Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity
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The Origin of the History of Science in
De medicina et medicis by G.
Tortelli, followed the way paved long before him by Celsus and Pliny. 16 Start- ing with De antiquitate medicinae by his contemporary Bartolotti, the histori- ography of medicine made increasing use of Galen’s material as well as of his notions of medicine’s past. Some biographies of scientists and physicians had already been known via Greek and Arabic sources and their Latin trans- lations; 17 during the Renaissance this genre was revived. The first general history of mathematics, written by B. Baldi in 1580s, was a collection of 202 mathematicians’ biographies, from Thales to Clavius, patterned after Dio- genes Laertius and using a wealth of Greek, Latin and modern sources. 18 An- tiquity occupies about two thirds of this voluminous work. The works of the humanists did not so much investigate the origin and de- velopment of arts and sciences as illustrate them with biographies of scientists and doctors, supplementing the latter with bibliographical and doxographical evidence. Chronological outlines briefly describing the achievements of emi- nent scientists from Antiquity to the present were a fairly popular genre. 19 Among the important tasks of this antiquarian and genealogical history was the enhancement of the status of a given science by demonstrating its antiquity. Thus the majority of early histories of chemistry considered alchemy’s claims 15 Jardine, N. The birth of history and philosophy of science. Kepler’s “A defence of Tycho against Ursus”, Cambridge 1984; Jardine, N., Segonds, A. A challenge to the reader: Ramus on Astrologia without Hypotheses, The influence of Petrus Ramus, ed. by M. Feingold et al., Basel 2001, 248–266. 16 Giovanni Tortelli on medicine and phycisians; Gian Giacomo Bartolotti on the an- tiquity of medicine: Two histories of medicine of the XVth century, transl. by D. M. Schullian, L. Belloni, Milan 1954. 17 Musitelli, S. Da Parmenide a Galeno. Tradizioni classiche e interpretazioni medi- evali nelle biografie dei grandi medici antichi, Rome 1985 (A. A. Lincei, Vol. 28, fasc. 4); Pinault, op. cit. 18 Rose, P. L. The Italian Renaissance of mathematics, Geneva 1975, 243ff. A part of Baldi’s learned work was published posthumously: Baldi, B. Cronica de’ matema- tici overo Epitome dell’ istoria delle vite loro, Urbino 1707. For biographies of the medieval and Renaissance mathematicians with a commentary and ample bibli- ography, see Baldi, B. Le vite de’ matematici, ed. by E. Nenci, Milan 1998. 19 Champier, S. De medicinae claris scriptoribus in quinque partibus tractatus, Lyon 1506; Brunfels, O. Catalogus illustrium medicorum sive de primis medicinae scrip- toribus, Strasbourg 1530; Gaurico, L. Oratio de inventoribus, utilitate et laudibus as- tronomiae, C. Ptolemaei Centum sententiae, ed. G. Trapezuntius, Rome 1540; Cla- vius, C. Inventores mathematicarum disciplinarum (1574), Opera mathematica, I, Mainz 1611. 1. The historiography of science in the 16th–18th centuries 7 to antiquity and refutations of them. 20 Hence, the ideas of the development of individual sciences from their legendary ‘founding fathers’ to the author’s day and of the transmission of knowledge from one culture to another are charac- teristic, in various forms, of the historico-scientific literature of the Renais- sance and distinguish it from the medieval Latin genealogies of sciences and arts. 21 In the 17 th century, the number and volume of works on the history of science increases, the range of problems widens, and the subject matter becomes more varied. 22 Voluminous works by such polymaths as Voss combine prodigious learning with uncritical retelling of old legends. It is only natural that, in the period when Hippocrates and Archimedes were topical as never before, a large number of historico-scientific works were directly related to Antiquity. 23 Even works of a more general character devoted the greater part of their attention to this period. 24 Daniel Le Clerc’s fundamental Download 1.41 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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