recent studies have shed new light on the historical and intellectual background of the issue, although its complete history has yet to be written.2 In this article I will focus on the intervention of early modern learned medicine in the theorization of

The ﬁrst version of this article was presented in the seminar organized by Concetta Pennuto at the Centre d’e´tudes supe´rieures de la Renaissance (Tours). My warmest thanks go to Clare Hirai for her assistance in its preparation. 1See the excellent article by O’Brien 1993, 3–19. On the notion of imagination, see also Bundy 1927; Fattori and Bianchi 1988; and Cocking 1991. 2On this belief, see Angelini 1994, 53–69; Pancino 1996; eadem. 1997, 154–162; and Pennuto 2008, 368–379. H. Hirai (*) Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] 212 H. Hirai this belief. To this end I will address the case of Thomas Feyens or Fienus (1567–1631) of Antwerp, who wrote a monograph devoted to the power of imagination in the embryological framework.3 Fienus was a professor of medicine at the University of Louvain from the end of the sixteenth century until his death and published a series of embryological works. Among these works there is a treatise, entitled On the Forces of the Imagination (Louvain, 1608).4 This was dedicated to Ernest of Bavaria (1554–1612), Count Palatine, Archbishop of Cologne and Prince-Bishop of Liege, now known as an active prince-practitioner and fervent patron of new sciences and arts, including Paracelsian medicine and alchemy.5 Fienus’s work on the powers of imagination consists of one book divided into twenty-four questions. Fifty-six conclusions, or theses, are disseminated among these twenty-four questions. His main authorities are Aristotle, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. He also uses a wide range of ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers and physicians, including Galen, Avicenna, Ficino and Pomponazzi. As a preliminary study of this treatise, I will respect the sequence of its discussion around three major themes: (1) the relationship between soul and body; (2) the notion of imagination; and (3) the working of the mother’s imagination in fetal formation.

9.2 The Soul and the Body

Fienus begins his discussion with the question as to whether the soul acts on the body (Q1).6 According to him, the soul separated from the body is an agent quod,thatis, the true and whole agent of its action (C1). However, this type of soul is not a subject of his inquiry. Then Fienus deﬁnes the soul united with the body as an agent quo,a “principle” (principium) or “reason-principle of acting” (ratio agendi) (C2). It is thanks to the soul that the animated body exerts forces on corporeal substances (C3). Next Fienus asks which kind of bodies the soul can act on and in what way (Q2).7 To answer these questions, he divides bodies into two groups: “proper” (proprium) and “foreign” (alienum). The proper body is a subject of the soul and is informed by the soul. This category includes all essential parts of the body, such as the heart, the brain and the hand, which are animated by the soul and in which the soul extends “formally” ( formaliter) or in the way of a form. By contrast foreign bodies are not

3On Fienus, see Sondervorst 1958, 1–7; Rather 1967, 340–367; Papy 1999, 317–337; and Hirai 2011, 160–161. 4I have used the following edition: Fienus, Thomas 1608. De viribus imaginationis tractatus. Louvain: Gerardus Rivius. Its quaestiones and conclusiones are hereafter indicated respectively as Q and C with numbering. 5On Ernest of Bavaria, see Halleux and Berne`s 1995, 3–29; and Xhayet and Halleux 2011. 6Fienus, Q1, 1–4. 7Ibid., Q2, 4–31.

[email protected] 9 Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus 213 animated nor informed by the same soul of the proper body. The fetus and the body of another person placed near the proper body fall into this category. Fienus further distinguishes foreign bodies into two kinds: “internal” (internum) and “external” (externum). Internal foreign bodies are the things residing inside the animated body such as blood, humors, spirits, seeds and the fetus, while external foreign bodies are all corporeal entities placed near the proper body. On the basis of this classification, Fienus argues that the soul has the power of locomotion in the proper body (C4). The animated body is thus directly moved by the soul as its principle of motion. Fienus then addresses the power of change by stating that the soul cannot directly alter the proper body (C5). For him it is only “accidentally” (per accidens) that the soul can produce changes in the proper body. As for internal foreign bodies, Fienus argues that the soul cannot directly change their form (C6). But he accepts the idea that the soul can change them by producing some effects inside them “vitally” (vitaliter) and “efficiently” (effective) through the temperament of bodily parts and native heat (C7). To explain the issue further, Fienus adds that the soul can change internal foreign bodies such as humors and spirits by the power of concoction (C8). For him the soul can also move these bodies without “informing” them (C9). Indeed he thinks that the soul can directly move humors and spirits as its corporeal instruments or assistants (C10). To elucidate the relation between the soul and these corporeal instruments, Fienus affirms under the authority of Thomas Aquinas, the Coimbra Jesuits and Francisco Valle´s (1524–1592) that the soul can “spiritually” (spiritaliter) move humors and spirits in the animated body (C11).8 Turning to external foreign bodies, Fienus wonders if the soul can also move them. He finds an impressive series of authors, mostly of a Platonic tendency, such as Avicenna, Algazali, Albertus Magnus, Ficino, Pomponazzi and Paracelsus (1493/ 94–1541), who all ascribed an extraordinary power to the soul and especially to its faculty called “imagination” (imaginatio), able to act even at a long distance. However, relying on Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Sua´rez (1548–1617), the Coimbra Jesuits and Valle´s, Fienus clearly rejects this position. For him the soul cannot directly move external foreign bodies or bodies placed at a distance (C12).9 Like locomotion he also denies that the soul can alter or produce these bodies at a distance (C13). Note that here the notions of sympathy and occult properties, celebrated by Renaissance natural philosophers and physicians such as Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553) and Jean Fernel (1497–1558), are totally out of consideration.10 Next Fienus asks through which type of powers the soul causes movements and actions in both the proper body and internal foreign bodies (Q3).11 He first argues that the soul cannot directly act upon these bodies but only through “superimposed”

8On Valle´s, see Solana 1941, 297–347; Zanier 1983, 20–38; Pinero~ et al. 1988; and Martin 2002, 1–30. 9On Sua´rez, see especially Hill and Lagerlund 2012. 10On these notions, see Hirai 2011, 50–51, 73–75 and 104. 11Fienus, Q3, 32–39.

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(super-additae) powers as its instruments (C14). Among these instrumental powers (C15) Fienus enumerates two: (1) a power called “animal” (animalis) by physicians and “motive” (motiva), “voluntary” (voluntaria) or “progressive” (progressiva)by philosophers; and (2) a power called “natural” (naturalia) or “involuntary” (involuntaria). According to Fienus, animal power resides in the brain and is com- municated to the whole body through nerves. This power follows sense and desire and obeys the will. By contrast natural power, residing everywhere in the body, cannot follow sense and desire like animal power, but only assumes a certain natural inclination. On the basis of this classiﬁcation, Fienus explains that the soul moves the proper body, ﬁrstly on its own, secondly through animal power and lastly through natural power (C16). He adds that the soul can also move internal foreign bodies such as humors and spirits though natural power, while the soul’s animal power is responsible for their movements only accidentally (C17). As for external foreign bodies, Fienus clearly rejects, once again, the idea that the soul can locally move them or alter them (C18). There is no room for action at a distance for the soul’sanimaland natural powers.

9.3 Imagination or Phantasia

After animal and natural powers, Fienus turns to the soul’s higher cognitive and intellectual powers. Here his discourse revolves around “imaginative” (imaginativa) power (Q4).12 Thus he proceeds to the main subject of his treatise: the question as to whether the imagination or phantasia can act upon bodies. Fienus ﬁrst establishes a long list of authorities, who gave an afﬁrmative answer to the issue. Disagreeing with them, he asserts his own view that the soul cannot act upon the body through imaginative power (C20). For him the soul’s cognitive powers, derived from cognitive “species” (species), are merely passive and cannot produce the movements or changes of bodies even though these powers vitally bring forth higher functions such as judgment and cognition.13 Fienus goes further into his inquiry. For him if the imagination can act upon bodies and produce extraordinary effects as is widely believed, it must execute them through a certain movement, either locomotion, change, growth or generation. If the imagination changes bodies, it must alter them “essentially” (essentialiter). To verify these points, he concentrates on the problems of locomotion and alteration.

12Ibid., 39–49. The most important study on the medieval and Renaissance belief in the imagination’s extraordianry powers is Zambelli 1996, 53–75. 13On the notion of species in the Aristotelian tradition, see especially Spruit 1994–1995. Cf. Lindberg 1976.

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First Fienus wonders if the imagination can locally move bodies (Q5).14 His answer is that this power cannot locally move the proper body (C21) since it is not a cause of natural motion. Internal foreign bodies such as humors and spirits cannot be locally moved by the imagination itself either (C22). However, Fienus expresses a reservation by conceding that this power can cause the movements of humors and spirits “in a certain way” (in aliquo modo). According to him, since humors and spirits are directly moved by the soul’s natural and vegetative powers, the imagination cannot move them directly but “accidentally.” So he suggests that this power can only “direct” (dirigere) the movements of humors and spirits in a certain way although it cannot be the efficient cause of these movements (C23). After locomotion comes alteration (Q6).15 Although he observes Aristotle, Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas holding the idea that bodies can be altered by the imagination, Fienus argues that this power cannot change them formally or by way of a form (C24). In his opinion the imagination can cause alteration in bodies only accidentally and indirectly, that is, through intermediate factors such as “emotions” (passiones animi) and the movements of humors and spirits. So Fienus wonders whether the imagination itself has no force of acting at all (Q8).16 His answer is that the imagination can “only accidentally” cause diverse effects, perturbations and alterations in bodies (C27). Indeed these changes are produced by locomotion or alteration, which are not directly caused by the imagination. This leads Fienus to suggest that this power can only influence the soul’s other powers, which are capable of moving and changing (C28). He concludes that the imagination can accidentally produce changes in bodies through the soul’s lower animal and natural powers (C30). Fienus’s use of the term “accidentally” tends to signify “indirectly.” Thus the key to understanding his reasoning is the intermediate factors bridging bodies and the imagination. As a simple cognitive power the imagination can only “indirectly” act upon bodies. What are these intermediate factors? Fienus suggests that the imagination can act upon bodies through desire or emotions (C31). This is not self-evident. Indeed here he is relying on the authority of Thomas Aquinas, Sua´rez and the Coimbra Jesuits, who regarded emotions as the alterative causes of the body. This is supplemented by another thesis that the imagination can change bodies by the movement of humors and spirits (C32). By combing these theses, Fienus tries to confirm the significance of intermediate factors. According to him, although the imagination itself cannot change bodies through desire or emotion, it can indirectly alter them as follows: desire moves and stimulates the natural powers of organs, especially those residing in the heart, which in their turn move humors and spirits. That is not all. Fienus adds a third thesis, which makes his discussion more interesting in terms of embryology. First he just suggests that the imagination can change bodies not only through desire and the motive powers of the heart but also

14Fienus, Q5, 49–60. 15Ibid., Q6, 60–78. 16Ibid., Q8, 83–85.

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“in another way” (C33). He avows that by this thesis he is disagreeing with Thomas Aquinas, who acknowledges only desire, emotions and cardiac movements. It is exactly here that Fienus refers to the tales of extraordinary changes provoked in the fetus by the mother’s imagination. To explain these phenomena, he introduces his theory of “conformative power” (conformatrix potentia). This is an adaptation of Galen’s idea of “formative power” (dunamis diaplastike´).17 In its Latin form virtus formativa or informativa, it had been extensively discussed in the tradition of medieval medicine thanks to Arabic authors such as Avicenna and Averroes and their Latin followers such as Albertus Magnus and Pietro d’Abano (1257–ca. 1315). In the Renaissance this notion experienced a fresh rebirth in the intense debates of leading medical humanists such as Nicolo` Leoniceno (1428–1524) of Ferrara and Jacob Schegk (1511–1587) of Tübingen.18 Fienus introduces his theory so as to establish that the imagination can change bodies by directing and moving conformative power (C34). As a synthesis of this line of development, he concludes that the imagination can change the proper body by means of emotions only with the intervention of conformative power (C35). For him the imagination can “direct” the action of conformative power, but when the latter is extinguished or ceases to operate in the body, the imagination alone can no longer alter the body. As for external foreign bodies (Q12), Fienus denies that the imagination can directly act upon them or change them at a distance (C39).

9.4 Maternal Desire and Imagination in Embryology: Imagination and Signs

As has been shown, in Fienus’s view, the imagination cannot directly act upon bodies. How about alterations occurring in internal foreign bodies, especially the fetus residing in the mother’s womb? From here on, Fienus’s discussion revolves around the imagination’s impact on the fetus. He ﬁrst asks how and why this power can imprint changes, also called “marks” (notae) and “signatures” (signaturae)or signs, on the fetus (Q14).19 According to him, this question greatly attracted the attention of many people, and leading physicians and natural philosophers acknowledged the imagination’s impact on the fetus. Galen, for example, argued in his On Theriac to Piso that species conceived by the imagination are transferred to the fetus by means of blood and spirits.20 To reinforce this testimony, Fienus

17For Galen I have used Galeni opera omnia, ed. Karl G. Kühn (Leipzig, 1821–1833; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1965). On the notion of “molding faculty,” see Galen, De semine, 2.2, 2.5 ¼ ed. Kühn, Opera, IV: 611, 642; De temperamentis, 2.6 ¼ ed. Kühn, Opera, I: 635–636; De naturalibus facultatibus, 1.6, 2.3, 2.6 ¼ ed. Kühn, Opera, II: 15, 86, 101. 18I have fully examined these debates in Hirai 2011, especially in Ch. 1, 3 and 6. 19Fienus, Q14, 122–149. 20Galen, On Theriac to Piso,11¼ ed. Kühn, Opera, XIV: 253–254.

[email protected] 9 Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus 217 quotes Pliny the elder who reported that species can produce a real entity similar to that conceived in the mind by the imagination.21 Then he turns to Avicenna who taught in On Animals that the imagination imprints species on spirits in the brain, which are mingled with the blood that feeds the fetus.22 As such the species conceived by the imagination are transferred to the fetus through spirits and blood. A more important witness is Augustine, reported by Valle´s in his De sacra philosophia (1587). Commenting on a passage from Genesis, according to which Jacob transformed the colors of lambs, Augustine argued in City of God that these animals spiritually received the species which later appeared corporeally in their fetus.23 As for Renaissance authors, Fienus quotes, among others, Ficino’s Platonic Theology, in which the imagination is said to imprint signs on the fetus through the vibration of spirits transmitted through nerves.24 Unlike these authorities, Fienus tries to defend the idea that the mother’s imagination cannot directly change the fetus (C41). For him it is obvious from the preceding discussions. If the imagination can directly act upon internal foreign bodies, it must act by moving humors and their parts spatially, which has been rejected. The imagination, regarded as the instrument of the soul, cannot act upon bodies in this way. Fienus adds that the imagination is neither active nor can formally change internal foreign bodies. Since it cannot locally move the humors and spirits of the mother, this power cannot move those of the fetus either. Since the humors of the fetus are moved by the soul of the fetus, that of the mother is not responsible for their movement. According to Fienus, the imagination is a cognitive power and is merely passive. If its naked and pure “actuality” (actus) or energy were the efficient cause of changes in the fetus, every strong imagination caused by the mother would always produce these changes and imprint marks on the fetus. But this does not happen and is therefore false. Then Fienus returns to his theory of conformative power. For him this power is the direct efficient cause of the fetus and of all its properties such as colors, figures, quantity, number and position. That is why this power must also be the direct cause of marks imprinted on the fetus. Thus there is no direct role to play for the imagination because more than one cause per action is superfluous. Fienus provides another set of reasoning. First if the imagination directly forms the fetus, it must reside in the seed or fetus as the agent of this action, whereas the imagination is not intrinsic either to the seed or to the fetus. Thus it is not the principle of fetal formation. Second, if the imagination produced in the brain forms the fetus in the uterus, this power must act at a distance without any intermediary. This is not possible. Third, if the imagination changes color in the fetus according to the color imagined by the mother, it must be the efficient cause of this color. But as

21Pliny, Natural History, 7.12. 22Although Fienus cites Avicenna, On Animals, 5.1, I have been unable to identify his quotation. 23See Valle´s 1587, 1.11, 125–133. Cf. Genesis, 30.41; Augustine, The City of God, 12.26 and 18.5. See also Augustine, Against Julian, 5.14. 24Ficino 1482, 13.1 ¼ Ficino 2001–2006, IV: 111–113. Cf. O’Brian 1993, 8–9.

[email protected] 218 H. Hirai the imagination does not act at a distance, it must produce the same color everywhere between the mother’s brain and the fetus in her womb. Fourth, if the mother’s imagination produces certain effects through the movements of the fetus’s humors and spirits, it must also move all the intermediate humors in the mother’s body, which stretch from the brain to the fetus. But this does not happen. After these discussions, Fienus addresses a special kind of species, called “phantastic species” (species phantastica), which has traditionally been held as an intermediary for the imagination. According to him, even this special species cannot produce changes in the fetus because it does not cause a real change of quality (C42). Here Fienus recognizes that he is disagreeing with the authorities mentioned above, especially Augustine. But if this species causes a real quality change, which directly affects matter, every species strongly conceived in the mother’s mind by her imagination must always change the fetus. Although many mothers during pregnancy intensely imagine various things, they do not always imprint particular signs on their fetus. Fienus explains that emotions and the movement of humors and spirits, mentioned by Thomas Aquinas, can produce certain changes not in the fetus but around the fetus (C43). As the fetus is tied to the mother’s body, its humors and spirits are linked to those of the mother and are derived from her. When the mother’s humors and spirits are agitated, those of the fetus must also be affected. But Fienus thinks that these alterations are rather deformities, not the particular signs determined after the similarity of things imagined by the mother. For him the production of particular signs cannot be ascribed directly to emotions and the movements of spirits and humors.

9.4.1 Conformative Power

Following his usual modus operandi, Fienus suggests that signs similar to the things imagined by the mother are produced “in another way” (C44). As he knows that this disagrees with the view of Thomas Aquinas, he concedes that emotions “concur” in the production of signs. But experience teaches him that it happens rarely. Thus he argues that emotions concur only as a remote cause, while the direct cause of the production of signs in the fetus must be sought elsewhere. According to Fienus, the immediate effect of emotions is the movement of humors and spirits. Transmitted to blood, this movement produces the irregular movements of blood, which cannot establish particular marks well determined in color, ﬁgure, position or size. Thus another direct factor is required. This reasoning leads Fienus to hold that determined particular marks cannot be established without the determined action of conformative power. Since emotions and desire cannot directly affect this power, he wonders through which intermediary they can inﬂuence it. Not through species because, according to him, desire does not have species as it is not a cognitive power. Not through emotions because one cause cannot determine various effects as diverse signs follow a single emotion of

[email protected] 9 Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus 219 terror. Not through the movement of humors and spirits because their movement is not determined but irregular. Since the production of particular signs cannot be ascribed to emotions alone or to the disordered movements of humors and spirits, Fienus concludes that they are produced by conformative power. How? According to him, this power tunes bodies in a determined way to the “directive” (dictamen) and “direction” (regula) given by the imagination. The mother’s imagination imprints particular marks on the fetus by directing conformative power because the latter as the direct efficient cause is responsible for all kinds of deformities, marks and errors in fetal formation (C45). Indeed it is the cause of everything, either good or bad, that happens in this process. The mother’s imagination can only corrupt this power’s functions. Fienus argues: Indeed the imagination sometimes deviates conformative [power] from a right conforma- tion that it should establish according to the species and nature of the seed in which [this power] resides. It determines [this power] to conform something according to the similarity to itself or to that which is imagined.25 Fienus argues that since conformative power produces particular signs in a determined way, it can rightly be taken as their direct efficient cause. That is why the products of this power are considerably different from those produced by emotions. Although the mother’s imagination is widely believed to be able to imprint particular signs on the fetus, Fienus does not accept it as the direct cause of these signs. According to him, when conformative power is modified from its normal state, it produces particular signs. Fienus ascribes the cause of this modification to the imagination because these signs follow it. He adds that the imagination cannot alter conformative power if it does not act as its director. Thus the imagination is defined as the director of conformative power. Fienus provides another line of reasoning. If particular signs are not produced in the fetus by the action of conformative power but by emotions and the movement of humors and spirits, these signs can also be made in the mother’s body. But no trace of such signs is found in her. According to Fienus, although conformative power is actually operating in the fetus, it has already ceased to work in the mother’s body. That is why the imagination, which alters and directs this power, produces no sign there. So Fienus argues: What else can be a reason why these [signs] are produced in the fetus or in a growing person and not in adults or persons already grown up, if it is not that conformative power?26 The idea that the formative agent ceases to act and disappears upon the achievement of its work can be traced back to Aristotle’s argument in his Generation of Animals,

25Fienus, Q14, 142: “Verum phantasia aliquando seducit conformatricem a recta conformatione, quam secundum speciem et naturam seminis, in quo est, facere deberet: et determinat ad aliquid conformandum secundum similitudinem sui, seu eius quod est imaginatum.” 26Ibid., Q14, 143: “Quae enim posset esse alia causa, cur illae in foetu seu homine ﬁente ﬁerent, in adultis et iam factis non; si non esset ipsa conformatrix?”

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9.4.2 Imagination as the Director of Conformative Power

Fienus maintains that conformative power, which forms the fetus, can be directed and altered by the mother’s imagination in the production of particular signs. How, precisely, does it happen? This is the question that he addresses next (Q15).28 His answer is immediately delivered: “the imagination can direct conformative power through species ‘in the way of a model’ (exemplariter)” (C46). Indeed he builds this answer on the basis of the idea found in Avicenna’s Canon, which explains the cause of resemblance between parents and offspring as follows: Not so distanced from a likely judgment, some of the sages said that among the causes of resemblance there is one that is exemplified from a human form [conceived] in the mind of a woman or a man by a strong exemplification at the moment of conception.29 A commentary by the fourteenth-century physician Mondino de’ Liuzzi (ca. 1270–1326) is useful to elucidate this obscure passage. According to Mondino, “what is exemplified” (quod exemplificatur), that is, “imprinted” (imprimatur)or “affixed” ( figitur), “comes from a human form” (est illud ex forma humana) conceived “in the mind of a women or a man at the moment of conception” (in mente mulieris aut viri cum est dispositio conceptionis).30 By interpreting the term “exemplification” (exemplificatio) as “impression” (impressio), Mondino continues by arguing that when a certain image is produced through the imagination, spirits and heat are moved to imprint the imagined thing on the fetus. Referring to the same passage of Avicenna’s Canon, his elder contemporary Pietro d’Abano also connected the notion of “exemplification” to the imagination.31 According to Fienus, Avicenna hinted by the term “exemplification” that the species of things imagined by the parents causes the resemblance of offspring. He deduces that the imagination directs conformative power by way of a “model”

27See Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 2.3, 737a13–16. Cf. Hirai 2011, 98. 28Fienus, Q15, 144–154. 29Avicenna, Canon, 3.21.1.2 (Venice: Giunta, 1555), 381GH: “Et dixerunt quidam sapientum, et non sunt elongati a iudicio possibilitatis, quod de causis assimilationis est illud quod exemplificatur, cum est dispositio conceptionis in mente mulieris aut viri ex forma humana exemplificatione firma.” A French translation from Arabic of this passage, in de Koning 1903, 768, reads as follows: “Quelques-uns des savants disent—et qu’il n’est pas invraisemblable que cela soit possible—qu’une des causes de la ressemblance est une forme humaine que l’homme ou la femme a dans l’imagination d’une manie`re vive au moment de la conception.” See also Weisser 1983, 316. 30de’ Liuzzi 1993, 135. On Mondino and his embryology, see also Vico 2002, 111–121. 31See d’Abano, Conciliator, diff. 37 (Venice: Giunta, 1565), f. 56Hb.

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(exemplar). For him this is the real meaning of Avicenna’s theory of exemplification. The image of a signet ring might help illustrate the underlying idea. In any event, referring to Augustine’s On the Trinity, Fienus interprets somewhat forcefully that Augustine meant by the term “ruler” (regula) not “to make a line” or “to establish the lineament of the fetus” but “to direct” or “rule.”32 So the next problem is as to what this “direction” is and how it works. To resolve these issues, Fienus enumerates three ways of direction: (1) through the imagination’s “command” (imperium) over conformative power; (2) through a singular “sympathy” (sympathia) with conformative power; and (3) through the communication of species. According to him, by the term “command” he means something like a “political command” (imperium politicum). Then, by the communication of species, he means that species perceived by the imagination are imprinted on the mother’s spirits and blood and, by a certain continuity, on the fetus’s spirits and blood. By way of a model these species arrange and direct conformative power to modify the fetus in accordance with the “exemplification” and determination of these species. After this explanation, Fienus rejects the first option under the authority of Thomas Aquinas, Petrus Fonseca (1528–1599) and the Coimbra Jesuits. In their interpretation of Aristotle’s On the Soul, although the “will” (voluntas) commands the soul’s other rational powers, it has no command over the vegetative or natural powers. Note that Fienus clearly regards conformative power as a kind of vegetative power. Next he denies the option of sympathy. There remains only the third option: the communication of species. Here Fienus says: one might object that only cognitive power can act according to a model, whereas conformative power, regarded as a kind of vegetative power, is not cognitive and cannot act after a model. To this objection, Fienus answers by dividing cognition into two kinds: (1) true cognition; and (2) natural cognition or “impulse” (instinctus). According to him, vegetative powers, including conformative power, act in the second way, just as plants find their nourishment in the earth. That which acts by a model need not capture something through “true cognition.” Fienus concludes that conformative power recognizes a model by its instinctus. However, he does not forget to express a reservation by arguing that the instinctus of conformative power must be ascribed to “divinity” (divinitas) because this power performs the extraordinary effect that cannot be executed by other vegetative powers: to recognize the representation of phantastic species in a certain way. Fienus further explains that conformative power need not receive phantastic species within itself. These species must be contained in blood or spirits placed

32Augustine, On the Trinity, 3.8.15: “[...] some kind of color should be brought from the variety of the rods to the cattle that were conceived, came to pass in this way: the soul of the pregnant cattle was affected through its eyes from without, but inwardly it drew within itself, according to its own measure, the rule of formation” ([...] ut autem de varietate virgarum pecorum conceptorum color aliquid duceret, fecit hoc anima grauidae pecudis per oculos affecta forinsecus et interius pro suo modulo formandi regulam trahens). Cf. Fienus, Q15, 144.

[email protected] 222 H. Hirai close to this power so that these species as models direct this power. Models need not reside within the “imitator” (imitans) but it is enough to stay close. Moreover, these species need not permanently exist but their presence at the initial stage of fetal formation is sufficient. Next Fienus asks what type of imagination is more efficient in imprinting signs on the fetus (Q16).33 His answer is that the imagination “with assent” (cum assensu), followed by emotions, can produce signs more easily (C49). For Fienus although a simple imagination or intuition, without assent or “inclination” (inclinatio), can imprint signs on the fetus, it is more efficient if it is accompanied by strong emotions or with “reflection” (reflexio). That is why, argues Fienus, human beings can produce more signs than animals. To explain how mental activity is associated with the production of signs, Fienus states that emotions concur in various ways: first by troubling and corrupting conformative power, second by reinforcing phantastic species, and third and mostly by connecting these species to conformative power (C50). For Fienus emotions concur in the production of signs as both the auxiliary cause and the necessary cause. In the former case they reinforce the power of phantastic species. In the latter case they “connect” (applicare) these species with conformative power. How does this connection take place? Indeed there is a long distance between phantastic species conceived in the mother’s brain and conformative power working in her womb. Here, rejecting Ficino’s idea that the vibration of spirits through nerves bridges the mother and the fetus, Fienus says: That is why I argue that species are sent to remote parts by the act of desire and emotions linked to the imagination. When a sign is produced because of the imagination conceived at the time of intercourse, species are directly sent through nerves into testicles and are immediately imprinted on the seed. When this [seed] is received in the womb, it brings these species with itself and retains them for a certain period. When conformative power starts to fashion the [fetus], this power conforms it to the similitude of these species.34 As this quotation suggests, it is not only the mother’s imagination that imprints signs on the fetus but also the father’s because conformative power first resides in the seed coming from him. Thus in a later question (Q19) Fienus affirms that not only the mother’s but also the father’s imagination produce signs (C52).35 To justify this thesis, he calls upon the authority of Bible in Genesis, according to which Jacob transformed the colors of lambs, then Aristotle, Pliny and Avicenna.36

33Ibid., Q16, 154–164. 34Ibid., Q16, 161: “Quapropter dico, propter actum appetitus et animi passiones, quae phantasia coniunguntur, species in remotas partes irradiare. Quando signatura ﬁt propter imaginationem habitam in hora coitus, species irradiant recta per neruos in testes, et semini immediate imprimuntur: quod semen cum in uterum recipitur, secum defert species illas, et aliquanto tempore retinet, et cum formatrix incipit illud efformare, format ad similitudinem erarum.” 35Ibid., Q19, 172–173. 36For Bible, Pliny and Avicenna, see respective notes above. See also Aristotle, Problems, 10.10, 891b33–37: “Is it because man’s mental condition is more varied at the moment of sexual intercourse, and so the offspring varies according to the condition of male and female parents?”

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After all this development, Fienus concludes that both the mother’s and the father’s imagination can imprint signs on the fetus at the conception. As he recognizes that the mother is always mentioned but the father almost never, he tries to provide reasons: (1) the production of signs at the conception is rarer than during pregnancy, while the father can produce signs only at the conception; (2) the mother’s imagination is stronger than the father’s since women are observed to be more easily scared and more heavily frightened; (3) and lastly the imagination provoked during intercourse can last longer in women than in men. Thus by acknowledging the father’s role, though much weaker and less prominent than the mother’s, Fienus tries to redress the exclusive right traditionally assigned to women. In this sense his theory might have contributed to the demystiﬁcation of female psychic power in embryology.

9.5 Conclusion

Thus far I have outlined the main arguments of Fienus in his theorization of a widespread belief, according which pregnant women’s strong emotions of desire or fear and imagination could imprint particular morphological traces on the fetus in their womb. Although Fienus stressed the importance of experience, he rather relied on a wide range of sources provided by ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers and physicians. For the aspects related to psychology, he was heavily dependent on the Latin commentary tradition of Aristotle’s works, perpetuated by a series of authors from Thomas Aquinas, via Sua´rez to the Coimbra Jesuits. Fienus modiﬁed their theories by adopting the ideas of physicians such as Valle´s. It is also noteworthy that he was particularly attracted by the teachings of Avicenna at crucial points in the construction of his system. By contrast Fienus discarded a set of recent authors, whose ideas were of a Platonic orientation, such as Ficino, Fracastoro, Fernel and Paracelsus. Fienus tried to reinterpret the widespread belief in the power of imagination and maternal desire in the framework of the learned medicine of his time. In this endeavor his appeal to the notion of formative power is particularly noteworthy because his immediate forerunners among physicians and natural philosophers with a medical background such as Leoniceno and Schegk carried out intense debates on this notion throughout the sixteenth century. Fienus was a direct heir to this tradition, which was developed at the heart of medical humanism. His embryological theory of imagination might appear odd to the eyes of modern readers but can be understood in this historical and intellectual context.

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Bibliography

Angelini, Massimo. 1994. Il potere plastico dell’immaginazione nelle gestanti tra XVI e XVIII secolo: la fortuna di un’idea. Intersezioni 14: 53–69. Avicenna. 1555. Canon. Venice: Giunta. Bundy, Murray Wright. 1927. The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Cocking, John Martin. 1991. Imagination: A Study in the History of Ideas. London: Routledge. d’Abano, Pietro. 1565. Conciliator. Venice: Giunta. de’ Liuzzi, Mondino, 1993. Expositio super capitulum de generatione embrionis Canonis Avicennae cum quibusdam quaestionibus, ed. Romana Martorelli Vico. Rome: Istituto Palazzo Borromini. de Koning, Pieter. 1903. Trois Traite´s d’anatomie arabes. Leiden: Brill. Fattori, Marta, and Massimo L. Bianchi, eds. 1988. Phantasia-imaginatio. Rome: Ateneo. Ficino, Marsilio. 2001–2006. Platonic Theology, eds. and trans. Michael J.B. Allen and James Hankins, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fienus, Thomas. 1608. De viribus imaginationis tractatus. Louvain: Gerardus Rivius. Galen. 1821–1833. Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. Karl G. Kühn, 20 vols. Leipzig; repr. Hildesheim: Olms. Halleux, Robert, and Anne-Catherine Berne`s. 1995. La cour savante d’Ernest de Bavie`re. Archives internationals d’histoire des sciences 45: 3–29. Hill, Benjamin, and Henrik Lagerlund, eds. 2012. The Philosophy of Francisco Suarez . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hirai, Hiro. 2011. Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy: Renaissance Debates on Matter, Life and the Soul. Leiden: Brill. Lindberg, David C. 1976. Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Martin, Craig. 2002. Francisco Valle´s and the Renaissance Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Meteorologica IV as a Medical Text. Early Science and Medicine 7: 1–30. O’Brien, John. 1993. Reasoning with the Senses: The Humanist Imagination. South Central Review 10: 3–19. Pancino, Claudia. 1996. Voglie materne: storia di una credenza. Bologna: CLUEB. ———. 1997. La croyance aux envies maternelles entre culture savante et culture populaire. Ethnologie française 27: 154–162. Papy, Jan. 1999. The Attitude towards Aristotelian Biological Thought in the Louvain Medical Treatises during the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century: The Case of Embryology. In Aristotle’s Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Carlos Steel et al., 317–337. Louvain: Leuven University Press. Pennuto, Concetta. 2008. Simpatia, fantasia e contagio: il pensiero medico e il pensiero filosofico di Girolamo Fracastoro. Rome: Storia e letteratura. Pinero,~ Lopez, Jose´ Marıá, and Francisco Calero. 1988. Las Controversias (1556) de Francisco Valles y la medicina renacentista. Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones scientificas. Rather, Lelland J. 1967. Thomas Fienus’ (1567–1631) Dialectical Investigation of the Imagination as Cause and Cure of Bodily Disease. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 41: 340–367. Solana, Marcial. 1941. Historia de la filosofía espanola:~ e´poca del Renacimiento (Siglo XVI). Madrid: Real Academia de ciencias exactas. Sondervorst, François-Andre´. 1958. Vie et ouvrages des Feyens d’Anvers. Yperman: Bulletin de la socie´te´ belge d’histoire de la me´decine 5: 1–7. Spruit, Leen. 1994–1995. Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, 2 vols. Leiden: Brill. Valle´s, Francisco. 1587. De iis, qui scripta sunt physice in libris sacris, sive de sacra philosphia. Turin: Heirs of Nicolas Beuilque.

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[email protected] Gideon Manning • Cynthia Klestinec Editors

Professors, Physicians and Practices in the History of Medicine Essays in Honor of Nancy Siraisi

[email protected] Editors Gideon Manning Cynthia Klestinec Claremont Graduate University Miami University Claremont, California Oxford, Ohio USA USA

ISSN 1385-0180 ISSN 2215-0064 (electronic) Archimedes ISBN 978-3-319-56513-2 ISBN 978-3-319-56514-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56514-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939877

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

[email protected] Acknowledgments

It was with admiration and goodwill toward Professor Nancy Siraisi that we (the editors) began to conceive this Festschrift. It was, however, the energy and dedication of the contributors, as well as Jed Buchwald, the general editor of the Archimedes series from Springer, that made this Festschrift possible. We wish to thank Jed and the contributors for their encouragement and patience. Manning also would like to acknowledge the sage advice of Noel Swerdlow and Mordechai Feingold throughout the production process; Steve Hindle and his staff at the Huntington Library, especially Juan Gomez, for creating an environment so conducive to work and research during the ﬁnal preparations; and, most of all, the unwavering support of Melissa Pastrana, without whom Manning’s role in this volume would never have been realized.

September 2016 Cynthia Klestinec Gideon Manning

[email protected] Contents

Part I Medicine, Commentaries and the Medieval Classroom 1 Medicine in Some Thirteenth-Century Biblical Commentaries, with a Flashback on Augustine’s De genesi ad litteram ...... 3 Danielle Jacquart 2 In a Montpellier Classroom ...... 29 Michael McVaugh

Part II Medicine, Writing History and the Republic of Letters 3 Medicine as Queen: The Consilia of Bartolomeo da Montagnana ...... 51 Chiara Crisciani 4 John Caius, Historian ...... 69 Vivian Nutton 5 A Medical Man Among Ecclesiastical Historians: John Caius, Matthew Parker and the History of Cambridge University ...... 85 Anthony Grafton 6 A Medical Collection Anatomized: The Catalogus bibliothecae Hieremiae Martii (1572) ...... 101 Ian Maclean

Part III Medicine, Collections and Their Illustrations 7 The Death of a Naturalist: Knowledge and Community in Late Renaissance Italy ...... 127 Paula Findlen 8 The Dedication Strategies of Conrad Gessner ...... 169 Ann Blair

vii

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9 Imagination, Maternal Desire and Embryology in Thomas Fienus ...... 211 Hiro Hirai 10 Gerardus Blasius and the Illustrated Amsterdam Observationes from Nicolaas Tulp to Frederik Ruysch ...... 227 Domenico Bertoloni Meli Publications of Nancy Siraisi ...... 271

[email protected] Contributors

Domenico Bertoloni Meli teaches the history of science and medicine at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Equivalence and Priority: Newton Versus Leibniz (1993, 1997), Thinking with Objects (2006), and Mechanism, Experiment, Disease (2011). He is currently working on a project on the visualization of disease from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century.

Ann Blair teaches early modern European history and book history at Harvard University. She is the author of The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (1997) and Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (2010) and articles in the history of science and of learned practices. She is currently examining the role of amanuenses in early modern scholarship.

Chiara Crisciani is professor of history of medieval philosophy at Pavia Univer- sity in Italy. Her research focuses on medieval scientiﬁc thought, with special emphasis on scholastic medicine, the development of alchemy in the West, and the relationship between these two disciplines through the early modern period. Among her recent publications include the “Introduction to Arnold of Villanova” in the modern edition of his Tractatus de humido radicali (2010) and “Medicine and philosophy in the Middle Ages: sisters, companions, rivals” (2012).

Paula Findlen is Ubaldo Pierotti professor of Italian history and department chair at Stanford University. Her publications on early modern science and medicine include Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientiﬁc Culture in Early Modern Italy (1994); The Italian Renaissance: Essential Readings (2002); Mer- chants and Marvels (with Pamela Smith, 2002); and Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories (2013). Most recently, she has been enjoying one of Nancy Siraisi’s fabulous footnotes for a project on Alessandra Giliani and other medieval women invented by their early modern Italian forgers.

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Anthony Grafton teaches European history at Princeton University. His books include Joseph Scaliger (1983–93), The Footnote: A Curious History (1995), and (with Joanna Weinberg) I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue (2011). He is currently studying early modern visions of the origins of Christianity.

Hiro Hirai has a Ph.D. (1999) in history of science and philosophy, University of Lille 3 (France) and is a research fellow at Radboud University (the Netherlands). He has published widely in early modern natural philosophy, medicine, and chemistry, including Le concept de semence dans les the´ories de la matie`re ala Renaissance (2005) and Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy (2011).

Danielle Jacquart is directeur d’e´tudes EPHE, section des sciences historiques et philologiques. Her many books and essays include Sexualite´ et Savoir me´dical au Moyen Aˆge (1985), La Science me´dicale occidentale entre deux renaissances (1997), and, most recently, A la recherche du corps me´die´val: e´tudes sur la repre´ sentation me´dicale et son e´criture (2012).

Cynthia Klestinec is associate professor of English at Miami University of Ohio. In addition to Theaters of Anatomy: Students, Teachers, and Traditions of Dissection in Renaissance Venice (2011), her recent publications include Renaissance Surgeons: Anatomy, Manual Skill and the Visual Arts (2016) and “Translating learning surgery” (forthcoming in a special issue, coedited with D. Bertoloni Meli, of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences). Her current project explores the solid, architectural body in late Renaissance Italy.

Ian Maclean is professor of Renaissance studies (emeritus) at the University of Oxford and emeritus fellow of All Souls College. Among his recent publications are Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance: The Case of Learned Medicine (2001); Le monde et les hommes selon les me´decins de la Renaissance (2006); Learning and the Market Place (2009); and Scholarship, Commerce, Religion: The Learned Book in the Age of Confessions (2012). He is currently working on the learned book in the early enlightenment.

Gideon Manning is a visiting scholar at Claremont Graduate University and has taught the history and philosophy of science and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, the College of William and Mary, and the California Institute of Technology. Among his recent publications include “The history of ‘hylomorphism’” (2014), “Descartes and the Bologna affair” (2015), and “The Vitality and Importance of Early Modern Galenism” (forthcoming). He is currently editing a volume on the history of the concept of death as well as working to understand the role of medicine in early modern philosophy through a study of Rene Descartes and his reception.

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Michael McVaugh is Wells professor of history (emeritus) at the University of North Carolina. He has written Medicine Before the Plague (1993) and The Rational Surgery of the Middle Ages (2006) and is one of the coeditors of the medical works of Arnau of Villanova (1975–). At present, he is engaged in a number of projects involving medieval medical translation from Arabic into Latin.

Vivian Nutton is an F.B.A. and professor of the history of medicine (emeritus) at University College London, writing particularly on medicine from the Greeks to the Renaissance. His publications include Girolamo Mercuriale, De arte gymnastica (2008); Galen: On Problematical Movements (2011); and Ancient Medicine (ed. 2, 2013). He is at present preparing a translation of Vesalius’ Institutiones anatomicae, which will incorporate Vesalius’ own notes for a never completed revision.

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