Abstract » Almásy
Budapest 2010
Encyclopaedism, Pansophia, and Universal Communication, 1560–1670
Gábor ALMÁSY (CEU)
Knowledge Claims and Rivalries in Sixteenth-Century Astronomical Networks
As a part of mathematics, astronomy became a leading science of the late sixteenth century. Its cultivators were both trained natural philosophers (often interested in medicine and philology as well) and amateurs, some of whom were princes and aristocrats. They were in touch with humanists of encyclopaedic, universal interests but some features of their networking were different. With the Danish Tycho Brahe and the Czech Tadeáš Hájek as its focus, the presentation will highlight some of the characteristics of communication within the astronomical community, claiming that the new scientific discourse which was emerging (and which increasingly excluded astrology from astronomy) was very much the product of the rivalries within these multi-confessional sixteenth-century networks.
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