Matteo Valleriani Editor De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period The Authors of the Commentaries De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period Matteo Valleriani Editor De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period The Authors of the Commentaries Editor Matteo Valleriani Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin, Germany Technische Universität Berlin Berlin, Germany University of Tel Aviv Tel Aviv, Israel ISBN 978-3-030-30832-2 ISBN 978-3-030-30833-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication. 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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface This volume presents the results achieved by a working group established in the framework of the research project “The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe” (https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de). The project’s general aim is to reconstruct the long transformation process of cos- mological knowledge that took place from the second half of the fifteenth century to 1650. Its focus lies on a specific corpus of historical sources, namely, textbooks that were used above all for introductory studies at the liberal arts faculties of early modern European universities. In order to collect a meaningful corpus of historical sources, the selection of treatises was limited by one condition: they had to contain or have a strong connec- tion to a treatise by Johannes de Sacrobosco, Tractatus de sphaera, which was already established as a standard textbook in the late Middle Ages. Because of the enduring teaching tradition associated with this text, the corpus of historical sources that was built up around it is considered to be historically representative of the teaching of this discipline and of the period covered by the corpus itself. Because the corpus consists of treatises that were conceived of, designed, and printed throughout Europe for students, a reconstruction of the transformation process of cosmological knowledge during this period parallels the process by which scientific knowledge came to be shared by university students in Europe. A common scientific identity can be seen to have developed during the early mod- ern period. On the basis of a census of all early modern printed editions of such treatises, it is possible to state with certainty the number and the identity of the early modern commentators. As shown in the introduction to this volume, this number is surprisingly small when compared with the impressive number of different editions v vi Preface produced. The scope of this volume is to investigate the intellectual, institutional, confessional, and geographic context of the actors involved in the process of this transformation. The working group was therefore tasked with writing the intellec- tual profiles of the authors of early modern commentaries on Sacrobosco’s Sphaera. Additional questions concerning the profiles and identities of the publishers and printers of such commentaries or of the buyers of such books will hopefully be answered in future endeavors. Each contribution highlights one or more of the early modern commentators from different perspectives; the commentators were chosen by the authors of the contributions themselves. Their order of appearance is based on a simple chronol- ogy referring to the first commentary work mentioned in each contribution. Not all of the commentators are investigated in this volume. Notably, specific works dedi- cated to Élie Vinet and Christophorus Clavius as commentators of De sphaera remain a desideratum. All early modern editions of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera are collected in a database that is accessible via the project’s main website: https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg. de. Because this database was one of the research tools used by the members of the working group, the references to the editions are enriched with the corresponding PID numbers from the database. This gives the reader rapid access to the mentioned sources. For the initial preparation of the volume, the members of the working group prepared precirculating papers and then met to discuss these at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin on 14th and 15th of February 2018. This intensive but very pleasant two-day meeting also involved other colleagues as discussants (Fig. 1). Preface vii Fig. 1 Back (left to right): Marius Buning, Charlotte Girout, Elio Nenci, Richard Oosterhoff, James Brannon, Christoph Sander, Thomas Horst, Peter Barker. Front (left to right): Angela Axworthy, Kathleen M. Crowther, Leo Corry, Matteo Valleriani, Tayra M.C. Lanuza Navarro, Roberto de Andrade Martins, Isabelle Pantin Max Planck Institute for the Matteo Valleriani History of Science [email protected] Berlin, Germany Technische Universität Berlin Berlin, Germany University of Tel Aviv Tel Aviv, Israel Acknowledgments While discussing a previous publication of mine, it was Ursula Klein who in 2016 first suggested that I undertake the investigation which led to this volume. For this reason, a special acknowledgment goes to her. The creation of this volume by the working group is just one of the many activities undertaken in the frame of the proj- ect “The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity in Europe.” I would like to thank the core group of scholars at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science who took an active role in this working group: Florian Kräutli, Christoph Sander, Sabine Bertram, Gesa Funke, Victoria Beyer, Chantal Wahbi, and Olga Potschernina. A special acknowledgment goes to Nana Citron, also a member of the core group of the project but, in addition, organizer and coor- dinator of the activities of the working group members and a coauthor of one of the contributions. Nana Citron and Victoria Beyer also supported the publication pro- cess in all of its phases. The work on the index was also supported by Razieh Mousavi. The organization of the Berlin meeting was further supported by Petra Schröter, Carina Panther, and Tilman Kemeny. The permissions to publish the images were obtained by Nana Citron and Urte Brauckmann. A special acknowl- edgment also goes to Charlie Zaharoff for his excellent copyediting work. Many thanks to my friend and colleague Lindy Divarci for her continuous support, too. On the publishing side, I would like to thank Corina van der Giessen and Christopher Wilby for providing support for the design and production process of the cover. The working group and the related publication project was supported by the Department I of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, whose director, Jürgen Renn, I would like to thank deeply for his generosity. In memory of Iliana Capisani (August 14, 1944–September 19, 2018) Tel Aviv Matteo Valleriani May 26, 2019 ix Contents 1 Prolegomena to the Study of Early Modern Commentators on Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera .............................. 1 Matteo Valleriani 2 A Lathe and the Material Sphaera: Astronomical Technique at the Origins of the Cosmographical Handbook ................................ 25 Richard J. Oosterhoff 3 Pedro Sánchez Ciruelo. A Commentary on Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera with a Defense of Astrology ................................ 53 Tayra M. C. Lanuza Navarro 4 Francesco Capuano di Manfredonia ..................................................... 91 Elio Nenci 5 Conrad Tockler’s Research Agenda ...................................................... 111 Matteo Valleriani and Nana Citron 6 John of Glogów ........................................................................................ 137 Peter Barker 7 Sacrobosco’s Sphaera in Spain and Portugal ....................................... 161 Kathleen M. Crowther