Publication Date
2009
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Since Aristotle's death in 322 B.C.E., several philosophers cultivated the study of his works and adopted and developed his doctrines and methods. After the decline of the Roman Empire in the fifth century C.E., most of Aristotle's works and doctrine went lost in the Western world. During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries C.E., an Arabic tradition of Aristotelianism was developed by Syrians, Persians, Turks, Jews, and Arabs, who wrote and taught in the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, by influential philosophers such as Avicenna (980-1032), Averroes (1126-1198), and Maimonides (1125-1204). During the twelfth century, new Latin translations of Aristotle's works, mostly derived from Arabic commentaries, introduced Aristotle to the medieval Christian culture, and initiated an Aristotelian intellectual movement in Europe known as Scholasticism. Albert the Great (ca 1206-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (ca 1225-1274) developed a synthesis of Aristotelian ideas with Christian doctrines, which became essential to Roman Catholic theology as well as cosmology. The so-called corpus aristotelicum (encompassing Aristotle's works as well as Arab, Persian and Latin commentaries) was used as a framework for textbooks and encyclopedias, and as a point of departure for many philosophical treatises, including natural philosophy.
Aristotle placed great emphasis on direct observation of nature. In science he taught that theory must follow direct observation of facts organized and understood trough logics. During the late Middle Ages and Early Modernity (ca 1250-1550), Aristotelian cosmology met little opposition or challenge. Questions related to the celestial and sublunar world and its four compositional elements were principally discussed in three works of Aristotle: On the Heavens (or De Caelo), the Meteorology (or Meteorologica) and On Generation and Corruption (or De generatione et corruptione). Natural philosophers like Avicenna, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Sacrobosco, John Buridan, Giovanni Fontana, Girolamo Fracastoro (and many others, the above are cited because they are the principal medieval and early modern Aristotelian authorities) reflect in commentaries on a vast group of quaestiones that aim to understand and build on the knowledge transmitted in these three books of Aristotle dealing with the physics of the cosmos. It is important to underline that their works and interpretations remained valid until the very end of the sixteenth century, as clearly shown by the so-called "Aristotelian school" of the University of Padua, where Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) studied and Galielo Galilei (1564-1642) tought.
The Aristotelian-Christian cosmos was conceived as a single material sphere that was finite and full in each part, sub-divided into concentric circles that were placed one inside the other with continguous limits. This sphere was divided into two parts - two contiguous, but radically different worlds: that of the heavens and that of the earth, as Sacrobosco wrote, "Universalis autem mundi machina in duo dividitur: in etheream et elementarem regionem" (The Sphere of Sacrobosco, Chap. I, p. 78). The heavenly part of the cosmos began at the concave surface of the lunar circle and extended to the circle of fixed stars and the Empyreal heaven, the highest level of the celestial world where medieval thinkers thought the souls of the blessed lived in the splendor of divine light. Composed of ether, a perfect and incorruptible element, the celestial circles transported the fixed stars and seven planets (the moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter) in their incessant movement: "Motus caeli est continuus, perpetuus et uniformis (Arist., De caelo, II.4, 287 a 23-24; Auct. Arist., p. 163 n. 56). Concerning the number of celestial spheres, tradition holds several possibilities, from the eight spheres of Aristotle, to the eleven of Peter Lombard and Hugh of Saint Victor.
Under the concave surface of the lunar sphere, the terrestrial region descended to the geometric center of the universe. The sublunar world was composed of the four spheres of elements organized in relation to their proper natural places: "Elementa non sunt infinita et sunt quattuor, scilicet ignis, aer, aqua et terra" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.5, 304 b 21-22; Auct. Arist., p. 165 n. 77). At a structural level, the terrestrial world appears, therefore, to be constituted of four concentric spheres that are contiguous with one another. The existence of emptiness, as absolute non-being, is considered impossible: "Vacuum nihil est" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.6, 305 a 21; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 89). Earth and water move from above to below; the earth, whose natural place is at the lowest position, constitutes the spherical and immobile center of the universe; water, whose natural place is immediately above the earth, surrounds it, assuming a spherical form. Air and fire move from below to above; air, whose natural place is positioned between the sphere of water and the interior part of the sphere of fire, interposes between them. Finally, fire's natural place is at the most elevated part of the sublunar world, interposing itself between the sphere of air and the first celestial sphere immediately superior to it, the sphere of the moon. Each element, moreover, possesses elementary qualities, in opposed pairs, which, with their natural linear movement, determines their behavior: the earth is cold and dry, water is cold and humid, air is hot and humid, and fire is hot and dry: "Quattuor sunt elementa, scilicet terra quae est frigida et sicca, aqua est frigida et humida, aer est calidus et humidus et ignis qui est calidus et siccus" (Arist., De generatione et corruptione, II.3, 330 a 30, b 3-5; Auct. Arist., p. 169 n. 30). In contrast to the celestial regions, the sublunar region is characterized by continuous change, interpreted according to the lectio of Aristotle in terms of generation and corruption: "Generatio unius est corruptio alterius; propter hoc generatio et corruptio sunt aeterna" (Arist., De generatione et corruptione, I.3, 318 a 23-25; Auct. Arist., p. 167 n. 7). The bodies of the sublunar world composed of four elements ordered in a succession of four concentric orbits, each the natural place of an element, were by definition imperfect and corruptible. The terrestrial bodies are composed of a mixture, mixta, of four elements: "Elementa sunt prima corpora ex quibus constant alia corpora" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.3, 302 a 12; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 82; Tractatus de Sphaera, I - The Sphere of Sacrobosco, p. 78). In each body, the dominant element determined the direction of the natural movement of the body, which would always tend in a linear fashion towards the natural place of the dominant element of its composition: "Gravia et levia moventur ex se ipsis in sua propria loca, nisi sit impediens. Verum est immediate, quia mediate moventur a generante, vel a removente" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, IV.4, 311 b 14-16; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 93). This interpretation, refered to as the mixta - implying that bodies composed of the four elements appear to be made by a singular substance - becomes paradigmatic with the De natura loci of Albert the Great (Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, Tomus V Pars II, pp. 23-26) and the De mixtione elementorum of Thomas Aquinas. In abstract, if unhindered, the natural movement of the terrestrial bodies - heavy by nature - would tend towards the center of the universe, while the igneous bodies, considered light in essence, would tend upwards towards the higher spheres, as the medieval florilegia of Aristotle reminds us: "Omne leve sursum et omne grave deorsum" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.2, 301 b 23-25; Auct. Arist., p. 165 n. 80) e "Ignis est levis, terra vero gravis" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.1, 300 a 3-5; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 88).
The Trasmission of Arsitotelian Natural Philosophy
One work in particular can be used as reference to indicate what might have been the general cosmographic vision of the world: the De sphaera (or The Sphere) of Johannes de Sacrobosco. A famous mid-fourteenth century treatise of astronomy and object of numerous commentaries, Sacrobosco's work was used as an initiatory text in both secular and conventual schools and universities to teach astronomy and was printed in numerous editions up to the early eighteenth century. Epitomizing the Almagest of Ptolemy and the On the Heavens, the Meteorology and the On Generation and Corruption of Aristotle in the first of four chapters that compose the work, Sacrobosco defines the structure of the world in a simplified way that remained substantially unchanged to the end of the sixteenth century, the time of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei.
Along with the De sphaera, knowledge about Aristotelian natural philosophy (including also the description of the cosmos) was transmitted by several collections of excerpts (florilegia) of the Corpus Aristotelicum and its numerous commentaries since the Middle Ages. These florilegia gathered brief citations from the works and commentaries on the works of Aristotle and were meant to present and abridge the knowledge and philosophy of the Stagirite for the largest audience. They are transmitted by a vast corpus of manuscripts and early modern printed books which are conserved in almost all libraries in Europe, thus testifying to their widespread diffusion. Produced and used in a mainly didactic capacity, the florilegia of Aristotelian works and commentaries were quickly diffused in university and religious milieux to offer students, erudites and clercs the princple texts of the authors they studied. Though these collections of excerpts appear with very diverse titles in ancient catalogues, the Franciscan theologian Saint Bonaventure da Bagnoregio (born Giovanni di Fidanza, 1221-1274) referred to them as Auctoritates Aristotelis, that is "The Authoritative Wisdom of Aristotle." Among the works cited and summarized in these florilegia are the three principle works of Aristotle dedicated to the cosmos, the On the Heavens, the Meteorology, and the On Generation and Corruption. Their citations summarize the macrostructure of the Aristotelian cosmos.
Bibliography: THORNDIKE, L., The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949. HAMESSE, J., Les auctoritates Aristotelis: un florilège médiéval. Étude historique et édition critique, Louvain: Publications Universitaires; Paris: Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1974, pp. 7-109 (for quite a vast selection of codexes see pp. 25-37). DALY, J. F., "Sacrobosco," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography 12 (1981) pp. 60-63. SCHMITT, C. B., Aristotle and the Renaissance, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1983. PEDERSEN, O., "In Quest of Sacrobosco," in Journal for the History of Astronomy 16 (1985), pp. 175-221. GRANT, E., Planets, Stars, and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687, Cambridge - New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994. POULLE, E., "L'Astronomia," in Federico II e le scienze, P. Tourbert e A. Paravicini Bagliani (eds), Palermo, Sellerio, 1994, pp. 122-137. GRANT, E., Le origini medievali della scienza moderna. Il contesto religioso, istituzionale e intellettuale, Turin, Einaudi, 2001.
Author: Angelo Cattaneo
Aristotle placed great emphasis on direct observation of nature. In science he taught that theory must follow direct observation of facts organized and understood trough logics. During the late Middle Ages and Early Modernity (ca 1250-1550), Aristotelian cosmology met little opposition or challenge. Questions related to the celestial and sublunar world and its four compositional elements were principally discussed in three works of Aristotle: On the Heavens (or De Caelo), the Meteorology (or Meteorologica) and On Generation and Corruption (or De generatione et corruptione). Natural philosophers like Avicenna, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Sacrobosco, John Buridan, Giovanni Fontana, Girolamo Fracastoro (and many others, the above are cited because they are the principal medieval and early modern Aristotelian authorities) reflect in commentaries on a vast group of quaestiones that aim to understand and build on the knowledge transmitted in these three books of Aristotle dealing with the physics of the cosmos. It is important to underline that their works and interpretations remained valid until the very end of the sixteenth century, as clearly shown by the so-called "Aristotelian school" of the University of Padua, where Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) studied and Galielo Galilei (1564-1642) tought.
The Aristotelian-Christian cosmos was conceived as a single material sphere that was finite and full in each part, sub-divided into concentric circles that were placed one inside the other with continguous limits. This sphere was divided into two parts - two contiguous, but radically different worlds: that of the heavens and that of the earth, as Sacrobosco wrote, "Universalis autem mundi machina in duo dividitur: in etheream et elementarem regionem" (The Sphere of Sacrobosco, Chap. I, p. 78). The heavenly part of the cosmos began at the concave surface of the lunar circle and extended to the circle of fixed stars and the Empyreal heaven, the highest level of the celestial world where medieval thinkers thought the souls of the blessed lived in the splendor of divine light. Composed of ether, a perfect and incorruptible element, the celestial circles transported the fixed stars and seven planets (the moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter) in their incessant movement: "Motus caeli est continuus, perpetuus et uniformis (Arist., De caelo, II.4, 287 a 23-24; Auct. Arist., p. 163 n. 56). Concerning the number of celestial spheres, tradition holds several possibilities, from the eight spheres of Aristotle, to the eleven of Peter Lombard and Hugh of Saint Victor.
Under the concave surface of the lunar sphere, the terrestrial region descended to the geometric center of the universe. The sublunar world was composed of the four spheres of elements organized in relation to their proper natural places: "Elementa non sunt infinita et sunt quattuor, scilicet ignis, aer, aqua et terra" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.5, 304 b 21-22; Auct. Arist., p. 165 n. 77). At a structural level, the terrestrial world appears, therefore, to be constituted of four concentric spheres that are contiguous with one another. The existence of emptiness, as absolute non-being, is considered impossible: "Vacuum nihil est" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.6, 305 a 21; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 89). Earth and water move from above to below; the earth, whose natural place is at the lowest position, constitutes the spherical and immobile center of the universe; water, whose natural place is immediately above the earth, surrounds it, assuming a spherical form. Air and fire move from below to above; air, whose natural place is positioned between the sphere of water and the interior part of the sphere of fire, interposes between them. Finally, fire's natural place is at the most elevated part of the sublunar world, interposing itself between the sphere of air and the first celestial sphere immediately superior to it, the sphere of the moon. Each element, moreover, possesses elementary qualities, in opposed pairs, which, with their natural linear movement, determines their behavior: the earth is cold and dry, water is cold and humid, air is hot and humid, and fire is hot and dry: "Quattuor sunt elementa, scilicet terra quae est frigida et sicca, aqua est frigida et humida, aer est calidus et humidus et ignis qui est calidus et siccus" (Arist., De generatione et corruptione, II.3, 330 a 30, b 3-5; Auct. Arist., p. 169 n. 30). In contrast to the celestial regions, the sublunar region is characterized by continuous change, interpreted according to the lectio of Aristotle in terms of generation and corruption: "Generatio unius est corruptio alterius; propter hoc generatio et corruptio sunt aeterna" (Arist., De generatione et corruptione, I.3, 318 a 23-25; Auct. Arist., p. 167 n. 7). The bodies of the sublunar world composed of four elements ordered in a succession of four concentric orbits, each the natural place of an element, were by definition imperfect and corruptible. The terrestrial bodies are composed of a mixture, mixta, of four elements: "Elementa sunt prima corpora ex quibus constant alia corpora" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.3, 302 a 12; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 82; Tractatus de Sphaera, I - The Sphere of Sacrobosco, p. 78). In each body, the dominant element determined the direction of the natural movement of the body, which would always tend in a linear fashion towards the natural place of the dominant element of its composition: "Gravia et levia moventur ex se ipsis in sua propria loca, nisi sit impediens. Verum est immediate, quia mediate moventur a generante, vel a removente" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, IV.4, 311 b 14-16; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 93). This interpretation, refered to as the mixta - implying that bodies composed of the four elements appear to be made by a singular substance - becomes paradigmatic with the De natura loci of Albert the Great (Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, Tomus V Pars II, pp. 23-26) and the De mixtione elementorum of Thomas Aquinas. In abstract, if unhindered, the natural movement of the terrestrial bodies - heavy by nature - would tend towards the center of the universe, while the igneous bodies, considered light in essence, would tend upwards towards the higher spheres, as the medieval florilegia of Aristotle reminds us: "Omne leve sursum et omne grave deorsum" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.2, 301 b 23-25; Auct. Arist., p. 165 n. 80) e "Ignis est levis, terra vero gravis" (Arist., De caelo et mundo, III.1, 300 a 3-5; Auct. Arist., p. 166 n. 88).
The Trasmission of Arsitotelian Natural Philosophy
One work in particular can be used as reference to indicate what might have been the general cosmographic vision of the world: the De sphaera (or The Sphere) of Johannes de Sacrobosco. A famous mid-fourteenth century treatise of astronomy and object of numerous commentaries, Sacrobosco's work was used as an initiatory text in both secular and conventual schools and universities to teach astronomy and was printed in numerous editions up to the early eighteenth century. Epitomizing the Almagest of Ptolemy and the On the Heavens, the Meteorology and the On Generation and Corruption of Aristotle in the first of four chapters that compose the work, Sacrobosco defines the structure of the world in a simplified way that remained substantially unchanged to the end of the sixteenth century, the time of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei.
Along with the De sphaera, knowledge about Aristotelian natural philosophy (including also the description of the cosmos) was transmitted by several collections of excerpts (florilegia) of the Corpus Aristotelicum and its numerous commentaries since the Middle Ages. These florilegia gathered brief citations from the works and commentaries on the works of Aristotle and were meant to present and abridge the knowledge and philosophy of the Stagirite for the largest audience. They are transmitted by a vast corpus of manuscripts and early modern printed books which are conserved in almost all libraries in Europe, thus testifying to their widespread diffusion. Produced and used in a mainly didactic capacity, the florilegia of Aristotelian works and commentaries were quickly diffused in university and religious milieux to offer students, erudites and clercs the princple texts of the authors they studied. Though these collections of excerpts appear with very diverse titles in ancient catalogues, the Franciscan theologian Saint Bonaventure da Bagnoregio (born Giovanni di Fidanza, 1221-1274) referred to them as Auctoritates Aristotelis, that is "The Authoritative Wisdom of Aristotle." Among the works cited and summarized in these florilegia are the three principle works of Aristotle dedicated to the cosmos, the On the Heavens, the Meteorology, and the On Generation and Corruption. Their citations summarize the macrostructure of the Aristotelian cosmos.
Bibliography: THORNDIKE, L., The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949. HAMESSE, J., Les auctoritates Aristotelis: un florilège médiéval. Étude historique et édition critique, Louvain: Publications Universitaires; Paris: Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1974, pp. 7-109 (for quite a vast selection of codexes see pp. 25-37). DALY, J. F., "Sacrobosco," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography 12 (1981) pp. 60-63. SCHMITT, C. B., Aristotle and the Renaissance, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1983. PEDERSEN, O., "In Quest of Sacrobosco," in Journal for the History of Astronomy 16 (1985), pp. 175-221. GRANT, E., Planets, Stars, and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687, Cambridge - New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994. POULLE, E., "L'Astronomia," in Federico II e le scienze, P. Tourbert e A. Paravicini Bagliani (eds), Palermo, Sellerio, 1994, pp. 122-137. GRANT, E., Le origini medievali della scienza moderna. Il contesto religioso, istituzionale e intellettuale, Turin, Einaudi, 2001.
Author: Angelo Cattaneo