From Millevolte

Thanks for including me.  I only wish that I could have thought more about your question "why Italy?" before so awkwardly trying to answer it. I also would have liked to ask the historians if the fall of Constantinople would play a significant part in this answer.  I wonder: did the refugees coming to the Italian peninsula from the Byzantine Empire carry anything with them (science and math) that the West hadn't already gained through the Islamic world?

 

From Jacobs

In better health this week, I’ve given some more thought to the questions about “historical patterns” and “why Italy ?”  While I agree with the argument that suggests that claiming there is a historical pattern would ignore too much historical evidence, I believe there is another way to understand this.  Let’s consider probability and coincidence.  I reject the notion that so much fruitful human intellectual endeavor (one of the greatest creative eras in western human history) initially concentrated in one peninsula is a coincidence.  Perhaps “pattern” is not the most accurate word.  But that so many great minds (as Jane pointed out) came out of such a small geographic region in such a short period of time defies random probability (right mathematicians?).  I would contend that the multiple factors we discussed on Friday may not have been part of a pattern but certainly greatly enhanced the probability or propensity for intellectual endeavor.  Wealth and knowledge were transferred to Europe from much of the world through that peninsula – they owned an early monopoly.  Couple that with the increased urbanization of the area that permitted middle class people to interest themselves in things other than daily sustenance and shelter.  Girolamo Cardano (and other achievers in math, art, music, and science) emerged here because that possibility was open to them.  Perhaps we might consider how many Girolamo Cardanos never emerged because they lived in other parts of Europe (or the world) and spent their days toiling in fields, or without formal educations, or did not live to adulthood because of violence, disease, malnutrition, or other hardships.  And perhaps the great strides we are making in science over the last 50 years is due to the fact that fewer Girolamo Cardanos are not given the opportunity to showcase or utilize their natural abilities.

  I believe that societies that permit (and have the resources to support) the natural flowering of their natural talent pool will be the leaders in the intellectual world.  I boldly submit that that is a “pattern.”  I am interested in hearing the ideas of others.  And in advance, I defer to both Sue and Jane who know more about the period and geographic region under consideration than I can ever hope to know.

  Just a few ruminations.

 

From Crisler

I think we can find the answer in ourselves: what nurtures creativity in our society? How have we structured an education system to promote it? The hallmarks of the American university: (1) widespread primary and secondary education that prepare a large and socially diverse talent pool, (2) economically and politically protected academic freedom to investigate and disseminate findings, (3) both the time and the mandate to reflect, and (4) a society that promotes innovation were conditions that also prevailed (on a much smaller scale) in Italy during the time of Cardano and in pockets farther north -- especially areas protected/patronized by princes. As political systems evolved and wealth developed from the Atlantic economy, the advantages accrue to the north.

During the period we discussed, the occurrence of these conditions did, indeed, seem to be random or coincidental, heavily dependent upon the wealth, talent, and personal and political interests of patrons. Since the Industrial Revolution, Western societies have striven to institutionalize the conditions, because we recognize the direct connection between intellectual productivity and economic and social development (which we value). Given the recent dismantling of affirmative action through legal action and the potential reduction of the size and diversity of the student body through tuition increases, we can see that such trends are not always "onward and upward."

 

From Millevolte

Given my Italian surname, I am reluctant to disagree with the question as it is being posed, but I am hard pressed to find the concentration or monopoly of science on the Italian peninsula to the same extent others have. 

Consider the contributions of the rest of Europe: The Reformation; the printing press; the 14^th century mathematical physics of Merton College, Oxford which marked a major conceptual innovation in kinematics (physics of motion); Copernicus, who lived on the Baltic near the present day Polish-Russian border; the mathematicians of the Cathedral school in Paris; Thomas Diggs (a popularizer of Copernicus in England who proselytized and died before Galileo was even a committed Copernican); the great astronomer Tycho Brahe who made his essential observations of the heavens from a Danish island; the early Copernican converts who were largely German—among these was Kepler who solved the motion of the planets with a mathematical description of their paths—a solution that made Newton’s contribution possible; add to this list Decartes, Bacon, and others.

 What did the Italians do?  Galileo’s work can be looked at as largely derivative of Copernicus’s original work and his physics owe far more to the earlier Merton College work and Oresme (from France) than is generally acknowledged.  If Galileo had not ever existed or if some poor Amsterdammer had finally enough clear skies to see the planets with the new lenses the Dutch had already been making, then I doubt that our current perception of Italian hegemony in science and math would exist.  It seems that much of our perception rests on Galileo’s shoulders alone.  (Even Vesalius, the great anatomist, was originally from France and spent only a few years in Padua).

 The question, “why did the Italian peninsula’s contributions to science and math decline?” would be easier to answer in this light—the hegemony never existed.  The picture that I have is that Italy served as an important clearing house for this new knowledge—not as the main source of it.  I suspect that the combination of money, universities, good weather, and good food drew many talented people there for extended professional visits leaving us with the perception that this was THE scientific and mathematical center of Europe.  At a “grass roots” level—I don’t believe that it had anything more than the rest of Europe.  But it was, and still is, a great place to do a sabbatical.

 

From Kromarek

Here is a web site, it appears to be an outline from someone's history course, that you might find interesting. http://www.math.tamu.edu/~don.allen/history/renaissc/renassc.html

 

From Millevolte

I certainly hadn’t intended on cutting off the dialog through my strident comments last week.  While I still believe that the scientific renaissance was a pan-European affair and was not centered in Italy, I don’t have enough background on the history of mathematics to say the same of Italy’s contributions to pure mathematics.  Perhaps Italy did dominate in this field—it is difficult for a non-specialist like myself to judge (largely because the quality of mathematical and scientific work is as important (or more so) than volume of work or the number of characters involved in it).  Thus, I couldn’t tell from the website that Kent Kromarek provided us with, where the “mathematical center of gravity in Europe” was in the late renaissance—much of that judgment would be dependent on the relative importance of the work that was listed in the website—a judgment that mathematicians would have a greater insight into than I would.

I would sincerely regret it if my vociferous reluctance to accept the orthodox interpretation of the Italian Renaissance ends up eclipsing Issac’s very interesting question:  “Why Italy?”  (Though of course I would prefer the question, “Why Europe?”).   I think exploring either of these questions would be worthwhile—and it is likely the explanations would be similar in any case. 

 

From Kromarek