DEFENDING HYPATIA Archimedes NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 25 EDITOR Jed Z. Buchwald, Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeremy Gray, The Faculty of Mathematics and Computing, The Open University, Buckinghamshire, UK. Sharon Kingsland, Department of History of Science and Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. ADVISORY BOARD Henk Bos, University of Utrecht Mordechai Feingold, California Institute of Technology Allan D. Franklin, University of Colorado at Boulder Kostas Gavroglu, National Technical University of Athens Anthony Grafton, Princeton University Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Leibniz UniversitätHannover Trevor Levere, University of Toronto Jesper Lützen, Copenhagen University William Newman, Indian University, Bloomington Lawrence Principe, The Johns Hopkins University Jürgen Renn, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Alex Roland, Duke University Alan Shapir , oUniversity of Minnesota Nancy Siraisi, Hunter College of the City University of New York Michael R. DietrichDartmouth, College Michel Morange , IHPST, Paris Hans-Jörg RheinbergerMax-Planck-Institut, für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Noel Swerdlow, University of Chicago Archimedes has three fundamental goals; to furtherintegration the of the histories of science and technology with one another: to investigate the technical, social and practical histories of specific developments in science andnology; tech and finally, where possible and desirable, to bring the histories of science and technology intocontact closer with the philosophy of science. To these ends, each volume will have its own themetitle and and will be planned by one or more members of the Advisory Board in consultation with the editor. Although the volumes have specific themes, the series itself will not be limited to one or even to a few particular areas. Its subjects include any of the sciences,from ranging biology through physics, all aspects of technology, broadly construed, as well as historically-engaged philosophy of science or technology. Taken as a Archimedeswhole, will be of intereststorians, to hi philosophers, and scientists, as well as to those in businessindustry who and seek to understand how science and industry have come to be so strongly linked. For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/5644 Robert Goulding Defending Hypatia Ramus, Savile, and the Renaissance Rediscovery of Mathematical History 123 Prof. Robert Goulding University of Notre Dame Program of Liberal Studies 313 Decio Faculty Hall Notre Dame IN 46556 USA [email protected] ISSN 1385-0180 ISBN 978-90-481-3541-7 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3542-4 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3542-4 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941801 © Springer Science+Business Media, B.V. 2010 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Cover design: Boekhorst Design b.v. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Acknowledgements I could not have pursued this project without the extraordinary resources and help- ful staff of libraries in both the United States and Europe. I completed much of the manuscript and early printed book research in the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Vatican Library. I also consulted volumes in the University of Chicago’s Special Collections Research Center and in the Special Collections section of the library of the University of Notre Dame. The Lilly Library of Indi- ana University and the Biblioth`eque Nationale were both generous and prompt in providing crucial microfilms of rare texts. I spent a few very enjoyable days at the library of Saint Louis University, studying Ramus’s own working copy of his Scholae mathematicae, and examining material from Walter Ong’s personal archive; I also used the resources of the Vatican Film Library in St. Louis. Most of the research on the controversy between Ramus and Charpentier was com- pleted at Harvard University’s Houghton Library. The microfilm department of Firestone Library, Princeton University, was another excellent resource. Finally, the Interlibrary Loan division of the University of Notre Dame Library went to great lengths to find almost every text, both microfilm and printed, that I needed while writing up the book. I am very grateful to the staff of all these libraries. For generous financial support I am grateful to the British Council, whose Com- monwealth Scholarship brought me from New Zealand to the Warburg Institute; St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, where I spent 3 years as Elizabeth Wordsworth Junior Research Fellow; the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for a year’s support as a Caird Research Fellow; and the Princeton Society of Fellows, in whose happy intellectual environment I spent a very stimulating 3 years as a Cotsen Fellow in the Liberal Arts. In the final phase of research, I was supported by a Faculty Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which I spent in the idyllic set- ting of the American Academy in Rome. I am also grateful for material support from the Bibliographical Society (UK), the Humanities Council of Princeton University and Notre Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts. The first seed of this project was planted by Anthony Grafton. In a visit to the Warburg Institute when I was an M.A. student, he suggested that I take a look at the lecture notes of Sir Henry Savile, in the Bodleian Library. Over the years, as I delved ever deeper into these documents, Tony has provided helpful advice, close read- ings, and a lively sounding board. His initial suggestion led to an M.A. dissertation v vi Acknowledgements in which I first attempted a survey of Savile’s lectures, and to a Ph.D. disserta- tion entirely devoted to Savile’s various works. Both were supervised by Jill Kraye, whose exacting standards of scholarship and insistence on clarity have been the sin- gle greatest influence on me as a scholar. I cannot thank her enough for her close attention to my words and her infinite patience with my working habits. I am also grateful to Jill and to Martin Davies for warm hospitality in London and frequent doses of great Nepalese food. The Warburg Institute is a legendary institution filled with remarkable people, and I owe something to everyone I shared those walls with. Charles Burnett served as a co-director, and then and afterwards often provided valuable criticisms and advice. I would also like to thank Jonathan Woolfson, who gave me an early and valuable opportunity to present my work on Savile to English intellectual historians; and Peter Mack, whose course on Renaissance rhetoric and dialectic first introduced me to Ramus. Ian Jones was a constant source of encouragement and caffeine. My external examining committee, Nick Jardine and Stephen Clucas, offered useful observations and criticisms. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Mordechai Feingold. He has read and com- mented on much of my work on Savile and Ramus, and has provided frequent encouragement and guidance to my research. He was also instrumental in the publi- cation of this book, by introducing the manuscript to Jed Buchwald. Jed has been an exemplary editor; I am very grateful for his directness and honest appraisal of my work. Over the years, many others have offered advice and useful direction, particularly in response to parts of this book that were presented as papers. I would like to thank especially the late John Fauvel, Judith Field, Owen Gingrich, Roger Highfield, Kristian Jensen, Noel Swerdlow, the late Tom Whiteside, Jim Bennett, Nick Popper, James Byrne, Lauren Kassel, Jerry Passanante, Kristine Haugen, Deborah Harkness and Pamela Smith. Eileen Reeves has been a constant friend since we first shared optical interests at Princeton, and I am grateful to her for her unfailing enthusiasm and support. At Notre Dame, I have benefitted from a lively and supportive intellectual envi- ronment. The Program of Liberal Studies is an extraordinary, interdisciplinary department, where I have learnt more than I have taught. I have been particularly fortunate in finding there two other historians of science: Phil Sloan has been a supportive mentor, and Tom Stapleford a very amiable colleague and teaching col- laborator. I thank them and all my colleagues in the Program. Notre Dame’s Program in History and Philosophy of Science has been a second home at the university; I thank especially its director, Don Howard, for his good advice. Last, an informal writing group of assistant professors at Notre Dame read several chapters of the book with meticulous care: thanks to Emily Osborn, Wendy Arons, Sara Maurer and Sophie White. Portions of this book were presented at conferences and colloquia. In par- ticular, conferences at the Warburg Institute, Birkbeck College and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library were important testing grounds for this mate- rial. I also aired this research at meetings of the History of Science Society and the Acknowledgements vii Renaissance Society of America; comments from other participants (some of whom, unfortunately, I do not know by name) often significantly affected my interpreta- tion of this material. So too did comments and critiques from Notre Dame’s own Intellectual History Seminar. I am grateful to all of these communities of learning. My wife, Margaret Meserve, is not only my partner in life but my model of a great scholar. She has read and unsparingly critiqued everything I have written. For that, and for so much more, I am ever grateful.