Liddel and Craig: Scottish Circulators of Science in the Institutional Networks of the Northern Renaissance

• In Event: Scottish Itinerant Cultural Agents of the Scientific Revolution

Abstract

This paper deals with the transfer of knowledge between Germany and Great Britain focusing on the Scottish mathematicians and physicians John Craig and his pupil Duncan Liddel. Their biographies and works will be assessed against the background of the cultural and institutional framework of the northern European Renaissance. Post- Melanchthonian humanistic universities and gymnasia such as Rostock, Helmstedt, Frankfurt (Oder), Copenhagen and Danzig constituted an institutional réseau that offered a space for the circulation of people and ideas. Scottish scholars such as Craig and Liddel made their careers in these centers and participated in the scientific controversies of the time (over post-Copernican astronomy, Melanchthonian humanism and Paracelsian medicine). Eventually, both came back to Great Britain: Craig became court physician to James I and VI and Liddel acted as a benefactor of the University of Aberdeen. I will reflect on their role as cultural mediators between the German-speaking area and Great Britain.

Author

• Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin