Renaissance Meteorology: Pomponazzi to Descartes

224 Pages·2011·2.22 MB·English

by  Craig Martin

Re nais sance Meteorology
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Renaissance Meteorology
Pomponazzi to Descartes
craig martin
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
This book was brought to publication with the generous
support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the
Friends of the Johns Hopkins University Press.
© 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2011
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Martin, Craig, 1972–
Re nais sance meteorology : Pomponazzi to Descartes / Craig Martin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 4214- 0187- 4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214- 0187- 8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Meteorology— History—17th century. 2. Science, Re nais sance.
3. Physics— Philosophy. I. Title.
QC855.M37 2011
551.5094'09032—dc22 2010051487
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Contents
Ac know ledg ments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. The Epistemology of Meteorology 21
Chapter 2. Teleology in Re nais sance Meteorology 38
Chapter 3. The Ferrarese Earthquakes and the
Employment of Learned Meteorology 60
Chapter 4. The Chymistry of Weather 80
Chapter 5. Niccolò Cabeo’s Meteorology as
the Basis for a New Aristotelianism 106
Chapter 6. Causation and Method in
Cartesian Meteorology 125
Epilogue 148
Notes 157
Bibliography 191
Index 207
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Ac know ledg ments
Research for this book was supported by generous grants from the Dibner
History of Science Program at the Huntington Library, Villa I Tatti, the Gladys
Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek in
conjunction with the De Wulf- Mansion Centre, the History of Science Depart-
ment at the University of Oklahoma, and Oakland University. I am extremely
grateful for their support.
Preliminary versions of several chapters were presented at annual meetings
of the Re nais sance Society of America and the History of Science Society, at a
seminar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana
University, and at McGill University. I thank all of those who posed questions
at those pre sen ta tions. I received many comments and criticisms for earlier
versions and drafts of chapters. For these suggestions I owe gratitude to Matthew
Klemm, Christoph Lüthy, Gideon Manning, Bill Newman, Katharine Park,
H. Darrel Rutkin, Andrew Sparling, Edith Sylla, and Gideon Yaff e.
Although the research for this book was conducted at numerous libraries,
I spent much time at a few. I thank the staff s of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the
Biblioteca Marciana, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II,
the Biblioteca Universitaria di Padova, the History of Science Collections at the
University of Oklahoma, and the Huntington Library for their assistance and
generosity. Fabio Forner helped introduce me to many Italian libraries. I wrote
much of this book as a Dibner Fellow at the Huntington Library, where discus-
sions and conversations with Nick Dew, Jan Golinski, Juan Gomez, Roy Laird,
Anca Parvulescu, Constantin Parvulescu, Nick Popper, Tiff any Werth, and
many others sustained me. I thank Pam Long for encouraging me at the start
and at the end of the project. I am grateful for the work of Josh Tong, who greatly
improved the fi nal manuscript. From the beginnings of my career to the pres-
ent, Don Smith has provided me with intellectual inspiration and companion-
ship. Much of my approach to the study of the history of science I owe to the
viii Acknowledgments
teaching of John Murdoch, my doctoral adviser. It greatly saddens me that
John did not live to see this book in print.
Finally, I thank my parents and my brother Russell for their kindness, love,
and aff ection. Without them, I could not have written this book.
Re nais sance Meteorology