Biographical encyclopedia
Download 17.33 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- AI.BERTUS MAGNUS
- FREDERICK II
- MICHAEL SCOT
|
56 [96] ALBERTUS MAGNUS ALBERTUS MAGNUS
of Italy. It had strong commercial ties with Muhammadan North Africa and Fibonacci’s father was the head of a warehouse and therefore intimately con nected with this commerce. Fibonacci himself was tutored by a Muhammadan in Algeria and, in later life, traveled widely, remaining in North Africa for extended periods and not settling down in Pisa till 1200. He thus had ample opportunity to be come acquainted with Arabic mathe matics and, in particular, with the system of arithmetic notation that al-Khwarizmi [79] had learned from the Hindus. This notation Fibonacci considered so much more useful than any he had met with in Europe that he bent his energies to propagating its value. In his book Liber Abaci (“Book of the Abacus”), published in 1202, he explained the uses of “Arabic numerals.” He also made clear the values of positional notation, which made the numbers 213, 123, 132, 321, 231, and 312 all have different values. And, of course, he explained the use of zero. This had been anticipated by Adelard of Bath [89] a century earlier, but it was with the appearance of this book that the old system of notation by letters of the alphabet, which the Greeks and Romans had used, received its deathblow. (How ever, the old system took several cen turies to die, and we still use Roman nu merals for ceremonial occasions, part of their impressiveness being that few peo ple can make them out without some study.)
Fibonacci’s learning was sufficiently recognized for him to be presented to the Emperor Frederick II [97] in 1225. [96] AI.BERTUS MAGNUS German scholar
Germany), 1193 Died: Cologne, November 15, 1280
Albertus Magnus’ actual name is Al bert, Count von Bollstadt (an inherited title), but he was called Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great) because of his learning. He was also called the Uni versal Doctor. It was a grandiloquent age and Thomas Aquinas [102], a pupil of Albertus Magnus, was called the An gelic Doctor, while Roger Bacon [99], an enemy and reluctant admirer of Al bertus Magnus, was called the Admira ble Doctor. Albertus Magnus studied at the Uni versity of Padua in Italy, the intellectual center of Europe in those days, and brought the new learning of the transla tions from the Arabic northward to Paris, where he lectured from 1245 to 1254. He labored to adapt Aristotelian philosophy into a world view fitted to the medieval mind, a work in which he was to be surpassed by Aquinas. He was, however, more concerned with science itself than Aquinas was, being particu larly interested in botany, bringing to that science his own observations made in his many travels on church business. (He was sometimes called the Bishop with the Boots. ) He did not consider Aristotle [29] the last word (although his enemies slight ingly referred to him as the Ape of Aris totle) and insisted on the value of per sonal observation. He conducted alchemical experiments and is equivocal on the possibility of the transmutation of elements. In this con nection he apparently found it difficult to swim against the tide; yet he shows ex treme skepticism concerning the possi bility. He describes arsenic so clearly in his writings that he is sometimes given credit for its discovery, although it was probably known to earlier alchemists in an impure form. He suspected the spots on the moon to be surface configurations and the Milky Way to be composed of myriads of stars. He compiled a list of a hundred minerals and seems to have taken note of the ex istence of fossils. His learning was such that he was sus pected of wizardry, but his position in the church and his orthodoxy protected him. He was bishop of Regensburg from 1260 to 1262 after which he retired to a monastery in Cologne to devote himself for the remainder of his life to his stud 57 [97] FREDERICK O BACON
ies. Pius XI proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church—thus automatically canon izing him—in 1931. [97] FREDERICK II German Emperor Born: Iesi, central Italy, Decem ber 26, 1194 Died: Lucera, southern Italy, De cember 13, 1250 Frederick II was one of the remark able monarchs of history, a man of many talents and a “Renaissance man” two centuries before the Renaissance. His reign was a romantic and turbulent one, marked by desperate battles with the papacy and against his own rebel lious son. He took over Jerusalem by ne gotiation, where previous monarchs had failed through the use of force, but he didn’t hold it long. He was the last strong ruler of the medieval Empire. He was unusual also in his tastes. Al though he ruled over Germany and was German by descent, he preferred Sicily for his home and under him Sicily had one last period of splendor, one last mo ment when it might be recognized as the land of Archimedes [47]. Frederick was unusual for his time in another respect too, for he possessed no religious intolerance. This came easily to him for he was a convinced and practic ing atheist. He made no distinctions among the religions, delighted in the company of learned Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians, and even employed Muslim mercenaries in his armies. (They were particularly useful in his battles against the pope.) Frederick II was one of those mon archs who, like Charlemagne [78], Alfred [81], and Alfonso X [100] were interested in learning. Frederick spoke many languages, patronized scholars and corresponded with them, wrote poetry, kept a zoo that, at one time or another, included monkeys, camels, a giraffe and an elephant, and interested himself in every branch of science. His most important personal contri bution was an excellent book on falconry in which he reported his own observa tions and thrust aside conclusions based on hearsay (an uncharacteristic attitude for a medieval scholar). In the book, he discussed hundreds of kinds of birds, with illustrations, and made numerous valid generalizations concerning their anatomy, physiology, and behavior. It was first-rate natural history, and in it he did not hesitate to refute Aristotle [29]. [98] MICHAEL SCOT Irish (?) scholar Bom: before 1200 Died: about 1235 The surname “Scot” may indicate Irish birth, but so little is known about the life of Michael that even this cannot be said with any degree of certainty. He was another of those whose impor tance lay in his translations. In particu lar, he translated Averroës [91] from Arabic into Latin; and in this way made the teachings of Aristotle [29] available to European scholars. He was one of those scholars whom the learned and intellect-admiring Em peror Frederick II [97] gathered round him, and it was Frederick who en couraged him in his work of translation and urged him to disseminate the results through the universities of Europe. Michael was an astrologer and in dulged in the mystical nonsense of the times, with the result that he was feared by the superstitious, and rumors arose of his great wizardry and of his dealings with demons. This was one of the haz ards of secular scholarship in those days. Albertus Magnus [96] and Roger Bacon [99] were likewise suspected of wizardry, and that attitude of mind was eventually responsible for the Faust legend brought to its highest pitch of literary excellence by Goethe [349]. [99] BACON, Roger English scholar
1220
Died: Oxford, June 11, 1292 58 [99] BACON
ALFONSO X [100] Roger Bacon, the son of well-to-do parents in the service of Henry IH, stud ied at Oxford and then traveled to Paris to teach. There he obtained his degree of master of arts by 1241, then resigned his post in 1247 to devote himself to re search. He returned to Oxford about 1251. Among those he studied under in the course of his education was Grosse teste [94]. Bacon somewhat resembles Galileo [166], Like the Italian scientist of three and a half centuries later, Bacon was a man of bold ideas and imperious self confidence. Like Galileo, he was unspar ing in expressing his contempt of those he felt worthy of it and, in so doing, made numerous important enemies. It was the influence of these enemies (one of them the general of the Franciscan order, of which Bacon was a member) that had him imprisoned for fifteen years and ordered his works suppressed. On the other hand the church did not officially condemn him, and much of his work was done at the request of Pope Clement IV, a great admirer of Bacon. Clement IV died in 1268 and Bacon in his later years no longer had papal pro tection. Bacon attempted to write a universal encyclopedia of knowledge, but in his time the task had already become impos sible. In his works, he denounced magic generally but accepted the value of as trology. He upheld the roundness of the earth and was the first to suggest that man could circumnavigate it (a romanti cally fantastic thought for his day). Co lumbus [121] quoted this in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was to be nearly three centuries before Magellan [130] made reality out of the suggestion. Bacon estimated the outermost of the heavenly spheres, that of the stars, to be one hundred and thirty million miles from earth, or some five hundred times the distance of the moon. This was a daring guess for the times but Bacon’s whole universe was. by this estimate, far smaller than we now know the solar sys tem itself to be. Bacon pointed out that the Julian cal endar made the year a trifle long, so that the equinoxes fell earlier by a day every century or so, but it was to be three cen turies before the defect was corrected. He followed his teacher, Grosseteste, in his interest in optics, constructing magni fying glasses, suggesting the use of spec tacles for those who were farsighted and even made remarks that sound very much like the description of a telescope (to say nothing of others that sounded like the prediction of steamships, auto mobiles, and airplanes). Like Grosseteste he appreciated the value of Greek and, indeed, compiled a Greek grammar. He was interested in alchemy, too, which he claimed was essential to medi cine, thus foreshadowing Paracelsus [131], and believed in the possibility of making gold. Because he was one of the first to mention gunpowder (in a letter written in 1247), it was long supposed that he had invented it. (How gunpow der came to be introduced to the West ern world, whether from China or through independent invention, is un certain.) In fact, a whole cluster of leg ends gathered about Bacon in later cen turies, most of which—like the tale that he had constructed a mechanical man— can be dismissed. Bacon’s most modern ideas involve his vehement pioneering belief in experi mentation and mathematics as the true routes of scientific advance. He even ap pealed to Pope Clement to change the educational system to allow for more ex perimentation and he wrote in high praise of Peter Peregrinus [104], a con temporary experimenter of ability. Un fortunately his influence was lessened by the fact that his books were condemned and therefore unread by most scholars. His greatest work, Opus Majus, was not published till 1733. It was to be three and a half centuries before experi mentation and quantitative measure ments were to become all important in science.
[100] ALFONSO X of Castile Spanish monarch Born: Burgos, November 23, 1221 Died: Seville, April 24, 1284 59 [100] ALFONSO X AQUINAS
Alfonso X, who became king of Cas tile and Leon in 1252, was victorious over the Muslims, capturing Cadiz in 1262, but was not a success as a king. His visionary schemes resulted in de based currency and revolts among the nobles and he wasted much effort in a futile attempt to become Holy Roman emperor. He suppressed a revolt by one son, but a second revolt, raised by a second son, forced him from the throne in 1282. He was noted for his scholarship and his encouragement of learning, for the schools he founded, and for the law codes he sponsored. This resulted in his being called Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso the Wise), a cognomen granted very few other rulers in history. Under his patronage the first history of Spain was written and Jews of Toledo translated the Old Testament. He pre pared a code of laws, wrote poetry, made commentaries on alchemy, and en couraged further translation of scholarly Arabic books. He is most famous for encouraging the preparation of revised planetary tables. These were published in 1252, on the day of his accession to the throne. These “Alfonsine Tables” proved the best the Middle Ages had to offer and were not replaced by better ones for over three centuries. Alfonso X is famous for his remark, made during the tedious preparation of those tables on the basis of the compli cated Ptolemaic view of the universe, that had God asked his advice during the days of creation, he would have recom mended a simpler design for the uni verse. This touch of impatience with the sacrosanct conclusions of the Greek sci entists extended to physics, too, as Buri dan [108] was to show, and three cen turies after Alfonso’s time was to ex plode in the Scientific Revolution. An honor the monarch might never have suspected befell him several cen turies later when a crater on the moon was named “Alphonsus” in his honor. In 1957 this crater made headlines when possible volcanic activity was noted in it. 6 0 [101] ALDEROTTI, Taddeo Italian physician Born: Florence, 1223 Died: Bologna, about 1295 Alderotti is the bridge between Greek and European medicine. Judging from his own writings, he was brought up in poverty and it was not until he was an adult that he could find his way to an education. He studied at Bologna, which had one of the great medical schools in western Europe, advanced quickly, and by 1260 was lecturing there. He wrote commentaries on Hip pocrates [22], Galen [65], and Avicenna [86] but urged his readers to go to the originals. He collected clinical cases, pre sented them to his readers along with ad vice on treatment. He became a very successful physi cian, numbering Pope Honorius IV among his patients. Remembering his poverty-stricken childhood, he charged high fees and, presumably, he was worth them.
[102] AQUINAS, Saint Thomas (uh- kwy'nus)
Italian theologian Born: Roccasecca, near Aquino, about 1225 Died: Fossanuova, March 7, 1274 After an education at Monte Cassino and at the University of Naples, which he entered in 1240, Thomas Aquinas, the youngest of nine children, joined the new Dominican order in 1244. His fam ily objected, kidnapped him, and held him in custody. He escaped and made his way to Paris in 1245 where he studied under Albertus Magnus [96], whom he later accompanied to Cologne in Ger many. Eventually he began to write com mentaries on Aristotle and achieved great fame. He taught at various places in France and Italy but refused all ap pointments to high posts, including the archbishopric of Naples. Drawing on Averroes [91] and Maimonides [92] and adding his own thought, he tried to build a system that would blend and reconcile [103] ARNOLD OF VILLANOVA PEREGRINUS
Aristotelian philosophy and Catholic the ology. In this he was most successful. He was canonized in 1323, a mere half cen tury after his death, and his philosophic system remains the basis of Catholic teaching to this day, and he is a Doctor of the Church. His importance to science lies in the fact that he was a rationalist. He upheld reason as a respected method for extending the boundaries of human knowledge, and the result was to help make science once again respectable in Christian Europe after a long period of being considered pagan. [103] ARNOLD OF VILLANOVA Spanish alchemist
tember 6, 1311 Bom in Spain of parents who may have been converted Jews, Arnold had the advantage of being physically close to the Arabic heritage. He could speak Arabic and Greek and through him the full tradition of Arabic alchemy entered the stream of European thought. Arnold traveled widely and wrote vo luminously. As a physician of reputation, he became wealthy. Like Alderotti [101] he helped introduce the teachings of Galen [65] and Avicenna [86] to western Europe. From the grateful royalty he treated (Pedro III of Aragon, for instance), he received castles and a professorship at the University of Montpellier in France. He was a controversialist, with strong views on theology that led him into occa sional conflict with the church. However, he treated Pope Boniface VIII success fully during a papal illness and this got him out of a particularly bad siege of trouble.
Arnold was a strange mixture of mys ticism and science. He announced that the world would end in 1378, for in stance, with the appearance of the An tichrist. He accepted transmutation of the ele ments and modified the mercury-sulfur theory of Geber [76]. He thought mer cury alone was sufficient, although he never proved this by actually producing gold out of it. He was apparently the first to notice that wood burning under conditions of poor ventilation gave rise to poisonous fumes. This amounts to the discovery of carbon monoxide. He was also the first to prepare pure alcohol. He, like the “false Geber” [107], was one of those later alchemists in whom genuine science was faintly reappearing. [104] PEREGRINUS, Petrus (per-uh- grine'us) French scholar
Little is known of Peregrinus’ personal life; he may have been a Crusader, since his cognomen, Peregrinus, means “the pilgrim.” His real name was Petrus de Maricourt. A friend of Roger Bacon [99], he was one of the few medieval scholars who practiced experimentation, centuries before Galileo [166] made it the nub of science. Peregrinus was an engineer in the army of Louis IX and interested himself in mechanics. He began by attempting to construct a motor that would keep the planetarium designed by Archimedes [47] moving for a period of time. To do so without muscular effort, he conceived of using magnetic forces for the purpose. This was the first suggestion that magne tism might be converted to kinetic en ergy. These speculations, in turn, led him to a deeper consideration of the magnet. The Greek tradition had it that Thales [3] was the first to observe and study the manner in which certain rocks (lode- stone) attracted iron. It was a phenome non that exercised the ingenuity of phi losophers because it seemed to represent “action at a distance.” It was hard to un derstand how one object could exert a force on another without physical con tact.
It was somehow learned (by whom is not known) that a magnet in the form of a needle if freely suspended or freely
Download 17.33 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
|