Meteorology in Renaissance Science

Abstract

Meteorology was a central part of natural philosophy during the Renaissance. It largely followed an Aristotelian framework as established in medieval universities. During the Renaissance, in universities and beyond, scholars wrote hundreds of works based on Aristotle’s Meteorology in both Latin and the vernacular. Inquiry was primarily causal in character, rather than predictive, although a few scholars sought to develop systemic observations that they hoped would lead to better forecasting. The field was based on the idea that meteorological phenomena were imperfect mixtures that resulted from the combinations, transformations, and motions of two exhalations that flowed through the air in the sublunary region and beneath the earth. Scholars gave much attention to explaining rare and extraordinary events, which some considered to be prodigies or signs of God’s will. Many natural philosophers held that a number of their theories were provisional and probable, leading them to revise existing theories that did not conform to observed events. Changes in the field resulted from a broadening of ancient sources, new experiences, and experiments – including European voyages of discovery, Lutheran emphases on providence, and the growth of mineralogy and alchemy. There was great continuity between meteorology of the Renaissance and of the seventeenth century, although the emergence of heliocentric cosmology, new conceptions of air and void, and refinements in chemical theories led to general distancing from the Aristotelianism of the Renaissance.