Science de la nature et Reformation: La physique de la Reforme dans l'enseignement de Philippe Melanchthon. (Reviews).

Dino Bellucci, Science de la nature et Reformation: La physique de la Reforme dans l'enseignement de Philippe Melanchthon

Roma: Edizioni Vivere In, 1998. 717 pp. n.p. ISBN: 88-7263-131-9.

Sciences et religions de Copernic a Galilee (1540-1610): Actes du colloque international organise par l'Ecole Francaise de Rome, en collaboration avec l'Ecole Nationale des Chartes, et l'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, avec la participation de l'Universita di Napoli "Federico II, "Rome 12-14 decembre 1996

(Collection de l'Ecole Francaise de Rome, 260) Rome: Ecole Francaise de Rome, 1999. 4 pls. + 550 pp. n.p. ISBN: 2-7283-0545-5.

The two books I have been asked to review are both valuable additions to the growing literature concerning the complex relationships between religion and the sciences during the early modern era. Dino Bellucci's book is a major contribution to the study of the thought of Philip Melanchthon, the praeceptor of Germany. It is an in depth study of some aspects of natural philosophy as revealed in certain of the works of Melanchthon. The great Lutheran teacher's concerns in natural philosophy were intimately linked to his theology and to his anthropology; thus, the subtitle of the work, where physics, or science, is indicated as being in the service of the Reformation.

Bellucci analyzes a number of major areas in Melanchthon's thought, focusing on the Initia doctrinae physicae (1549), the Liber de anima (1540), and the Commentarius de anima (1550). First, the author dissects Melanchthon's ideas on divine justice and the faith. Then, in part two, he moves on to natural philosophy proper and demonstrates how for the great Protestant reformer natural philosopher was the way to God. In Melanchthon's thought, God was the Mens architectarix (the Architectonic Mind) and Prima causa (First Cause). Studying the physical universe helped reveal His nature. In this part of the volume, Bellucci discerns strong Platonic elements in Melanchthon's thinking and much of this is reminiscent of the thought of the later scientific genius Kepler.

Bellucci proceeds to lengthy discussions of Melanchthon's views of the heavens and heavenly bodies, their nature and functions. Included in this section is an important discussion of astrology and its proper role in an understanding of the universe. Being a historian of the relationships between cosmology and religion, I was especially intrigued by Bellucci's assertion in the conclusion to his book that Melanchthon was "modern" in his rejection of the traditional ideas of souls, intelligences, and angels as moving agencies of the heavenly bodies (644). Of course, as Bellucci admits, this denial was done on "non-scientific" grounds. We can certainly see Melanchthon as one of those early modern theologians and philosophers who took part in the dismantling of the "traditional cosmology."

After his discussion of the heavenly realm, Bellucci turns to two major sections on man, detailing Melanchthon's views on the nature of the human soul and on human emotions and appetites. The work focuses on all of the above for they reveal the true nature of natural philosophy for Melanchthon, the interconnected subjects God and man.

The author offers the reader not only lengthy and detailed analyzes of these subjects but also quotations from Melanchthon's works, with the Latin original in the notes. The author and publisher are to be commended for offering not only a substantial text but also a detailed table of contents and two indices, an index of persons and a superbly detailed one of subjects.

The noted Reformation scholar Ralph Keen has already raised cautions about Bellucci's work. In a review in Sixteenth Century Journal (Fall 2001), Keen worried over the lack of biographical detail and the overemphasis on the three works of Melanchthon mentioned above. Consequently, Keen argued, Bellucci did not present enough development in Melanchthon's thought. Keen also queried the particular editions of these works relied on by Bellucci. However, even given these objections, Bellucci's work was still rightly praised as a substantial contribution to Melanchthon scholarship. It is undoubtedly a fine complement to the earlier book on the same subject by Sachiko Kusukawa.

The second volume under review is an example of a book always the hardest for a reviewer to deal with, a collection of essays by many authors. In this case, we are dealing with the published proceedings of a conference held in 1996 on the theme of science and religion during the Renaissance. It would be foolhardy to try and review all of the essays in this volume. Let me say at the outset that the speakers at this conference are among the most distinguished historians of early modern science and there is something of value for everyone in this work.

This book is divided into five sections: the birth of trouble, the arsenal of responses, the role of individuals, the historiography of Renaissance science and religion and a conclusion on how the intellectual history of the Renaissance needs to be written within the French context. Many of these contributions are important in that they argue for the way in which religious ideas informed and helped shape scientific ones.

In the first section, we find a study by Luigi Mieru on the metaphysics of geometrical entities as found in the writings of Benito Pereyra, Pedro Fonseca, Francisco Suarez and Cristoforo Clavio. This essay should be read in conjunction with the works by Michael Gorman, Romano Gatto and Rosario Moscheo in the later sections of the volume. Gorman argues, pace Richard Blackwell, that the famous de auxilis controvery initiated by the theological work of Luis de Molina had important consequences for Jesuit discourses concerning the natural world and the certainty of mathematics. Gatto and Moscheo both offer studies of southern Italian mathematicians. Gatto focuses on the Jesuit Neapolitan professor Vincenzo Figliucci. In his teachings, Figliucci worked out a "theology of mathematics." Moscheo offers the reader a fine study of the religious and scientific currents in sixteenth-century Messina and also offers a valuable analysis of the religion of the famed mathematician Maurolico. At the end of his essay, Moscheo p rints a valuable Latin letter of 1562 by Maurolico to the Fathers of the Council of Trent.

Returning to part one, we find yet another valuable work on the Copernican controversy by Michel-Pierre Lerner. In this case, Lerner traces the use of the term "heresy" as it was applied to the Copernican cosmology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is complemented by the study, later in the book, of Massimo Bucciantini on the debate over the fluidity and corruptibility of the heavens among early seventeenth-century Italians, a subject dear to my heart. Bucciantini analyzes the arguments of Galileo, Federico Cesi and especially the little known Giovambattista Agucchi, whose own words and ideas on the interpretation of scripture concerning the nature of the heavens may very well have influenced the great Galileo. As an appendix to this essay, Bucciantini prints from the Vatican manuscript original the 1611 work by Agucchi on the fluidity and corruptibility of the heavens.

Of course, Protestantism receives its share of attention. In the first section of the work, two masters of Renaissance anatomy, Andrew Cunningham and Andrea Carlino, attempt to relate the Protestants to the dissection of the human body. Cunningham, in a very short and controversial contribution, argues that a distinctive "Protestant anatomy" emerged during the first half of the sixteenth century. This "Protestant anatomy was characterized by the following three signs: 1) a use of anatomy to underpin the study of the soul, 2) an appeal to reason and sense as opposed to "bookish" authority, 3) and, in the case of Paracelsus, a "radical Protestant," the turn away from an anatomy of the body with the eyes towards one of inner revelation" (95-99).

Relying on these criteria, Cunningham is quite willing to speak of Andreas Vesalius, with his appeal to the body over the authority of texts, as a Protestant anatomist, although Cunningham acknowledges that Vesalius was a Catholic by faith. I find this argument unconvincing. I do not accept the analogy Cunningham makes between Luther's sole reliance on the Word of God and the Bible and the reliance on the human body in anatomy nor am I convinced that an appeal to reason and sense was a particularly "Protestant" trait in the first half of the sixteenth century. As far as Paracelsus is concerned, his religious views were so shifting and so eccentric that I query the application of the term "Protestant" to him.

Carlino's essay is less controversial. He argues that there was a common unease among Catholics and Protestants concerning dissections, an unease based on issues of sacrilege and contamination. What differentiated the Catholics and Protestants in this case was the way in which this disquietude was expressed.

Protestants are also dealt with in later essays. Sachiko Kusukawa offers a short treatment of the natural philosophy of Melanchthon and his followers and Charlotte Methuen deals with the influence of the theological faculty of Tubingen on the young Kepler. Methuen makes the undeniable claim that Kepler's astronomy was shaped, to some degree, by the theologians of Tubingen. However, as she wisely points out, there was a wide spectrum of opinion among these theologians concerning the study of nature and there was no one "Lutheran attitude towards nature" present at Tubingen. (203).

It should be clear that this is entire volume is a treasure trove of important studies on the world of religion and science during the Renaissance. Many of the authors cited above have published entire volumes on the subjects of these relatively short essays and these books are probably well known to readers of Renaissance Quarterly. There are other essays of value present in this work and I recommend this book, along with that of Bellucci, to all those interested in the relationships between early modern science and religion.