Comparative Tables to Choose the Right World-System: Visual Astronomy before Newton

Research Seminar

Date: Oct 10, 2019
Time: 11:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Flavia Marcacci
Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
Contact: paulinyi@biblhertz.it

Comparative Tables to Choose the Right World-System: Visual Astronomy before Newton<i></i><sub></sub><sup></sup>

In the period between Galileo and Newton, astronomical handbooks and works searched constantly for data and proofs to understand and establish the correct world-system. The struggle was essentially between the heliocentric and geo-heliocentric cosmological models.

To solve the question, some astronomers were used to make comparisons among different approaches and solutions. Especially Giovanni Battista Riccioli, in his masterpiece Almagestum novum (1651), constantly resorted to tables to show and spell out shortly many answers proposed by ancient and coeval astronomers. The right choice had to be visually clear. His objective was to choose the absolute hypothesis (hypothesis absoluta) employing a strong observational database and a deductive system of theoretical evaluation of data.

Flavia Marcacci teaches History of Scientific Thought at Lateran University and has devoted her recent research in the role of geo-heliocentric astronomical systems in the Scientific Revolution (see Cieli in contraddizione. Giovanni B. Riccioli e il terzo Sistema del mondo, Perugia-Modena 2018).

Scientific Organization: Sietske Fransen