This document contains addenda et corrigenda to my monograph publication Magnes (2020). It will b... more This document contains addenda et corrigenda to my monograph publication Magnes (2020). It will be updated on a regular basis. If you notice further addenda et corrigenda for the monograph, please let me know. Greatly appreciated.
Why does a magnet attract iron? Why does a compass needle point north? Although the magnet or lod... more Why does a magnet attract iron? Why does a compass needle point north? Although the magnet or lodestone was known since antiquity, magnetism only became an important topic in natural science and technology in the early modern period. In Magnes Christoph Sander explores this fascinating subject and draws, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of early modern research on magnetism (c. 1500–1650). Covering all disciplines of this period, Magnes examines what scholars understood by ‘magnet’ and ‘magnetism,’ which properties they ascribed to it, in which instruments and practices magnetism was employed, and how they tried to explain this exciting phenomenon. This historical panorama is based on circa 1500 historical sources, including over 100 manuscripts.
The project "Magnetic Margins" investigates how and by whom the most important book publications ... more The project "Magnetic Margins" investigates how and by whom the most important book publications on magnetism were read and annotated. This database provides a census of major publications in this field of study and maps annotations in the individual copies of these editions. For further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there:
This image database includes all known images related to the investigation or usage of magnetism,... more This image database includes all known images related to the investigation or usage of magnetism, magnetic phenomena, and loadstones.
It currently includes images in printed editions, yet not multiple editions of the same work. This database is frequently updated.
this image database lists all known 178 images related to petrus peregrinusʼ epistola de magnete ... more this image database lists all known 178 images related to petrus peregrinusʼ epistola de magnete up to the seventeenth century. this image database includes all this material and even includes marginal drawings in the printed editions. see a list of sources here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/peregrinus_images_census.html for further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there.
In 1898, Gustav Hellmann published his anthology called Rara magnetica (1269-1599). With this collection, he aimed at making available some of the earliest, yet rare publications in the field of geomagnetism that predated William Gilbert's De magnete of 1600.
This website has a similar goal. While the concept of rarity has deeply changed in the digital era, it still needs ways to re-publish relevant but understudied sources – or sources that are not available in modern machine readable editions but should be.
This website will therefore publish less and well known sources for the study of magnetism in the premodern era. It will include both images and texts and provide tools to investigate each of them independently and both of them in combination.
Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie [ https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=fzp-003%3A2017%3A64%3A%3A10&referrer=search#10 ], 2017
Digital Humanities 2023. Collaboration as Opportunity (DH2023), 2023
This paper presents a platform providing a digital census of copies of a limited number of printe... more This paper presents a platform providing a digital census of copies of a limited number of printed editions and mapping their owners and readers' annotations represented in an RDF framework. Its ResearchSpace instance, magnetic-margins.com, provides interactive statistical analyses of the data that is encoded predominantly using CIDOC-CRM and FRBRoo.
In medieval natural philosophy and medicine, magnetic attraction was the most commonly invoked ex... more In medieval natural philosophy and medicine, magnetic attraction was the most commonly invoked example for the effects of so-called ‘occult qualities’ or ‘occult powers.’ According to this conception – which dates back to Galen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Avicenna – magnetism was caused by an insensible quality and not, therefore, by one of the four primary qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). Already disputed in medieval times, however, was whether the magnet’s ‘temperament’, ‘mixture’ or ‘complexion’ might not account for the attraction of iron. In the early modern period, trained physicians above all increasingly refuted ‘occult qualities’ in magnetism, while at the same time retaining a Galenic framework. They argued instead for more elaborate theories invoking the magnet’s and iron’s ‘complexion’ or their single primary qualities, such as ‘humidity’ or ‘heat.’ Medical concepts were often combined with meteorological ideas for causal theories of natural phenomena like magnetism. By telling this unheard story of ‘complexion’ in theories of magnetism, we show not only how medical theories were transferred from medicine into other fields of research, but also that an established narrative in modern historiography is highly questionable: contrary to what was assumed by the contemporary critics (e.g., Descartes) and many modern historians, several Galenic physicians did not subscribe to a theory of occult qualities (in the case of magnetism) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The label of ‘Jesuit Science’ is frequently used in academic and popular literature, but it remai... more The label of ‘Jesuit Science’ is frequently used in academic and popular literature, but it remains rather poorly defined and is in fact avoided by some specialists in the field. The present essay places some of the most recent monographic publications on Jesuit contributions to science within a critical discussion about the scope, usefulness, and challenges of the label ‘Jesuit Science’ in historical research. With this meta-study I set out an argument for what I call a case-sensitive approach to the term, that is, the importance of distinguishing between different notions of ‘Jesuit Science’. In some cases, it might be possible and useful to identify something specifically Jesuit, while in other cases it might be more prudent and adequate to highlight the shared ground with other historical actors and not to stipulate any core Jesuit identity beyond the actors being members of the Society of Jesus.
In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method... more In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method of transmitting secret messages by using manipulated magnetic compasses. Soon thereafter, this idea, known in modern historiography as ‘magnetic telegraphy’, was spelled out and advertised by many early modern scholars as a promising technology of communication by action at a distance. In 1609, Daniel Schwenter created the most sophisticated design for the fulfillment of this potential: two compass needles were to be magnetized in a highly codified procedure to establish a sympathetic bond between them. Used in a compass circumscribed by an alphabet, one needle would turn to a certain letter whenever the other needle was moved to that same letter. Through ‘sympathy’, it was thought that this could made to occur even over a distance of many miles. The idea’s first critic, the Jesuit, Leonardo Garzoni, was quick to dismiss it as charlatanry, and many later authors argued that the device could not work as there was no such ‘sympathy’ or magnetism between the two devices. Though only a fanciful pipe dream of natural magic, this pseudo-technology of a magnetic telegraph yet testifies to the imagination of early modern scholars in having prefigured the modern reality of instantaneous global communication.
Human beings can neither see nor feel magnetism, although its effects can be made manifest to sen... more Human beings can neither see nor feel magnetism, although its effects can be made manifest to sense experience through experiments. Since antiquity, philosophers have therefore often viewed magnetism as an “occult” force, for whose manifest effects a hidden cause had to be sought. Around 1300, scholars began to address the seemingly occult nature of magnetism not only through experimental investigation but also visually, attempting to represent experimental results in diagrams. Historical research on diagrams has been fairly negligent about the relation between diagrams and scientific practices, including experiments. This paper will try to redress the balance, by focusing on diagrams in manuscripts and printed texts between 1300 and 1700 that were produced in response to magnetic experiments. It will be argued that naturalistic and geometrizing forms of representation were combined in order to render experiments with magnetism understandable, replicable, and meaningful. This resulted in a visual style of diagram that oscillated between the abstract representation of invisible entities or powers and the concrete and performative depiction of actual objects or operations.
This essay examines the pre-modern investigation of loadstones or magnetite, from the modern pers... more This essay examines the pre-modern investigation of loadstones or magnetite, from the modern perspective of “geology” in the broadest sense. The focal question here is what assumptions researchers made about the relationship between magnetite and its effects, and planet earth. As long ago as the early 16th century, scholars and miners had begun to record locations of magnetite deposits more precisely, more systematically, and across a wider geographical area. In the 17th century, researchers then explained how magnetite was formed within the Earth and what role the planet’s geographical characteristics played in geomagnetic phenomena. These questions are undoubtedly to be regarded as inventions of the Early Modern period as they were not addressed in any more detail until after the English physician and natural philosopher William Gilbert had termed the Earth a “great magnet” in the year 1600. Initially, what miners and other practitioners knew about magnetite deposits and what theoreticians thought about their formation and interaction with the planet existed more or less in isolation. However, the more advanced and increasingly nuanced mapping of sites of discovery became increasingly relevant from a theoretical perspective during the 17th century. Some authors such as Gilbert, Niccolò Cabeo and Athanasius Kircher “demonstrated” the veracity of their speculations about underground structures made of magnetic deposits by, for example, furnishing fragments of knowledge or anecdotal accounts of discovery sites or geological events. Philosophers such as René Descartes subsequently hypothesised about how the planet, as a magnet, emitted tiny particles that were then to provide a mechanical explanation for geomagnetic phenomena on Earth.
The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimenta... more The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimental approach to natural philosophy in the early modern period. William Gilbert’s De magnete, in particular, and Leonardo Garzoni’s Due trattati, are taken to herald this development. This article brings to light a contrasting approach to magnetism, by analyzing an extensive and hitherto unknown study on the magnet by the Vatican librarian Leone Allacci, and its relation to Giulio Cesare LaGalla’s Disputatio de sympathia et antipathia (1623). Allacci’s De magnete (1625) which survives in a single manuscript, offers a comprehensive literature review on early modern knowledge about the magnet in a variety of disciplines, including natural history, natural philosophy, navigational science, natural magic, and medicine. Allacci incorporates Greek Byzantine authors as well into his doxographical anthology, and he commends the Paracelsian ‘weapon salve,’ which was condemned by most Catholics at hi...
Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe: Modes of Material and Scientific Exchange, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86600-6
Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in e... more https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86600-6 Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in early modern printed books can be used by historians to situate a book's production in its institutional and social context. We depart from the general assumption that two publishers or printers were in a relation of awareness of each other if they printed and put on the market two different editions that contain at least one identical paratext. In this paper, we analyze the circulation of the paratexts among the 359 editions of the "Sphaera corpus." First, we discuss the available data, the conditions to build a social network, and the latter's characteristics. Second, we interpret the results-potential relationships among printers and publishers-from a historical point of view and, at the same time, discuss the sorts of potential relationships that this method can disclose. Third, we corroborate the historical results among different approaches, namely by using editions' fingerprints and by investigating the book production of those printers and publishers tangentially involved in relevant relationships, but who fall outside the "Sphaera corpus." Finally, we identify local communities of printers and publishers and, on a transregional level, printers, and publishers who were observing and influencing each other. Keywords Paratext • Tractatus de sphaera • Johannes de Sacrobosco • Social network • Local market 1 Premise In the context of the research project The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe (https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), we
Nutrition and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle and Aristotelianism, edited by Roberto Lo Presti and Georgia-Maria Korobili. Topics in Ancient Philosophy. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021
Already in Antiquity, Galen linked magnetic attraction, by way of an analogy, to the idea that an... more Already in Antiquity, Galen linked magnetic attraction, by way of an analogy, to the idea that animal parts are able to attract their own ‘specific quality’. For example, a kidney attracts urine just like the magnet attracts iron. In the Middle Ages, Averroes argued that foodstuff and iron possess a specific disposition which allows them to move themselves towards the body and a magnet respectively. Thus, the concepts of ‘specific attraction’ and ‘dispositional selfmovement’ were regarded as crucial to understanding the powers of both a magnet and a living body. Particularly in the early modern period, these concepts were spelled out differently by Aristotelians, Galenists and Paracelsians. During this period, the magnetism-nutrition analogy was also transformed into a vitalist principle in order to explain magnetic attraction itself. Natural philosophers such as Gerolamo Cardano suggested that a magnet, being alive in some way, seeks out iron as its foodstuff – a popular idea among alchemists as well. This paper aims to trace the complicated history of two intertwined concepts, ‘nutrition’ and ‘magnetism’, which were closely related in pre-modern times but appear to be unrelated from a modern perspective. By uncovering the historical origin(s) of this relation, its rationale, its subsequent transformation and its dissolution, the historical concept of ‘nutrition’ will come into sharper view from the perspective of the history of ideas. At the same time, from the perspective of the philosophy of science, this historical study presents a test case scenario for discussing the importance of metaphors and analogies in the formation of scientific theory.
De homine. Anthropologien in der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Sascha Salatowsky and Wilhelm Schmidt‐Biggemann. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2021
Are hair and blood parts of our human body? Such a question nowadays might appear rather strange,... more Are hair and blood parts of our human body? Such a question nowadays might appear rather strange, if not self-explanatory, one readily answered by biologists or physicians. Yet, in medieval and early-modern times, this question was contentious and far from being a scholastic quibble or hair-splitting. In fact, the answer to this question touched the core beliefs of Christology and affected the understanding of the Resurrection and the Eucharist. This essay follows this line of thought in a longue-durée perspective from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. It demonstrates the intertwinement of philosophical, medical and philological problems with their theological underpinning. For example, Catholic theologians and philosophers of the sixteenth century felt compelled to discuss the nature of blood as a bodily part in reaction to the doctrine of the Eucharist as declared by the Council of Trent. Thereby, they had to renegotiate the relation between Aristotelian natural philosophy and biology vis-à-vis the Catholic dogma. By considering several authors and their arguments across four centuries, the overarching lines and structures of the entire discussion will become clear and demand for integrating such odd discussions into the narrative of the history of pre-modern philosophy and science.
This document contains addenda et corrigenda to my monograph publication Magnes (2020). It will b... more This document contains addenda et corrigenda to my monograph publication Magnes (2020). It will be updated on a regular basis. If you notice further addenda et corrigenda for the monograph, please let me know. Greatly appreciated.
Why does a magnet attract iron? Why does a compass needle point north? Although the magnet or lod... more Why does a magnet attract iron? Why does a compass needle point north? Although the magnet or lodestone was known since antiquity, magnetism only became an important topic in natural science and technology in the early modern period. In Magnes Christoph Sander explores this fascinating subject and draws, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of early modern research on magnetism (c. 1500–1650). Covering all disciplines of this period, Magnes examines what scholars understood by ‘magnet’ and ‘magnetism,’ which properties they ascribed to it, in which instruments and practices magnetism was employed, and how they tried to explain this exciting phenomenon. This historical panorama is based on circa 1500 historical sources, including over 100 manuscripts.
The project "Magnetic Margins" investigates how and by whom the most important book publications ... more The project "Magnetic Margins" investigates how and by whom the most important book publications on magnetism were read and annotated. This database provides a census of major publications in this field of study and maps annotations in the individual copies of these editions. For further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there:
This image database includes all known images related to the investigation or usage of magnetism,... more This image database includes all known images related to the investigation or usage of magnetism, magnetic phenomena, and loadstones.
It currently includes images in printed editions, yet not multiple editions of the same work. This database is frequently updated.
this image database lists all known 178 images related to petrus peregrinusʼ epistola de magnete ... more this image database lists all known 178 images related to petrus peregrinusʼ epistola de magnete up to the seventeenth century. this image database includes all this material and even includes marginal drawings in the printed editions. see a list of sources here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/peregrinus_images_census.html for further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there.
In 1898, Gustav Hellmann published his anthology called Rara magnetica (1269-1599). With this collection, he aimed at making available some of the earliest, yet rare publications in the field of geomagnetism that predated William Gilbert's De magnete of 1600.
This website has a similar goal. While the concept of rarity has deeply changed in the digital era, it still needs ways to re-publish relevant but understudied sources – or sources that are not available in modern machine readable editions but should be.
This website will therefore publish less and well known sources for the study of magnetism in the premodern era. It will include both images and texts and provide tools to investigate each of them independently and both of them in combination.
Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie [ https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=fzp-003%3A2017%3A64%3A%3A10&referrer=search#10 ], 2017
Digital Humanities 2023. Collaboration as Opportunity (DH2023), 2023
This paper presents a platform providing a digital census of copies of a limited number of printe... more This paper presents a platform providing a digital census of copies of a limited number of printed editions and mapping their owners and readers' annotations represented in an RDF framework. Its ResearchSpace instance, magnetic-margins.com, provides interactive statistical analyses of the data that is encoded predominantly using CIDOC-CRM and FRBRoo.
In medieval natural philosophy and medicine, magnetic attraction was the most commonly invoked ex... more In medieval natural philosophy and medicine, magnetic attraction was the most commonly invoked example for the effects of so-called ‘occult qualities’ or ‘occult powers.’ According to this conception – which dates back to Galen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Avicenna – magnetism was caused by an insensible quality and not, therefore, by one of the four primary qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). Already disputed in medieval times, however, was whether the magnet’s ‘temperament’, ‘mixture’ or ‘complexion’ might not account for the attraction of iron. In the early modern period, trained physicians above all increasingly refuted ‘occult qualities’ in magnetism, while at the same time retaining a Galenic framework. They argued instead for more elaborate theories invoking the magnet’s and iron’s ‘complexion’ or their single primary qualities, such as ‘humidity’ or ‘heat.’ Medical concepts were often combined with meteorological ideas for causal theories of natural phenomena like magnetism. By telling this unheard story of ‘complexion’ in theories of magnetism, we show not only how medical theories were transferred from medicine into other fields of research, but also that an established narrative in modern historiography is highly questionable: contrary to what was assumed by the contemporary critics (e.g., Descartes) and many modern historians, several Galenic physicians did not subscribe to a theory of occult qualities (in the case of magnetism) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The label of ‘Jesuit Science’ is frequently used in academic and popular literature, but it remai... more The label of ‘Jesuit Science’ is frequently used in academic and popular literature, but it remains rather poorly defined and is in fact avoided by some specialists in the field. The present essay places some of the most recent monographic publications on Jesuit contributions to science within a critical discussion about the scope, usefulness, and challenges of the label ‘Jesuit Science’ in historical research. With this meta-study I set out an argument for what I call a case-sensitive approach to the term, that is, the importance of distinguishing between different notions of ‘Jesuit Science’. In some cases, it might be possible and useful to identify something specifically Jesuit, while in other cases it might be more prudent and adequate to highlight the shared ground with other historical actors and not to stipulate any core Jesuit identity beyond the actors being members of the Society of Jesus.
In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method... more In 1558, the famous natural magician Giambattista della Porta was the first to allude to a method of transmitting secret messages by using manipulated magnetic compasses. Soon thereafter, this idea, known in modern historiography as ‘magnetic telegraphy’, was spelled out and advertised by many early modern scholars as a promising technology of communication by action at a distance. In 1609, Daniel Schwenter created the most sophisticated design for the fulfillment of this potential: two compass needles were to be magnetized in a highly codified procedure to establish a sympathetic bond between them. Used in a compass circumscribed by an alphabet, one needle would turn to a certain letter whenever the other needle was moved to that same letter. Through ‘sympathy’, it was thought that this could made to occur even over a distance of many miles. The idea’s first critic, the Jesuit, Leonardo Garzoni, was quick to dismiss it as charlatanry, and many later authors argued that the device could not work as there was no such ‘sympathy’ or magnetism between the two devices. Though only a fanciful pipe dream of natural magic, this pseudo-technology of a magnetic telegraph yet testifies to the imagination of early modern scholars in having prefigured the modern reality of instantaneous global communication.
Human beings can neither see nor feel magnetism, although its effects can be made manifest to sen... more Human beings can neither see nor feel magnetism, although its effects can be made manifest to sense experience through experiments. Since antiquity, philosophers have therefore often viewed magnetism as an “occult” force, for whose manifest effects a hidden cause had to be sought. Around 1300, scholars began to address the seemingly occult nature of magnetism not only through experimental investigation but also visually, attempting to represent experimental results in diagrams. Historical research on diagrams has been fairly negligent about the relation between diagrams and scientific practices, including experiments. This paper will try to redress the balance, by focusing on diagrams in manuscripts and printed texts between 1300 and 1700 that were produced in response to magnetic experiments. It will be argued that naturalistic and geometrizing forms of representation were combined in order to render experiments with magnetism understandable, replicable, and meaningful. This resulted in a visual style of diagram that oscillated between the abstract representation of invisible entities or powers and the concrete and performative depiction of actual objects or operations.
This essay examines the pre-modern investigation of loadstones or magnetite, from the modern pers... more This essay examines the pre-modern investigation of loadstones or magnetite, from the modern perspective of “geology” in the broadest sense. The focal question here is what assumptions researchers made about the relationship between magnetite and its effects, and planet earth. As long ago as the early 16th century, scholars and miners had begun to record locations of magnetite deposits more precisely, more systematically, and across a wider geographical area. In the 17th century, researchers then explained how magnetite was formed within the Earth and what role the planet’s geographical characteristics played in geomagnetic phenomena. These questions are undoubtedly to be regarded as inventions of the Early Modern period as they were not addressed in any more detail until after the English physician and natural philosopher William Gilbert had termed the Earth a “great magnet” in the year 1600. Initially, what miners and other practitioners knew about magnetite deposits and what theoreticians thought about their formation and interaction with the planet existed more or less in isolation. However, the more advanced and increasingly nuanced mapping of sites of discovery became increasingly relevant from a theoretical perspective during the 17th century. Some authors such as Gilbert, Niccolò Cabeo and Athanasius Kircher “demonstrated” the veracity of their speculations about underground structures made of magnetic deposits by, for example, furnishing fragments of knowledge or anecdotal accounts of discovery sites or geological events. Philosophers such as René Descartes subsequently hypothesised about how the planet, as a magnet, emitted tiny particles that were then to provide a mechanical explanation for geomagnetic phenomena on Earth.
The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimenta... more The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimental approach to natural philosophy in the early modern period. William Gilbert’s De magnete, in particular, and Leonardo Garzoni’s Due trattati, are taken to herald this development. This article brings to light a contrasting approach to magnetism, by analyzing an extensive and hitherto unknown study on the magnet by the Vatican librarian Leone Allacci, and its relation to Giulio Cesare LaGalla’s Disputatio de sympathia et antipathia (1623). Allacci’s De magnete (1625) which survives in a single manuscript, offers a comprehensive literature review on early modern knowledge about the magnet in a variety of disciplines, including natural history, natural philosophy, navigational science, natural magic, and medicine. Allacci incorporates Greek Byzantine authors as well into his doxographical anthology, and he commends the Paracelsian ‘weapon salve,’ which was condemned by most Catholics at hi...
Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe: Modes of Material and Scientific Exchange, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86600-6
Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in e... more https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86600-6 Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in early modern printed books can be used by historians to situate a book's production in its institutional and social context. We depart from the general assumption that two publishers or printers were in a relation of awareness of each other if they printed and put on the market two different editions that contain at least one identical paratext. In this paper, we analyze the circulation of the paratexts among the 359 editions of the "Sphaera corpus." First, we discuss the available data, the conditions to build a social network, and the latter's characteristics. Second, we interpret the results-potential relationships among printers and publishers-from a historical point of view and, at the same time, discuss the sorts of potential relationships that this method can disclose. Third, we corroborate the historical results among different approaches, namely by using editions' fingerprints and by investigating the book production of those printers and publishers tangentially involved in relevant relationships, but who fall outside the "Sphaera corpus." Finally, we identify local communities of printers and publishers and, on a transregional level, printers, and publishers who were observing and influencing each other. Keywords Paratext • Tractatus de sphaera • Johannes de Sacrobosco • Social network • Local market 1 Premise In the context of the research project The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe (https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), we
Nutrition and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle and Aristotelianism, edited by Roberto Lo Presti and Georgia-Maria Korobili. Topics in Ancient Philosophy. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021
Already in Antiquity, Galen linked magnetic attraction, by way of an analogy, to the idea that an... more Already in Antiquity, Galen linked magnetic attraction, by way of an analogy, to the idea that animal parts are able to attract their own ‘specific quality’. For example, a kidney attracts urine just like the magnet attracts iron. In the Middle Ages, Averroes argued that foodstuff and iron possess a specific disposition which allows them to move themselves towards the body and a magnet respectively. Thus, the concepts of ‘specific attraction’ and ‘dispositional selfmovement’ were regarded as crucial to understanding the powers of both a magnet and a living body. Particularly in the early modern period, these concepts were spelled out differently by Aristotelians, Galenists and Paracelsians. During this period, the magnetism-nutrition analogy was also transformed into a vitalist principle in order to explain magnetic attraction itself. Natural philosophers such as Gerolamo Cardano suggested that a magnet, being alive in some way, seeks out iron as its foodstuff – a popular idea among alchemists as well. This paper aims to trace the complicated history of two intertwined concepts, ‘nutrition’ and ‘magnetism’, which were closely related in pre-modern times but appear to be unrelated from a modern perspective. By uncovering the historical origin(s) of this relation, its rationale, its subsequent transformation and its dissolution, the historical concept of ‘nutrition’ will come into sharper view from the perspective of the history of ideas. At the same time, from the perspective of the philosophy of science, this historical study presents a test case scenario for discussing the importance of metaphors and analogies in the formation of scientific theory.
De homine. Anthropologien in der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Sascha Salatowsky and Wilhelm Schmidt‐Biggemann. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2021
Are hair and blood parts of our human body? Such a question nowadays might appear rather strange,... more Are hair and blood parts of our human body? Such a question nowadays might appear rather strange, if not self-explanatory, one readily answered by biologists or physicians. Yet, in medieval and early-modern times, this question was contentious and far from being a scholastic quibble or hair-splitting. In fact, the answer to this question touched the core beliefs of Christology and affected the understanding of the Resurrection and the Eucharist. This essay follows this line of thought in a longue-durée perspective from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. It demonstrates the intertwinement of philosophical, medical and philological problems with their theological underpinning. For example, Catholic theologians and philosophers of the sixteenth century felt compelled to discuss the nature of blood as a bodily part in reaction to the doctrine of the Eucharist as declared by the Council of Trent. Thereby, they had to renegotiate the relation between Aristotelian natural philosophy and biology vis-à-vis the Catholic dogma. By considering several authors and their arguments across four centuries, the overarching lines and structures of the entire discussion will become clear and demand for integrating such odd discussions into the narrative of the history of pre-modern philosophy and science.
The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimenta... more The investigation of magnetic phenomena played a crucial role for the emergence of an experimental approach to natural philosophy in the early modern period. William Gilbert's De magnete, in particular, and Leonardo Garzoni's Due trattati, are taken to herald this development. This article brings to light a contrasting approach to magnetism , by analyzing an extensive and hitherto unknown study on the magnet by the Vatican librarian Leone Allacci, and its relation to Giulio Cesare LaGalla's Disputatio de sympathia et antipathia (1623). Allacci's De magnete (1625) which survives in a single manuscript, offers a comprehensive literature review on early modern knowledge about the magnet in a variety of disciplines, including natural history, natural philosophy , navigational science, natural magic, and medicine. Allacci incorporates Greek Byzantine authors as well into his doxographical anthology, and he commends the Paracelsian 'weapon salve,' which was condemned by most Catholics at his time.
The present work investigates the process of emergence of new epistemic communities. The research is based on semantic, content-related data extracted from a corpus of 359 printed editions, mainly of textbooks used to teach cosmology at European universities between 1472 and 1650. Epistemic communities are identified as families of editions, grouped according to their content, that eventually came to shape knowledge within and by way of the European educational framework. First, a method of classifying the textual content of the books is introduced. Second, a directed, multiplex network is constructed in five layers whose structures are defined specifically for the research question at hand. Then the network is analyzed, first by making use of the aggregated graph—which accounts for the connectivity between books when any of the potential semantic relations are indistinctly considered—and second by showing the contribution of each layer to the emergence of new families of editions. Finally, we interpret the results within a historical framework and identify an epistemic community that represents continuity with the medieval tradition, plus two new scientific and diverging communities that originated in the cultural context of the Reformed countries, which appear in the 1530s. The characteristics of the identified epistemic communities are further analyzed in order to draw general inferences concerning mechanisms of emergence of epistemic communities and their identification in corpora of historical sources. The work concludes by describing future research endeavors related to the corpus, also based on new series of data.
Since antiquity, sources report that garlic deprives a magnet of its power of attraction. Althoug... more Since antiquity, sources report that garlic deprives a magnet of its power of attraction. Although in later centuries some authors disproved or questioned this effect by experience or trial, several, if not the majority of, writers referred to garlic and magnets as “enemies” until well into the seventeenth century. It will be argued that the probable textual origin of the “garlic effect” is a corrupt or ambiguous passage in Pliny’s Natural History, reading “al(l)ium” (garlic) instead of “aliud” (another) in one passage. With a focus on the early-modern period, it will be elucidated why so many authors did not doubt this physical effect, and some even presented causal explanations for it. It shall be emphasized, moreover, that magnetic attraction, and thereby also the garlic effect, was used as an important example or analogy since antiquity. This illustrative or explanatory use of analogies drawn from the garlic–magnet antipathy certainly goes some way towards explaining the longevity of this odd relation between the two substances.
This chapter sketches the origins and development of the debate over the notion of a uniform and ... more This chapter sketches the origins and development of the debate over the notion of a uniform and solid doctrine and its impact on Jesuit philosophy. More precisely, it outlines how Jesuits thought about and actually exercised censorship in philosophy, how much liberty of philosophizing they allowed for, and what institutional means they established to enforce solidity and uniformity in doctrine.
NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 2018
Johannes des Sacrobosco and the Sphere Tradition in Early Modern Catholic Censorship Johannes de ... more Johannes des Sacrobosco and the Sphere Tradition in Early Modern Catholic Censorship Johannes de Sacrobosco's (c. 1195–c. 1256) On the Sphere, a short introduction into qualitative cosmology written in the thirteenth century, was the most widely used textbook on cosmology in the early-modern period, being reprinted, re-edited or commented over 320 times. While the reception and circulation of this work in the sixteenth and seventeenth century is well known, one fact has so far escaped the notice of scholars: Sphaera textbooks were subject to several acts of ecclesiastical censorship in the early modern period, even though the content of this work promoted a cosmology that opposed the allegedly heretical implications of Copernicanism. This paper investigates for the very first time the dynamics and motives behind Roman and Iberian censorship in relation to this cosmology treatise. Editions and commentaries published by Protestants were generally regarded as suspect, but rarely prohibited across-the-board. Instead, they were usually approved for scientific use after expurgations had removed problematic theological passages. However, the commentary (1550) authored by the Catholic Mauro da Firenze (1493–1556) was prohibited repeatedly and completely because it contained theologically dangerous ideas. The case studies presented in this paper shall shed light on the dynamics of knowledge within the Sphere tradition from a new perspective, that of the Catholic censorship of books. Moreover , a longitudinal study based on a specific genre of books provides insight into the ideology and practices of early modern catholic book censorship, whereby the well-known problematic relationship between science and religion in the pre-modern period is seen in the context of a confessionalisation of science.
Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 2017
The Jesuit theologian Alfonso Salmerón (1515–1585) argues in the first volume (printed 1598) of h... more The Jesuit theologian Alfonso Salmerón (1515–1585) argues in the first volume (printed 1598) of his extensive commentary to the New Testament that the knowledge of secular sciences serves as an important instrument to in-terpret Scripture. He justifies this claim by relying on the principle of the unity of truth and defends this approach explicitly against Martin Luther’s criticism of philosophy and secular sciences. Salmerón’s contribution proves that the question of the unity of truth – already before the Galileo affair – was an important issue for counter-reformation theology, i.e. in controver-sies with Protestant authors after the Council of Trent.
The study of magnetism was an important field of Renaissance natural philosophy and the practical... more The study of magnetism was an important field of Renaissance natural philosophy and the practical sciences. Scholars examined the powers of the magnet (i.e., the lodestone or loadstone) by experiments and observed the magnetic properties of the Earth, for example, the direction and declination of the compass needle, by means of instruments and long-term observations. In 1600, William Gilbert published the first extensive study on magnetism (De magnete) and claimed the Earth was a giant magnet. While most philosophers rooted in medieval Scholasticism and Galenism deemed it impossible to analyze the physical causes of magnetic phenomena, several Renaissance philosophers attempted to explain the powers of the magnet within a range of different philosophical frameworks. Philosophers such as Pierre Gassendi and René Descartes imagined particles being emitted by a magnet, while others attributed animal-like behavior to it. Aside from this type of investigation, magnetism also figured as an explanatory principle or as an analogy in various contexts. The very term magnetismus, for example, was coined by Andreas Libavius in a 1597 work on alchemy. During the seventeenth century, a controversy emerged around Gilbert’s “magnetic philosophy,” which accounted for the diurnal rotation of the Earth by its magnetic power. Johannes Kepler even considered certain planetary movements as caused by the magnetism of the sun.
In 1513, the Fifth Council of the Lateran significantly impacted on early-modern Christian philos... more In 1513, the Fifth Council of the Lateran significantly impacted on early-modern Christian philosophy. As is well known, the papal bull Apostolici regiminis condemned certain philosophical doctrines contradicting the personal immortality of the soul. Moreover,the bull prohibited to defend the notion of a double truth in philosophical disputations and urged universities to meet the prescriptions of this decree. This article will shed light on how this papal intervention in the practice of schooling was met at the early Jesuit college in Rome and the role of Diego de Ledesma, the college’s educational designer, in implementing the bull’s concerns.
athanasius kircher: magnes; sive, de arte magnetica opus tripartitum (rome 1654).
edited by chris... more athanasius kircher: magnes; sive, de arte magnetica opus tripartitum (rome 1654). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/f0e5-ca81 (version 26.05.2022)].
antonio pigafetta (tr.): trattato della pietra calamita, et di una rota del moto perpetuo
(vienna... more antonio pigafetta (tr.): trattato della pietra calamita, et di una rota del moto perpetuo (vienna, österreichische nationalbibliothek, lat. 5969, fols. 180r–199v, second half of 16th century). edited by loris sturlese and christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7375-42df (version 30.07.2021)].
william gilbert: tractatus, sive physiologia nova de magnete, magneticisque corporibus
et magno m... more william gilbert: tractatus, sive physiologia nova de magnete, magneticisque corporibus et magno magnete tellure sex libris comprehensus (stettin 1628). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/c425-ae46 (version 08.10.2021)].
william gilbert: de magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure;
physiologia n... more william gilbert: de magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure; physiologia nova, plurimis & argumentis, & experimentis demonstrata (london 1600). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/a538-0f98 (version 30.07.2021)].
petrus peregrinus: de magnete, seu rota perpetui motus, libellus (augsburg 1558).
edited by chris... more petrus peregrinus: de magnete, seu rota perpetui motus, libellus (augsburg 1558). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/59ea-48df (version 30.07.2021)].
niccolò cabeo: philosophia magnetica (ferrara 1629). edited by christoph sander.
published online... more niccolò cabeo: philosophia magnetica (ferrara 1629). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/6e08-3fba (version 01.04.2022)].
mark ridley: a short treatise of magneticall bodies and motions (london 1613). edited
by christop... more mark ridley: a short treatise of magneticall bodies and motions (london 1613). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/3503-376c (version 30.08.2022)].
jean taisnier: opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum: de natura magnetis, et eius
effectibus (je... more jean taisnier: opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum: de natura magnetis, et eius effectibus (jena, universitätsbibliothek, sag. f.18. cart. misc. xvi-xvii, fols. 19r-22r, early 17th century). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/afbf-627e (version 30.07.2021)].
jean taisnier: opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum: de natura magnetis, et eius
effectibus (co... more jean taisnier: opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum: de natura magnetis, et eius effectibus (cologne 1562). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/c54b-1810 (version 30.07.2021)].
athanasius kircher and johann jacob schweigkhard von freihausen: ars magnesia: hoc
est disquisiti... more athanasius kircher and johann jacob schweigkhard von freihausen: ars magnesia: hoc est disquisitio bipartita empeirica seu experimentalis, physico-mathematica de natura, viribus et prodigiosis effectibus magnetis (wurzburg 1631). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/115c-c5e9 (version 26.05.2022)].
leonardo garzoni: trattato delli maravigliosi effetti della calamita et delle cause loro.
distin... more leonardo garzoni: trattato delli maravigliosi effetti della calamita et delle cause loro.
distinto in due libri (madrid, biblioteca nacional, mss/2020, c. 1590). edited by christoph sander. published
online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/011f-9ea5 (version 30.07.2021)].
laurens reael and kaspar van baerle: observatien of ondervindingen aen de
magneetsteen: en de mag... more laurens reael and kaspar van baerle: observatien of ondervindingen aen de magneetsteen: en de magnetische kracht der aerde (amsterdam 1651). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7f6e-4bc7 (version 30.07.2021)].
laurens reael and kaspar van baerle: observatien of ondervindingen aen de
magneetsteen: en de ma... more laurens reael and kaspar van baerle: observatien of ondervindingen aen de
magneetsteen: en de magnetische kracht der aerde (amsterdam 1651). edited by christoph sander. published
online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7f6e-4bc7 (version 30.07.2021)].
Diagrammatic forms of visualization are ubiquitous in scientific publications, as well as in popular mediations of scientific contents. Every computer interface relies on diagrammatic forms, combining textual and graphical elements. Diagrams abstract and encode information. They are indispensable in many scientific contexts, and, together with charts and graphs, also in the daily media, reaching a wide audience of experts and non-experts.
As natural and familiar as these abstract forms of representing information are to us, they are products of many historical developments. Their historical roots may go back to prehistoric epochs. However, the historical integration of diagrams in scientific contexts is relatively recent. Even if these developments with regard to Western cultures have their origin in antiquity and were significantly developed further in the sciences of the Middle Ages, the early modern period can be considered the first flourishing phase of the diagram in practically all areas of the sciences of that time.
This event proposes to trace this historical development in the early modern period. It takes a truly interdisciplinary approach when talking about a timespan of roughly 500 years (1300-1800) across all early modern sciences, from Architecture to Zodiac men in medicine. The talks bring together research on the culture of the diagram in various sciences of the epoch to form a large overall picture.
This event aims at tracing the emergences and the disruptions of traditions of diagrams in all fields of scientific theory and practice, e.g. (but not restricted to) geometry, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, alchemy, law, theology, and music.
Uploads
www.magnetic-margins.com
It currently includes images in printed editions, yet not multiple editions of the same work. This database is frequently updated.
A list of sources included in the current version here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/vismag_sources.html
See statistics for all tags used here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/vismag_stats.html
For further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there.
In 1898, Gustav Hellmann published his anthology called Rara magnetica (1269-1599). With this collection, he aimed at making available some of the earliest, yet rare publications in the field of geomagnetism that predated William Gilbert's De magnete of 1600.
This website has a similar goal. While the concept of rarity has deeply changed in the digital era, it still needs ways to re-publish relevant but understudied sources – or sources that are not available in modern machine readable editions but should be.
This website will therefore publish less and well known sources for the study of magnetism in the premodern era. It will include both images and texts and provide tools to investigate each of them independently and both of them in combination.
More content will be added soon!
Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in early modern printed books can be used by historians to situate a book's production in its institutional and social context. We depart from the general assumption that two publishers or printers were in a relation of awareness of each other if they printed and put on the market two different editions that contain at least one identical paratext. In this paper, we analyze the circulation of the paratexts among the 359 editions of the "Sphaera corpus." First, we discuss the available data, the conditions to build a social network, and the latter's characteristics. Second, we interpret the results-potential relationships among printers and publishers-from a historical point of view and, at the same time, discuss the sorts of potential relationships that this method can disclose. Third, we corroborate the historical results among different approaches, namely by using editions' fingerprints and by investigating the book production of those printers and publishers tangentially involved in relevant relationships, but who fall outside the "Sphaera corpus." Finally, we identify local communities of printers and publishers and, on a transregional level, printers, and publishers who were observing and influencing each other. Keywords Paratext • Tractatus de sphaera • Johannes de Sacrobosco • Social network • Local market 1 Premise In the context of the research project The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe (https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), we
www.magnetic-margins.com
It currently includes images in printed editions, yet not multiple editions of the same work. This database is frequently updated.
A list of sources included in the current version here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/vismag_sources.html
See statistics for all tags used here: https://ch-sander.github.io/raramagnetica/vismag_stats.html
For further information, please navigate to the ressource and see documentation there.
In 1898, Gustav Hellmann published his anthology called Rara magnetica (1269-1599). With this collection, he aimed at making available some of the earliest, yet rare publications in the field of geomagnetism that predated William Gilbert's De magnete of 1600.
This website has a similar goal. While the concept of rarity has deeply changed in the digital era, it still needs ways to re-publish relevant but understudied sources – or sources that are not available in modern machine readable editions but should be.
This website will therefore publish less and well known sources for the study of magnetism in the premodern era. It will include both images and texts and provide tools to investigate each of them independently and both of them in combination.
More content will be added soon!
Paratexts, such as dedication letters or epigrams, in early modern printed books can be used by historians to situate a book's production in its institutional and social context. We depart from the general assumption that two publishers or printers were in a relation of awareness of each other if they printed and put on the market two different editions that contain at least one identical paratext. In this paper, we analyze the circulation of the paratexts among the 359 editions of the "Sphaera corpus." First, we discuss the available data, the conditions to build a social network, and the latter's characteristics. Second, we interpret the results-potential relationships among printers and publishers-from a historical point of view and, at the same time, discuss the sorts of potential relationships that this method can disclose. Third, we corroborate the historical results among different approaches, namely by using editions' fingerprints and by investigating the book production of those printers and publishers tangentially involved in relevant relationships, but who fall outside the "Sphaera corpus." Finally, we identify local communities of printers and publishers and, on a transregional level, printers, and publishers who were observing and influencing each other. Keywords Paratext • Tractatus de sphaera • Johannes de Sacrobosco • Social network • Local market 1 Premise In the context of the research project The Sphere: Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe (https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), we
The present work investigates the process of emergence of new epistemic communities. The research is based on semantic, content-related data extracted from a corpus of 359 printed editions, mainly of textbooks used to teach cosmology at European universities between 1472 and 1650. Epistemic communities are identified as families of editions, grouped according to their content, that eventually came to shape knowledge within and by way of the European educational framework. First, a method of classifying the textual content of the books is introduced. Second, a directed, multiplex network is constructed in five layers whose structures are defined specifically for the research question at hand. Then the network is analyzed, first by making use of the aggregated graph—which accounts for the connectivity between books when any of the potential semantic relations are indistinctly considered—and second by showing the contribution of each layer to the emergence of new families of editions. Finally, we interpret the results within a historical framework and identify an epistemic community that represents continuity with the medieval tradition, plus two new scientific and diverging communities that originated in the cultural context of the Reformed countries, which appear in the 1530s. The characteristics of the identified epistemic communities are further analyzed in order to draw general inferences concerning mechanisms of emergence of epistemic communities and their identification in corpora of historical sources. The work concludes by describing future research endeavors related to the corpus, also based on new series of data.
edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/f0e5-ca81
(version 26.05.2022)].
(vienna, österreichische nationalbibliothek, lat. 5969, fols. 180r–199v, second half of 16th century). edited by
loris sturlese and christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica
[https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7375-42df (version 30.07.2021)].
et magno magnete tellure sex libris comprehensus (stettin 1628). edited by christoph sander. published online
at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/c425-ae46 (version 08.10.2021)].
physiologia nova, plurimis & argumentis, & experimentis demonstrata (london 1600). edited by christoph
sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/a538-0f98 (version
30.07.2021)].
edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/59ea-48df
(version 30.07.2021)].
published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/6e08-3fba (version 01.04.2022)].
by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/3503-376c
(version 30.08.2022)].
effectibus (jena, universitätsbibliothek, sag. f.18. cart. misc. xvi-xvii, fols. 19r-22r, early 17th century). edited
by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/afbf-627e
(version 30.07.2021)].
effectibus (cologne 1562). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica
[https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/c54b-1810 (version 30.07.2021)].
[https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/470f-d270 (version 04.05.2022)].
est disquisitio bipartita empeirica seu experimentalis, physico-mathematica de natura, viribus et prodigiosis
effectibus magnetis (wurzburg 1631). edited by christoph sander. published online at rara magnetica
[https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/115c-c5e9 (version 26.05.2022)].
distinto in due libri (madrid, biblioteca nacional, mss/2020, c. 1590). edited by christoph sander. published
online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/011f-9ea5 (version 30.07.2021)].
magneetsteen: en de magnetische kracht der aerde (amsterdam 1651). edited by christoph sander. published
online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7f6e-4bc7 (version 30.07.2021)].
magneetsteen: en de magnetische kracht der aerde (amsterdam 1651). edited by christoph sander. published
online at rara magnetica [https://doi.org/10.48431/hc-trans/7f6e-4bc7 (version 30.07.2021)].
Diagrammatic forms of visualization are ubiquitous in scientific publications, as well as in popular mediations of scientific contents. Every computer interface relies on diagrammatic forms, combining textual and graphical elements. Diagrams abstract and encode information. They are indispensable in many scientific contexts, and, together with charts and graphs, also in the daily media, reaching a wide audience of experts and non-experts.
As natural and familiar as these abstract forms of representing information are to us, they are products of many historical developments. Their historical roots may go back to prehistoric epochs. However, the historical integration of diagrams in scientific contexts is relatively recent. Even if these developments with regard to Western cultures have their origin in antiquity and were significantly developed further in the sciences of the Middle Ages, the early modern period can be considered the first flourishing phase of the diagram in practically all areas of the sciences of that time.
This event proposes to trace this historical development in the early modern period. It takes a truly interdisciplinary approach when talking about a timespan of roughly 500 years (1300-1800) across all early modern sciences, from Architecture to Zodiac men in medicine. The talks bring together research on the culture of the diagram in various sciences of the epoch to form a large overall picture.
This event aims at tracing the emergences and the disruptions of traditions of diagrams in all fields of scientific theory and practice, e.g. (but not restricted to) geometry, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, alchemy, law, theology, and music.