ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Galileo Among the Physicians: Intersecting Anatomy and Mathematics around 1600

• In Event: Early Modern Intersections of Knowledge

English Abstract

In May 1610, in the letter where he pitched his job to Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici, Galileo listed all the extra “little books [opusculi]” he wanted to write. Among them there was one on the “motions of animals.” But what did Galileo know about animal motion and the anatomy of animals? It turns out that he knew more than one would expect from a mathematician. Although the book on animals never saw the light of day, Galileo’s works reveal significant expertise on the topic. He famously writes of examining the body of a cicada in The Assayer; describes attending a brain dissection in Venice in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; and discusses the bones of giants in Two New Sciences. Interestingly, these are just a fraction of the instances in which Galileo drew on anatomical examples. This paper summarizes such uses of anatomy in Galileo’s mathematical and philosophical works to ask where and how he acquired this knowledge. It argues that Galileo’s interests in anatomy partly emerged out of his Padua circles with physicians like Fabricius d’Acquapendente (1533–1619) and Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). Indeed, Galileo’s manuscript comments about Fabricius seem to show that Galileo intentionally crossed disciplinary boundaries to increase the epistemic strength of his claims and to advance the intellectual prestige of mathematicians. This paper thus uses Galileo and his medical circles to speak about the social and intellectual interactions between mathematicians and anatomists at the turn of the seventeenth century.

Author

• Nuno Castel-Branco, All Souls College, University of Oxford