The writings of Leonardo da Vinci were not published till a century after his death, and some of them at a still later period. They are more like revelations of physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind, than the fabric of its reasoning on any established basis. He laid down the principle of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be our chief guides in the investigation of nature. Venturi has given a most interesting list of the truths in mechanism apprehended by the genius of this light of the fifteenth century. [Footnote 164] He was possessed in the highest degree of the spirit of physical inquiry, and in this department of learning was truly a seer.
[Footnote 164: Estai sur lea Ouvrages Physico-Mathématiques de Léonard de Vinci. Paris. 1797. Hallam's Literary History, vol. i. pp. 222-5.]
Let the reader transport himself in idea to the beautiful borders of the Henares, and there, in the opening of the sixteenth century, look down on the rising University of Alcalá. Let him admire and wonder at the varied energy of its founder--Ximenes, the prelate, the hermit, the warrior, and the statesman. There, in his sixty-fourth year, he laid the corner-stone of the principal college, and was often seen with the rule in hand, taking the measurement of the buildings, and encouraging the industry of the workmen. The diligence with which he framed the system of instruction to be pursued, the activity of mind he promoted among the students, the liberal foundations he made for indigent scholars and the regulation of professors' salaries, did not withdraw him from the affairs of state, or the publication of his famous Bible, the Complutensian Polyglot. When Francis I., visited Alcalá, twenty years after the university was opened, 7000 students came forth to receive him, and by the middle of the seventeenth century the revenue bequeathed by Ximenes had increased to 42,000 ducats, and the colleges had multiplied from ten to thirty-five. [Footnote 165] Most of the chairs were appropriated to secular studies, and Alcalá stands forward as a brilliant refutation of the calumnies against Catholic prelates as the patrons of ignorance.
[Footnote 165: Quintanilla: Archetype. Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, ii. 826.]
The same country and epoch which produced Ximenes gave birth also to Columbus. It was neither accident nor religion, but nautical science and the intuitive vision of another hemisphere, that piloted him across the Atlantic to the West-India shores. Amerigo Vespucci followed in his wake, emulous of like discoveries. He published a journal of his earlier voyages at Vicenza in 1507, and gave his name [{653}] to the continent of the western world. Thus, while two great navigators, each of them Catholics, explored new lands on the surface of our globe, Copernicus at the same time, and Galileo not many years after, presaged the motion of the planets round the sun, and the twofold rotation of the earth. To Galileo, indeed, far more is due. To him we owe the larger part of experimental philosophy. He first propounded the laws of gravity, the invention of the pendulum, the hydrostatic scales, the sector, a thermometer, and the telescope. With the last he made numberless observations which changed the face of astronomy. Among these, that of the satellites of Jupiter was one of the most remarkable. He came, it is true, into a certain collision with the church, but it is remarkable, that all the provocation given by Galileo never reduced authority to the unjustifiable step of impeding the fullest scientific investigation of his theory. Nay, those astronomers who taught on the Copernican hypothesis were more favored at Rome than their opponents. It was at Galileo's request that Urban appointed Castelli to be his own mathematician, and the letter in which the pontiff recommended Galileo to the notice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, after his condemnation, abounds with expressions of sincere friendship. As to the dungeon and the torture, they are simply fabulous. During the process Galileo was permitted to lodge at the Tuscan embassy instead of in the prison of the holy office--a favor not accorded even to princes. His sentence of imprisonment was no sooner passed, than the Pope commuted it into detention in the Villa Medici, and, after he had resided there some days, he was allowed to install himself in the palace of his friend, Ascanio Piccolomini, archbishop of Sienna. Subsequently he retired to his own house and the bosom of his family; for, as Nicolini's correspondence with him testifies, "his holiness treated Galileo with unexpected and, perhaps, excessive gentleness, granting all the petitions presented in his behalf." [Footnote 166] These facts are surely sufficient to prove that physical science received all due honor at this period in Rome. In due time--long after Galileo's death--his theory was scientifically established; and not very long afterward the Congregational decree was suspended by Benedict XIV. Galileo's famous dialogue was published entire at Padua in 1744 with the usual approbations; and in 1818 Pius VII. repealed the decrees in question in full consistory. What could the church do more? It was her duty to guard the Scriptures from irreverence and unbelief, and to prohibit the advocacy of theories absolutely unproved which seemed to oppose them. To her physical science is dear, but revealed truth is infinitely dearer. Already she had opposed astrology as a remnant of paganism, and had studied the motions of the moon and planets to fix Easter and reform the Julian calendar. Already Gregory XIII. had brought the calendar which bears his name into use; and the works of Aristotle, translated into Arabic and Latin, had become the model of theological methods of disputation and treatise. St. Thomas Aquinas had written commentaries on them, and on Plato; and thus, as well as by his essay on aqueducts and that on hydraulic machines, had proved how inseparable is the alliance between sound theology and true science. "The sceptre of science," says Joseph de Maistre, "belongs to Europe only because she is Christian. She has reached this high degree of civilization and knowledge because she began with theology, because the universities were at first schools of theology, and because all the sciences, grafted upon this divine subject, have shown forth the divine sap by immense vegetation." [Footnote 167]
[Footnote 166: British Review. 1861. Martyrdom of Galileo.]
[Footnote 167: Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, Xme entretien. ]
Voltaire has observed that "the sovereign pontiffs have always been remarkable among princes attached to letters," and the remark is equally true as regards science and art. Silvester II. was so learned that the common people attributed his vast erudition to magic. He collected all the monuments of antiquity he could find in Germany and Italy, and delivered them into the hands of copyists in the monasteries. St. Gregory VII. conceived the design of rebuilding St. Peter's, and gathered around him all the first architects of his day. Gregory IX. interfered in behalf of the University of Paris, and, as Guillaume de Nangis says, "prevented science and learning, those treasures of salvation, from quitting the kingdom of France." Nicolas V. was a great restorer of letters, and Macaulay speaks of him as one whom every friend of science should name with respect. Sixtus IV. conferred the title of Count Palatine on the printer Jenson, to encourage the noble art, then in its infancy. Pius III. enriched Sienna with a magnificent library, and engaged Raphael and Pinturicchio to adorn it with frescoes. Paul V. endowed Rome with the most beautiful productions of sculpture and painting, with splendid fountains and enduring monuments. Urban VIII. loved all the arts, succeeded in Latin poetry, and filled his court with men of learning. Under his pontificate "the Romans," as Voltaire says, "enjoyed profound peace, and shared all the charms and glory which talent sheds on society." Benedict XIV. cultivated letters, composed poems, and patronized science. The infidel himself just mentioned paid him homage, and professed profound veneration for him, when sending him a copy of his "Mahomet." [Footnote 168] Every pope in his turn has been a Maecenas. Not one in the august line has lost sight of the interests of society and the prerogatives of mind. The useful and the beautiful were always present to their thoughts; and even in those few instances where they failed in good personally, they encouraged in their official capacity whatsoever things are true, lovely, and of good fame.
[Footnote 168: Letter to Pope Benedict XIV.]