Scene 11
p. 83
"stopping the Bologna doctors from dissecting bodies for medical research" -
The practice of human dissection was again prohibited by the Roman church in 1163 (based on views of the sanctity of the body, that it belongs to God and not humans); it was 1315 before the first manual on dissection was published publically by Italian surgeon, Mondino de Luzzi. Regardless of religious prohibitionand superstition in the general population, scientific interest in the humananatomy continued. It made a major resurgence in the 1500s due largely to the drawings of muscular structures by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Even so,in 1564, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), a founder of modern anatomy, was sentenced to death for performing dissections and publishing his famous seven-volume De corporis humani fabrica which depicts the first accurate drawings of the human anatomy.
Mondino de Liuzzi (1270-1326) performed the first officially sanctioned public dissection in Bologna in the presence of medical students and other spectators; responsible for reviving investigation through dissection and inclusion of dissection in the medical curriculum of the University of Bologna.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was a Renaissance physician who revolutionized the study of biology and the practice of medicine by his careful description of the anatomy of the human body. Basing his observations on dissections he made himself, he wrote and illustrated the first comprehensive textbook of anatomy. He did so while visiting the University of Bologna.
p. 84
cudgels -
a short heavy club
p. 85
Dialogues on Two World Systems -
The pope gave Galileo permission to write a book about theories of the universe but warned him to treat the Copernican theory only hypothetically. The book, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican), was finished in 1630, and Galileo sent it to the Roman censor. Because of an outbreak of the plague, communications between Florence and Rome were interrupted, and Galileo asked for the censoring to be done instead in Florence. The Roman censor had a number of serious criticisms of the book and forwarded these to his colleagues in Florence. After writing a preface in which he professed that what followed was written hypothetically, Galileo had little trouble getting the book through the Florentine censors, and it appeared in Florence in 1632.
In the Dialogue’s witty conversation between Salviati (representing Galileo), Sagredo (the intelligent layman), and Simplicio (the dyed-in-the-wool Aristotelian), Galileo gathered together all the arguments (mostly based on his own telescopic discoveries) for the Copernican theory and against the traditional geocentric cosmology. As opposed to Aristotle’s, Galileo’s approach to cosmology is fundamentally spatial and geometric: the Earth’s axis retains its orientation in space as the Earth circles the Sun, and bodies not under a force retain their velocity (although this inertia is ultimately circular). But in giving Simplicio the final word, that God could have made the universe any way he wanted to and still made it appear to us the way it does, he put Pope Urban VIII’s favourite argument in the mouth of the person who had been ridiculed throughout the dialogue. The reaction against the book was swift. The pope convened a special commission to examine the book and make recommendations; the commission found that Galileo had not really treated the Copernican theory hypothetically and recommended that a case be brought against him by the Inquisition. Galileo was summoned to Rome in 1633.
Excerpted from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Online
"stopping the Bologna doctors from dissecting bodies for medical research" -
The practice of human dissection was again prohibited by the Roman church in 1163 (based on views of the sanctity of the body, that it belongs to God and not humans); it was 1315 before the first manual on dissection was published publically by Italian surgeon, Mondino de Luzzi. Regardless of religious prohibitionand superstition in the general population, scientific interest in the humananatomy continued. It made a major resurgence in the 1500s due largely to the drawings of muscular structures by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Even so,in 1564, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), a founder of modern anatomy, was sentenced to death for performing dissections and publishing his famous seven-volume De corporis humani fabrica which depicts the first accurate drawings of the human anatomy.
Mondino de Liuzzi (1270-1326) performed the first officially sanctioned public dissection in Bologna in the presence of medical students and other spectators; responsible for reviving investigation through dissection and inclusion of dissection in the medical curriculum of the University of Bologna.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was a Renaissance physician who revolutionized the study of biology and the practice of medicine by his careful description of the anatomy of the human body. Basing his observations on dissections he made himself, he wrote and illustrated the first comprehensive textbook of anatomy. He did so while visiting the University of Bologna.
p. 84
cudgels -
a short heavy club
p. 85
Dialogues on Two World Systems -
The pope gave Galileo permission to write a book about theories of the universe but warned him to treat the Copernican theory only hypothetically. The book, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican), was finished in 1630, and Galileo sent it to the Roman censor. Because of an outbreak of the plague, communications between Florence and Rome were interrupted, and Galileo asked for the censoring to be done instead in Florence. The Roman censor had a number of serious criticisms of the book and forwarded these to his colleagues in Florence. After writing a preface in which he professed that what followed was written hypothetically, Galileo had little trouble getting the book through the Florentine censors, and it appeared in Florence in 1632.
In the Dialogue’s witty conversation between Salviati (representing Galileo), Sagredo (the intelligent layman), and Simplicio (the dyed-in-the-wool Aristotelian), Galileo gathered together all the arguments (mostly based on his own telescopic discoveries) for the Copernican theory and against the traditional geocentric cosmology. As opposed to Aristotle’s, Galileo’s approach to cosmology is fundamentally spatial and geometric: the Earth’s axis retains its orientation in space as the Earth circles the Sun, and bodies not under a force retain their velocity (although this inertia is ultimately circular). But in giving Simplicio the final word, that God could have made the universe any way he wanted to and still made it appear to us the way it does, he put Pope Urban VIII’s favourite argument in the mouth of the person who had been ridiculed throughout the dialogue. The reaction against the book was swift. The pope convened a special commission to examine the book and make recommendations; the commission found that Galileo had not really treated the Copernican theory hypothetically and recommended that a case be brought against him by the Inquisition. Galileo was summoned to Rome in 1633.
Excerpted from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Online