Mathematics and Material Culture in Late Renaissance Italy

意大利文艺复兴晚期的数学与物质文化

• 批准号: AH/G00126X/1
• 负责人: Alexander Marr
• 金额: $ 2.18万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FG00126X%2F1
• 关键词: Mathematics; Material; Culture; Late; Renaissance

The main aim of my research project is to examine the ways in which two key aspects of cultural and intellectual life (mathematics and material culture) shaped and responded to knowledge, society, and the visual arts in late Renaissance Italy. In particular, I seek to show how interactions between these fields facilitated the substantial changes in knowledge known as the Scientific Revolution. The vehicle for this exploration is the architect-engineer Mutio Oddi of Urbino (1569-1639). Although largely unknown today, during his lifetime Oddi was esteemed highly as a scholar and practitioner of a wide range of disciplines related to mathematics. His diverse and peripatetic career (which took him from Urbino to exile in Venice, Loreto, Milan, and Lucca) embraced civil and military architecture, the design and retail of mathematical instruments, trading in pictures and objects of virtu, writing, publishing, and teaching. As such, he is a prime example of the polymathic 'artisan-scholar' so prevalent in the period. While this type of figure is widely recognised as having significantly influenced late Renaissance art and science, the range of their activities and a lack of surviving evidence has hampered efforts to properly explain their contribution. My book seeks to overcome these obstacles by providing a detailed account of Oddi and his circle based on an extensive (and largely unstudied) set of archival documents. Oddi's papers (including notebooks, financial accounts, treatises, drawings, and more than 1000 letters) comprise a remarkably rich source for the study of science, art, commerce, and society in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Scrutiny of these documents reveals Oddi's involved relationships with leading intellectual, artistic, political, and religious figures, such as Galileo Galilei, Jan I Brueghel, Federico Barocci, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, and Federico Borromeo. A close study of Oddi's papers and printed works offers valuable new insights into mathematical and artistic education, the production and purpose of printed books, the trade in mathematical instruments, the content and context of Flemish cabinet paintings, the collecting and uses of drawings, the complexities of military architecture, and the ways in which friendship and regional identity influenced trade and intellectual life. One of the book's key objectives is to examine the ways in which mathematics and material culture affected late Renaissance scientific culture. A near-exact contemporary of Galileo, Oddi's life and works shed new light on the practice of science in a formative age, especially the growing application of mathematics to the investigation of nature and the substantial cross-pollination between the visual arts and the sciences at the turn of the century. However, although Oddi's career bears striking similarities to that of his better known peer, much of Oddi's interest and historical value lies in the fact that, unlike Galileo, he was not spectacularly innovative and did not become a 'hero of modern science'. As such, he is arguably a better representative of the majority of everyday scientific practitioners active in the period, particularly those whose energetic dissemination of mathematical knowledge established the foundations of the Scientific Revolution by instituting a 'shared knowledge' of mathematics. Through a comparison between Oddi, Galileo, and their peers the book seeks to establish what was general and what was particular about mathematically based science in the late Renaissance, distinguishing between common attitudes on the one hand, and local or personal approaches and practices on the other. 'Mathematics and Material Culture in Late Renaissance Italy' will demonstrate that scientific change in the period was multivalent and contested, embedded not only in the mind but also in materials, governed by friendship as much principle, and determined by place as much as purpose.

我的研究项目的主要目的是研究文化和知识生活（数学和物质文化）的两个关键方面如何塑造和应对文艺复兴后期意大利的知识，社会和视觉艺术。特别是，我试图展示这些领域之间的相互作用如何促进了被称为科学革命的知识的实质性变化。乌尔比诺的建筑工程师穆蒂奥·奥迪（1569-1639）是这一探索的载体。虽然在很大程度上不为人知的今天，在他的有生之年奥迪被高度评价为一个学者和实践者的广泛学科有关的数学。他的职业生涯多种多样（从乌尔比诺到威尼斯、洛雷托、米兰和卢卡），包括民用和军用建筑、数学仪器的设计和零售、绘画和实物交易、写作、出版和教学。因此，他是一个最好的例子，博学的“工匠学者”，所以在这一时期流行。虽然这类人物被广泛认为对文艺复兴后期的艺术和科学产生了重大影响，但他们的活动范围和缺乏幸存的证据阻碍了正确解释他们的贡献的努力。我的书试图克服这些障碍，根据大量（大部分未被研究的）档案文件，详细描述了奥迪及其圈子。奥迪的论文（包括笔记本、财务账目、论文、绘画和1000多封信件）构成了16世纪末17世纪初科学、艺术、商业和社会研究的一个非常丰富的来源。对这些文件的仔细审查揭示了奥迪与主要知识分子、艺术家、政治家和宗教人物的关系，如伽利略·伽利略、扬·勃鲁盖尔、费德里科·巴罗奇、弗朗西斯科·玛丽亚二世·德拉·罗维雷和费德里科·博罗梅奥。仔细研究奥迪的论文和印刷作品提供了宝贵的新见解数学和艺术教育，生产和目的的印刷书籍，贸易的数学工具，内容和背景下的佛兰芒内阁绘画，收集和使用的图纸，复杂的军事建筑，以及如何在其中友谊和区域身份影响贸易和知识生活。这本书的主要目标之一是研究数学和物质文化影响文艺复兴后期科学文化的方式。一个近乎精确的当代伽利略，奥迪的生活和作品揭示了新的光的实践科学的形成时代，特别是越来越多的应用数学的调查性质和大量的交叉授粉之间的视觉艺术和科学在世纪之交。然而，虽然奥迪的职业生涯具有惊人的相似之处，他更知名的同行，奥迪的兴趣和历史价值在于，不像伽利略，他不是一个惊人的创新，并没有成为一个“英雄的现代科学”。因此，他可以说是一个更好的代表大多数日常科学实践者活跃在这一时期，特别是那些积极传播数学知识建立了科学革命的基础，建立了一个'共享知识'的数学。通过奥迪，伽利略和他们的同行之间的比较，这本书试图建立什么是一般的，什么是特别的数学为基础的科学在文艺复兴后期，区分共同的态度，一方面，和地方或个人的方法和做法。“文艺复兴后期意大利的数学和物质文化”将表明，这一时期的科学变革是多方面的，也是有争议的，不仅植根于思想，也植根于材料，受友谊的原则支配，并由地点和目的决定。