Girolamo Cardano: 1501–1576 Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astrologer, and Interpreter of Dreams PDF
Preview Girolamo Cardano: 1501–1576 Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astrologer, and Interpreter of Dreams
Girolamo Cardano 1501-1576 Girolamo Cardano 1501-1576 Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astrologer, and Interpreter of Dreams Markus Fierz Translated by Helga Niman 1983 Birkhauser Boston • Basel • Stuttgart MARKUS FIERZ Felseneggstrasse 10 CH-8700 Kusnacht Switzerland Edited for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and its Department of Humanities and Social Sciences by Jean-Fran<;ois Bergier Markus Fierz Roger Kempf Adolf Muschg Hans-Werner Tobler Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fierz, Markus. Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) Translation of: Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) l. Cardano, Girolamo, 1501-1576. 2. Physicians-Italy-Biography. 3. Mathematicians-Italy-Biography. 4. Astrologers-Italy-Biography. I. Tide. R 5 2 0 . C 32F5313 610'.92'4 [B) 82-4173 AACR2 ISBN 978-1-4684-9208-8 ISBN 978-1-4684-9206-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4684-9206-4 CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Fierz, Markus. Girolamo Cardano: (1501-1576); physician, natural philosopher, mathematician, astrologer, and interpreter of dreams/Markus Fierz. Trans!. from the German by Helga Niman.-Boston; Basel; Stuttgart: Birkhauser, 1982. Dc. Ausg. unter demselben Titel All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. © Birkhauser Boston, 1983 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover I st edition 1983 AVTOR,IS CA RMEN. Non me terra teget,cmo fed raptus in alto IIIuRris uiuam doda per ora uirUm. QIicquid umturis fpedabit Phu<rE"b us in annis~ Cardanos nofce(, nomen at meum. Girolamo Cardano 1501-1576 T 'HE PROFILE OF CARDANO reproduced on the preceding page appears for the first time on the title page of the Basel edition 1554 of De Subtilitate (Ludovicus Lucius anno 1554). A similar portrait, somewhat smaller, can be found on the title page of Cardano's Commentaries on Cl. Ptolemy's "Quadripartitum" (Basel, Henri Petri 1554). Both woodcuts are reproductions of a medal from the Mint of Milan ascribed to Leone Leone: vide G. F. Hill and G. Pollard, "Renaissance Medals from the S. H. Kress Collection," N. 436 (London, 1967). All later portraits of Cardano go back to the said wood cuts. The well-known engraving in Vol. I of the "Opera" (1663) has the features accentuated to the demonic, re flecting the baroque, seventeenth century view of Car dano's personality. Contents Preface lX Preface to the English Edition lX Introduction Xl 1 Cardano's Life and Writings 1 2 Cardano the Physician 37 3 Natural Philosophy and Theology 56 4 De Subtilitate and De Rerum Varietate 88 5 Astrology 117 6 The Interpretation of Dreams 125 7 On the Art of Living with Oneself 156 Postscript 167 Notes 177 References 193 Appendix 197 Preface T HIS STUDY OF GIROLAMO CARDANO is the work of an amateur in the field of the history of science and the history of ideas. As a mathematical physi cist I lack the depth of training in philological-historical disciplines necessary to discuss the sources of Car dano's knowledge and trace the influences that shaped his views on science, medicine, and philosophy. What little recent literature on Cardano there is some times shows a lack of true understanding, or is primarily an appreciation of the mathematician. I relied, therefore, largely on his own writings, which are collected in the Opera Omnia. My excerpts and translations are taken di rectly from these works, and I hope that I have succeeded in capturing their essential meaning and spirit. MARKUS FIERZ Preface to the English Edition I THANK the publisher Birkhauser Boston, Incorpo rated, for the venture of this English edition of my essay on Cardano that originally appeared in the Poly Series published by Birkhauser Verlag, and for the care given to the translation. For this edition I have added two longer sections: one on Cardano's voyage to Scotland, and another on a rather interesting "mathematical theosophy" contained in his Liber de Proportionibus (Basel, 1570). Also included is a list of references quoted in the notes, and a record-as complete as possible-of the original editions of Cardano' s writings. MARKUS FIERZ Introduction T HIS MONOGRAPH is an attempt to acquaint the modern reader wi th the philosophy and scientific investigations of the universal scholar Girolamo Cardano of Milan, who lived from 1501 to 1576. Carda no was a physician, astrologer, and interpreter of dreams. His significance as a mathematician is undisputed; he enjoyed an international reputation as a physician among his con temporaries; and a hundred years later Leibniz still praised him as a man who was truly knowledgeable. He is the oldest of the famous Italian natural philosophers, and is usually mentioned together with Bernado Telesio (1508-1588) and Francesco Patrizzi (1529-1597). Car dano greatly influenced Parrizzi, and he surpasses both his colleagues in the wide range of his interests and knowledge, as well as in the power of his creative imag ination. The latter does lead him occasionally toward the intellectually adventurous, and has prompted comparisons with his contemporary, Paracelsus (1493-1541).1 Beside this volcanic visionary, however, Cardano seems dispas sionate and systematic. Yet, when judged by present-day standards, his writings do appear rather fantastic and unmethodical, although they apparently did not make this impression on his contemporaries! Theirs was a time of great social upheaval and chaos. Throughout Cardano's youth and adulthood, the power struggles of Emperor Charles V (1500-155R), francis I (1494-1547), and Xl Introduction Henry VIII (1491-1547) dominated the life of Europe and shaped its fate. A succession of wars engulfed Italy in turmoil and terror-that same Italy where Titian, Vignola and Palladio were creating their works. The voluminous corpus of Cardano's writings2 embraces all the major ideas of his time, and thus conveys an authentic picture of the intellectual life of the High Re naissance. His writings contain rudiments and ideas per taining to almost every scientific and philosophical doc trine developed during the seventeenth century. Yet, his name remained familiar only to mathemati cians. As a philosopher and natural scientist he has prac tically been forgotten, in much the same way that the imaginatively comprehensive thought of the Renaissance has been generally forgotten. The seventeenth century strove above all for clarity and distinctness of conception and thought, a goal it finally reached in the scientific mathematical method, which has asserted its predomi nance despite its extreme one-sidedness. This "new science," as it developed toward the end of the sixteenth century, found its main antagonist in Scholasticism, that is to say, in the Aristotelian philos ophy of nature taught in the universities. This prompted Galileo to introduce in his dialogues the figure of Sim plicio, the Peripatetic opponent of the new doctrine, as representative of the philosophy that Galileo attacks. Sim plicio is portrayed throughout as a learned and amiable gentleman who knows how to remain gracious even when attacked for expounding an obsolete theory. Renaissance philosophy, on the other hand, could not at that time be considered antiquated. It was anti-Aristotelian, relying on Plato, the Neo-Platonists and the fabled Hermes Tris megistus as its authorities. To Galileo, however, this xii Introduction philosophy and conception of nature was not a serious science, but rather, a form of medieval superstition. Yet these ideas were by no means medieval-they reflected the spirit of their time. Apparently, Galileo thought it beneath his dignity to discuss them seriously. He was, therefore, all the more surprised that Kepler, his colleague in the defense of the Copernican doctrine, considered so called occult causes to be possible, and that he believed, for example, that the influence of the moon on the earth's bodies of water caused the tides.1 As a consequence of Galileo's attitude-or of that of Descartes, for that matter-the natural philosophy of the Renaissance has received little attention in the history of philosophy and science. The doctrines of Galileo's out spoken opponents were, on the other hand, carefully stud ied. Their merits and their shortcomings were evaluated, and it was concluded that during its second period Scho lasticism made notable contributions to physics, on which Galileo himself relied. 4 These medieval investigations in the field of optics, mechanics, and the increase and de crease of quantities, and the scholars who carried them out-such as Vitelo, Jordanus, the Franciscans at Merton College, Oxford, the Parisian Scholastics like Buridan and Oresme-belong to the thirteenth and fourteenth cen turies. A gap of more than two hundred years separates the High Middle Ages from the seventeenth century, and we hear little about the intellectual life of this extended period. When judged by the standard of Galilean methods of investigation, the scientific philosophy of the Renaissance certainly is minor. But this disregards Kepler's impor tance and makes his views questionable or inexplicable. Galileo found them indeed incomprehensible, and Des- xiii
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