ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Contents of Astrology Lectures: Comparing Student Notes from the Universities of Salamanca and Valencia in the 16th and 17th Centuries

• In Event: Celestial Spheres

English Abstract

Reconstructing the actual content of lectures at early modern universities on astrological knowledge has been the object of several studies on European cases (like the recent work of Michelle Aroney and David McComish, and the previous studies of Darin Hayton, Monica Azzolini, Henrique Leitao or Darrel Rutkin, among others). Sources used for this reconstruction have been diverse, including university disputations, patrons' letters, statutes and constitutions ruling the universities, and professors' notes.
This paper focuses on notes taken by the students during the lectures. I will present a comparison of several manuscripts from two of the most relevant Spanish universities at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century: Salamanca and Valencia. Both also shared a professor during this period, the astronomer Jeronimo Muñoz. The first manuscript was seemingly compiled by several students sharing notes at the university of Salamanca in 1617, and recopied. The second one was taken during Muñoz's lectures around 1577 "vivae vocis", according to the Valencian student who wrote them. The third one were the notes of another student in Valencia taken in 1604 and later consigned to the Inquisition probably to prevent an accusation for practice.
The objective of this research is to learn about the contents related to astrology taught in this period, and the differences between the universities, if any, as well as to dig deeper into the subject of the gap between the institutional rules, both inquisitorial and those established by the universities, and actual teaching, in early modern classrooms.

Author

• Tayra MC Lanuza-Navarro, University of Valencia