The Popes and Science / The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time

by James J. Walsh

Toscanelli, over the question of whose influence on Columbus an as yet unsettled controversy is waged, was a lifelong friend of Nicholas of Cusa, they had been schoolmates at College and undoubtedly the great cardinal doctor of laws or of decrees as they said at that time, owed much of his progressive advanced views on scientific subjects to his Florentine friend "the doctor of physic, Paul Toscanelli." Cusanus at the height of his fame dedicated his book on Geometrical Transformations "to Paul the Florentine physician." Regiomontanus, as well as Cusa, often sought Toscanelli's opinion on abstruse questions of mathematics and quoted him with confidence. The intimate relations of Cusanus and Regiomontanus with the Popes of the middle of the fifteenth century are very well known. Toscanelli's services to astronomy are only [{473}] less famous than those to cosmography. A series of his careful and painstaking observations and calculations of the orbits of the comets of 1433, 1449-50, of Halley's comet of 1456 and of the comets of 1457 and 1472 are preserved in manuscript. They demonstrate his profound and successful interest in astronomical subject and it is easy to see that they must have cost him, as indeed he tells in his letters, many a night's watching of the stars. The relations between the ecclesiastical authorities and Toscanelli are very well illustrated by that well-known monument to his astronomical skill which still interests visitors so much in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence. This is the gnomon arranged in the dome of the Cathedral by the shadow of which it is said that he could determine midday to within half a second. The use of the Cathedral for this purpose is interesting testimony to the cordial relations of science and religion at this time. It may be said in passing that Toscanelli's gnomon was later improved by Cardinal Ximenes of Spain, showing that these cordial ecclesiastical relations with science were not confined to Italy.

While Toscanelli was making his observations Antoninus of Florence was for some thirteen years the Archbishop of the city and was one of the learned members of the Dominican Order at this time, who had made his novitiate among the Dominicans with Fra Angelico and Fra Bartholomeo the great Renaissance painters. Antoninus was greatly influenced evidently by his associations with Toscanelli and formed one of a group of men containing the Florentine physician astronomer, Cardinal Cusanus and Regiomontanus, himself afterwards a bishop, who were on terms of intimate relationship at least in scholarly matters at this period. Archbishop Antoninus, who is the author of a Summa Theologica Moralis of which no less than fifteen editions were printed after his death, wrote also a series of histories in which he shows this influence by insisting that comets are celestial bodies like the others in the heavens and had no effect on the physical or moral conditions of the world and, quite contrary to popular beliefs, were not responsible for war or pestilence nor prophetic of evil to mankind. There had been a number of brilliant comets in the heavens about this time and there was consequently a widespread interest in them and much popular superstition with regard to them. Antoninus was on terms of familiar intimacy with Pope Eugene IV, who insisted on his becoming Archbishop of Florence, though Antoninus would have preferred to have remained a simple Dominican and keep his leisure for his scholarly work. When the Pope felt his end [{474}] approaching he called Antoninus to Rome to administer the last rites of the Church to him and be by his side during his last hours. Antoninus was frequently consulted by Pope Eugene's successors, Nicholas V and Pius II, both of whom were among the scholarly patrons of learning and art at this time. Some fifty years after his death Antoninus was canonized by Pope Hadrian VI, the scholarly Pope from Utrecht in Holland. His whole career then shows clearly the relations of the ecclesiastics and particularly the Popes of the time to science in a most favorable light.

The relationship with the rising science of the Renaissance period thus initiated was continued during the following century. At the end of the fifteenth century Copernicus studied for ten years in Italy and felt so thoroughly the interest of Italians in advances in science as well as scholarship that when some years later he came to formulate his great new hypothesis of the heavens, he sent an abstract of his theory to some of the Roman teachers with whom he had become intimate during his stay and it was taught publicly in the city to crowded audiences. This may well seem surprising to many whose only knowledge of the relations of the Popes to astronomy is the Galileo incident, but it must not be forgotten that Copernicus' great work in which he elaborated his theory, was dedicated, with permission, to the Pope, and not only received no censure until Galileo's time, nearly a century later, but was welcomed as a great contribution to science and thought. It was looked upon as a theory, to be discussed as any other. When Galileo, at the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, insisted on teaching it as absolute science, it must not be forgotten that there were no astronomers in Europe who looked upon Copernicanism as an accepted scientific doctrine. Even the reasons advanced by Galileo for its acceptance have all since been rejected. Owing to the discussions of it far and wide in the time of Galileo, certain expressions in Copernicus' great work were required by the Church authorities to be corrected so that his explanation of the heavens should be presented as the theory that it was and not as an absolute doctrine of science.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century the necessity for the correction of the calendar became more urgently manifest and Pope Gregory XIII invited Father Clavius, S.J., to take up the subject. At this time also, as is described by Pope Leo XIII in his Motu Proprio of 1891, "Gregory XIII [nearly half a century before the condemnation of Galileo] ordered a tower to be erected in a convenient part of the Vatican buildings and to be fitted out with [{475}] the greatest and best instruments of the time. There he held the meetings of the learned men to whom the reform of the calendar had been entrusted. The tower stands to this day a witness to the munificence of its founder. It contains a meridian line by Ignazio Danti of Perugia, with a round marble plate in the centre, adorned with scientific designs. When touched by the rays of the sun that are allowed to enter from above, the designs demonstrate the error of the old reckoning and the correctness of the reform." It was evidently the intention of the Pope that there should be, as a permanent institution in Rome, an astronomical observatory fully equipped and supported by the revenues of the Holy See and with a prominent scientist at its head. This purpose has been constantly kept in mind by the Popes ever since, though not long after Gregory's time, but not at all because of any opposition to science, the observatory founded by him came for more than a century not to be used for the purpose intended because its place was supplied by another Roman institution directly under the patronage of the Popes.

This was the Roman College, the great central school of the Jesuits, in the capital of Christendom. That Order was scarcely fifty years in existence in Pope Gregory XIII's time, yet it was to a member of it that the Pope turned for expert scientific direction in the correction of the calendar. During the next three centuries science as patronized by the Popes in Rome was mainly in the hands of the Jesuits. When it is recalled that this Order is directly under the control of the Pope, the professed members taking a special vow of obedience to him, it will be understood that the Jesuit policy with regard to science must be taken as representing the Papal position in its regard. If it is further recalled that Poggendorff in his Biographical Lexicon of Men Eminent in Science gives the names of some 500 Jesuits, though the Order was not in a position to do any work in science until 1550, it will be readily appreciated that the Popes acted wisely to encourage an institute so prolific in eminent scientists in its scientific work at the Roman College, rather than maintain a separate scientific department at the Vatican. The second institution would only have been unnecessary duplication of staffs and the connection between teaching and research at the Roman College was better for both functions.

Father Christopher Clavius, to whom more than to any other is due the Gregorian reform of the calendar, a magnificent practical application of astronomy and mathematics, is an excellent example [{476}] of the men who were near the Popes as counsellors and scientific advisers just before Galileo's time. Indeed Galileo and he were on the most friendly terms until his death in 1612. The circle of his friends included such men as Kepler, Tycho-Brahe and other great scientists of his time and he was called "the Euclid of the sixteenth century." His works were published at Mainz, in five huge folio volumes in a collective edition. The third of these is a commentary upon the Sphaera of John Holywood (Joannes de Sacro Bosco, the great medieval mathematician) and a dissertation upon the Astrolabe. The fourth volume contains a very full discussion of Gnomonics, that is, the art of constructing instruments of all kinds for determining the time by means of the sun. The fifth volume contains his papers with regard to the reform of the calendar. Most of these books were issued in many editions before and after his death, and their publication over and over again shows very clearly how much the men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were interested in scientific subjects and how often and quite properly they looked to great clerical teachers as their leaders in science.

Just about the time that the Galileo matter was disturbing scientific and ecclesiastical circles at Rome, Father Scheiner, the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer became Professor of Mathematics in the Roman College. He is the inventor of the pantograph or copying instrument for drawings, and, being of an ingenious inventive disposition, constructed a number of instruments for astronomical investigation. He studied the sun carefully through colored glasses in a helioscope and then conceived the idea of projecting the sun's image on a screen in order to study its surface. Kepler used this same method, but Scheiner is said to have the right of priority in it. In March, 1611, he discovered by this method spots on the sun and while the priority of discovery was disputed by Galileo, three men, Fabricius, Galileo and Scheiner, seem all to have done their work independently in this matter, Fabricius being probably the first in time. For nearly a score of years Father Scheiner continued his observations on the sun and published his great work, which in the fashion of the day was called by the somewhat fantastic title, Rosa Ursina. He had the true scientific spirit and devoted himself to other subjects besides astronomy. He made important researches on the eye, showing that the retina is the seat of vision, and devised the optical experiment which bears his name.

One of Clavius' pupils was Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., founder of the Catholic missions of China, who in the midst of his successful [{477}] studies of mathematics and astronomy at the Roman College asked, at the age of twenty-five, to be sent on the missions in farthest Asia and was allowed to go the following year. He was selected to found missions in China and succeeded in breaking through the Oriental reserve and contempt for everything Occidental of the Chinese, and thus gained a foothold for Christianity in the country. It was Father Ricci's learning, particularly in cosmology, mathematics, astronomy and geography, that attracted the attention of the Chinese. He introduced astronomical studies at Pekin and brought over a series of instruments for an observatory which were so well thought of that they were preserved until our own time and some of them are said to have been taken from the Chinese capital by the allied troops, after the capture of the city following the Boxer Rebellion. He not only taught the Chinese European science, but he sent back to Europe true accounts of China and, above all, encouraged scientific studies among the missionaries. The example he thus set has always been followed and there has scarcely been a generation since when some Christian missionary has not been making original observations in natural history and collecting curious specimens to be sent home to scientists in Europe, while at the same time faithfully pursuing his missionary work.

Early in the seventeenth century, indeed just at the time when the Galileo case was most prominent at Rome, Father Athanasius Kircher was summoned to Rome and began his scientific work there, which included contributions to every department of physical and even some of the biological sciences. For some five years about the middle of the seventeenth century Father Kircher devoted himself to astronomy and the result was the publication, in 1656, of an astronomical treatise called Iter Celeste. A second volume on astronomy appeared in 1660. Anyone who is inclined to think that these contributions of the great professor of science at the Roman College were only reviews of the passing scientific opinions of the time, is not fully acquainted with Father Kircher's work. He never failed to illuminate anything that he set himself to study. His book on astronomy is of course a text-book, but it is magnificently illustrated; it is a very large work which shows the author's familiarity with the scientific literature of the time, but at the same time reveals his own scientific genius. Father Kircher was encouraged in every way by the Popes and high ecclesiastics of Rome and by his own Order, and his great text-books are among the bibliographic treasures of the history of science. Some idea of [{478}] his industry may be gathered from the fact that he wrote altogether some forty volumes folio on scientific subjects. He made many original observations, invented a number of valuable scientific instruments that are still in use, among others the vernier and magic lantern, and was productively occupied with nearly every branch of science in his time.

During the eighteenth century, before the suppression of the Jesuits, another distinguished mathematician and astronomer, famous throughout Europe, was working at the Roman College. This was Father Boscovitch, to whom we owe the plans for the erection of an observatory above the great pillars of the Church of the Gesu at Rome, which were not destined to be executed until the middle of the nineteenth century. Boscovitch is famous for a series of important works in mathematics and astronomy. He wrote books on Sun Spots, the Transit of Mercury, the Aurora Borealis, the Figure of the Earth, the Various Effects of Gravity, the Aberration of the Fixed Stars, and other astronomical problems. Pope Benedict XIV commissioned him and his brother Jesuit, Father Le Maire, to carry out several precise meridian arc measurements. He is the inventor of the rock crystal prismatic micrometer, the ring micrometer. After the suppression of the Jesuits Father Boscovitch was made Director of Optics for the Marine, a post created for him in order to secure his services for France.