God's Philosophers & Rudolf II

For the past couple of days I have been making my way through Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World laid the Foundations of Modern Science. As I suspected, there are a number of things that I have disagreed with. However, I am also much impressed by considerably portions of it.

Indeed, I would say more than that. In many respects, it is an excellent introduction to the Duhem continuity thesis. It seems clear that Hannam has also been influenced greatly by Edward Grant and David Lindberg, but that is no bad thing either.
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My main criticism (as with the entirely continuity thesis) is that it rather overstates its case. The best aspects of the argument are that the "scientific revolution" so-called (say 1543 onwards) would have been very different (if not impossible) without prior innovations such as the rise of the Universities, the rediscovery of much Greek thought via Islam and the development of printing. But the case weakens with the detailed examination of individual participants, such as Roger Bacon, Oresme, Buridan, etc. Yes, there are innovations and valid critiques but Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, etc are leagues away from this.

But that said, the story told is pretty good. I particularly liked the sections on Peter Abelard(clearly taken from Clanchy's brilliant Abelard: A Medieval Life which I read last year), Aquinas and the Condemnations of 1277, the Merton calculators and on anatomy. I objected to various sections that seemed irrelevant (such as the discussion of gothic arches in cathedrals) and to what I considered to be some terrible dumbing down in the early chapters producing some quite hideous sentences (in my view). For instance

. . . . . . . The Emperor ruled from the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine
. . . . . . . Empire, which was so called after "Byzantium", the old Greek name for
. . . . . . . Constantinople

I did not find this a very elegant phrase! Perhaps another dozen examples like this!

I also objected to quite a lot of the broad historiographic discussion in the early sections

But that said, it is also very significant to me that such a book has been published. Afterall, I am very aware of the main parts of this story but it had not occured to me that it could be used to write a "popular" history of science book. So I think there is also much to ponder on concerning the publication of this. Afterall, I think it is the first book by Hannam and he doesn't appear to be an academic. That alone should be of high significances to me.

My reading over and above Hannam has mainly been about Rudolf II. I am really keen to visit Prague as a result. Perhaps next year some time? In the meantime, more interesting pictures

Allegedly, this is Kepler explaining his discoveries to Rudolf. Not sure of the details of it though

Spranger's Minerva triumphs over Ignorance - a "northern mannerist" painting from the collection of Rudolf