Renaissance Science
Science and art were very much intermingled in the early Renaissance, with artists such as Leonardo
da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Yet the most significant development
of the era was not a specific discovery, but rather a process for discovery, the scientific method. This
revolutionary new way of learning about the world focused on empirical evidence, the importance of
mathematics, and discarding the Aristotelian "final cause" in favor of a mechanical philosophy. Early
and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus and Galileo. The new scientific method
led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, biology, and anatomy.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a true Renaissance man. He also was a lawyer, tax collector, a doctor,
military governor, judge, vicar-general of canon law and a Polish astronomer. Nicolaus Copernicus said
that the earth was not stationary. He also said the earth turned on its axis once a day and he doubted
the earth lay in the middle of the universe. He claimed that the sun was the center of the universe and
all the planets revolved around the sun. He also published a book on the revolution of the heavenly
bodies. His book De Revolutions was his most famous piece of work.
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was a respected philosopher, scientist and mathematician. He used new methods of
investigating nature and he invented analytic geometry. He was the first philosopher to describe the
physical universe in terms of matter and motion. He created three major works: Discourse on Method,
Meditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. He claimed that the world was created
by God and that it was made of two substances: matter and spirit. Matter was the physical universe
and spirit was the human mind. He considered that perhaps God or an evil spirit was constantly
tricking his mind causing him to believe what was false. His theories of knowledge and of the relation
between mind and matter influenced many later philosophers. His most famous quote was; “I think,
therefore I am”.
Gerardus Mercatur
Mercator's disciplines were cartography and geography. From 1535-1536 Mercator made terrestrial
globes for several rich individuals. In 1537 Mercator constructed a globe of the stars. He was the first
to use longitude and latitude for sailors. Mercator was also very good at making an accurate map of
Western Europe. Later Mercator lectured at Duisburg where he took some time off to make
Mercator's Great Atlas in which he sought to describe the world's history. He was the first to make a
map of the British Isles. He was an instrument maker and engraver. He made the first map of
Flanders. He made maps with a new type of projection.
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Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was born near Pisa in 1564—the same year in which Shakespeare was born and the
year in which Michelangelo and Calvin died. After studying at the University of Pisa, he was appointed
to the chair of mathematics.
Galileo was a true Renaissance man, excelling at many different endeavors, including lute playing
and painting. He attended medical school in Padua. While in a cathedral, he noticed that a chandelier
was swinging with the same period as timed by his pulse, regardless of its amplitude. He began to
study the isochronism of the pendulum in 1581, as well as the motion of bodies. Using an inclined
plane, he showed that all bodies fall at the same rate. He also investigated cohesion, and concluded
that a waterfall breaks when the weight of the water becomes too great, the same reason that water
pumps could only raise water by 34 feet.
Galileo grew interested in the heavens, and built his own a telescope in 1609 after the discovery of
lenses was reported from Holland. Galileo used his 30 power telescope to discover craters on the
Moon, sunspots which rotated with the Sun, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and phases of Venus.
This last observation demonstrated that the Copernican theory was correct, since phases would only
be observed if Venus were always closer to the sun than to the Earth. Galileo published his
observations in Siderius Nuncius (The Starry Messenger) (1611).
Galileo believed that nature was inherently mathematical, that mathematics was the language of
nature—that mathematics was the key to understanding the reality behind the appearance of natural
phenomena (for example, accelerated and parabolic motions). What Galileo achieved in
revolutionizing physics was to show how observation, careful measurement, and attention to the
structure of a given event—all led to an appreciation of hidden causes that ultimately expressed the
pervasive mathematical unity of all nature.
Andreas Vesalius
The Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius was among the first to dissect cadavers and accurately depict
human anatomy. He studied in Louvain and Paris, but spent much of his career in Italy, lecturing in
Padua, Basel, Pisa and Bologna. His seven-volume text De Humani Corporis Fabrica (The Structure of
the Human Body), published in 1543, began the modern science of anatomy. His descriptions and the
skilled illustrations of Jan Stephen van Calcar (once a student with Titian) overturned medical
traditions based on the 2nd-century theories of Galen. The furor caused by his books led Vesalius to
give up research and accept a position as royal physician to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (and, later,
to his son Philip II of Spain). The Inquisition condemned Vesalius to death for dissecting a human
body, but his connections to royalty helped knock the sentence down to a forced pilgrimage to
Jerusalem in 1564. On his return voyage his ship was damaged at sea and he died near Zante
(Zakynthos), off the coast of Greece.
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Johannes Guttenberg
The most important technological innovation of the time was the printing press. The technology to
make this possible was introduced from China in the 1300s. By the 1400s, movable type was being
used in Europe as Johann Gutenberg began printing the Bible in everyday language. Soon millions of
books were in circulation. This invention led to a higher literacy rate among people, and helped with
the spreading of Renaissance ideas.
Leonardo di Vinci
Artists have always found it difficult to make a living off their art. Even a master like Leonardo was
forced to sell out in order to support himself, so he adapted his drawing skills to the more lucrative
fields of architecture, military engineering, canal building and weapons design. Although a peacenik at
heart, Leonardo landed a job working for the Duke of Milan by calling himself a military engineer and
outlining some of his sinister ideas for weapons and fortifications. Nearly a century before Galileo,
Leonardo butted heads with the challenge of measuring time. For him, the most interesting part was
the use of mechanical gears, and he studied them with relish. Based on the gear, he came up with
loads of different thingamajigs, including the bicycle, a helicopter, an "auto-mobile", and some
gruesome weapons of course. The biggest mechanical bee in his bonnet, however, was water. Recall
that nobody had harnessed electricity yet, so water was at that point the ultimate source for power.
Leonardo studied all forms of water -- liquid, steam, and ice -- and he had all sorts of swell ideas of
what to do with it. He cooked up plans for a device to measure humidity, a steam-powered cannon,
many different waterwheels, and oodles of useful industrial machines powered by flowing water. He
also devised some highly ambitious plans to revitalize Milan with canals, which he intended to
implement with some equally ambitious construction machines. In fact, once he started on the
subject of water te couldn't really stop, forever envisioning things like floating snowshoes to walk on
water, breathing devices (including a diving hood) and webbed gloves to explore underwater, a life
preserver to remain afloat, devices to attack and sink ships from underwater, and an "unsinkable"
double-hulled ship and dredges for clearing harbors and channels.
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit A
Eight barreled Machine Gun
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit B
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit C
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit D
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit E
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Renaissance Science: Exhibit F
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