Abstract
This introductory chapter spells out our vision of a more inclusive history of space. We start with a close look at the meaning of the concept of space and its cognates, noting their practical as well as theoretical implications. In exploring earthly, imaginary and (un)godly places and spaces, we remain in continuous interaction with the classical historiography of space but also add unexpected perspectives. Suspicious of linear or teleological accounts, we stress the flourishing and mixing of many different ideas about space. This chapter is simultaneously a stand-alone introduction to the history of early modern space and an introduction to the contributions that follow, which we locate in a thematic network.
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- 1.
“Si spacium nihil est, frustra quaeratur, an spacium sit. Si verò spacium non sit, frustra itidem quaeretur, an spacium sit aliquid. Communis quaedam omnium hominum notio, spacium, et esse, et aliquid esse videtur voluisse, cum nomina haec, vel talia formaret, Dimensio, Distantia, Inveruallum, Intercapedo, Spacium, Diastasis, Diastema.” Patrizi (1587, 2v).
- 2.
Isidore (1911, XV.9.2): “Intervalla sunt spatia inter capita vallorum, id est stipitum quibus vallum fit; unde et cetera quoque spatia dicunt, ab stipitibus scilicet”.
- 3.
Vitruvius (1912), III.3.11.
- 4.
Ibid., I.6.8.
- 5.
Ibid., I.6.9.
- 6.
Ibid., II.9.14.
- 7.
For infinity: Lucretius (1910, I.984–986), for vacuum: Ibid., I.378–379.
- 8.
Ibid., I.426–427.
- 9.
Ibid., I.426–428, also 503–510.
- 10.
Ibid., I.520-523. Lucretius (1992, 45). Finally, Lucretius, as was common, uses “spatium” frequently to refer to intervals of time. These intervals might be short or as long as the innumerable ages that preceded us. On the space of ages past, see Ibid., I.234–236.
- 11.
The traditional narrative has ascribed the invention of absolute space to the Scientific Revolution, e.g. Jammer, who argued for a development of container space only after the Renaissance. Interestingly, Albert Einstein, in his introduction to Jammer’s book, undermines one of its core conclusions, arguing that “the atomic theory of the ancients, with its atoms existing separately from each other, necessarily presupposed a space of [this] type” (Jammer 1954, xvi). The history of ideas has continued to revise and refine its views on this subject. Gassendi’s reception of Epicurean thought, and especially of Epicurean space, deserves more study in this respect, as in Delphine Bellis’ work in progress on Gassendi and space.
- 12.
There is no etymological relationship between “topos” and “place.”
- 13.
On natural place, see Algra (1995, 195–221).
- 14.
Ibid., 197. Neoplatonists, in particular, contested Aristotle’s denial of place’s intrinsic causal power.
- 15.
Scafi (2006).
- 16.
Hayes (2004). She argues that there existed an ambiguity between sacred and profane spaces during the Middle Ages, and both were often mingled. During the early modern period, sacred and secular space became increasingly compartmentalized and differentiated.
- 17.
Neal (1732, 201). He rejected that consecration of churches and holy places was part of the original church, asserting that these practices “were not known in the Christian Church till the very darkest Times of Popery”. The consecration of a place was often compared with the baptism of a person.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
See Sambursky (1982, 43).
- 21.
Ibid., 45.
- 22.
- 23.
Note, however, that in contrast to Philoponus’ idea that place is empty spatial extension, Simplicius’ notion of place implies that it only becomes extended with bodies and is not extended on its own, independently of bodies. Simplicius (1992, 67). “Place is extended through its participation in the object in place, just as the object in place is measured and located by means of place.” Centuries earlier, Sextus Empiricus had ascribed the idea to Dogmatic philosophers, as Grant notes. Grant (1981, 276, n. 67).
- 24.
See Rashed (2002, 655–685).
- 25.
This becomes very clear, for instance in Casey, who purports to give a longue durée intellectual history of “place” but ends up writing more about space than place, in an otherwise wonderful book (Casey 2013).
- 26.
For more on Aristotelian topos, especially topos as not a surface, see Lang (1998, 66–121).
- 27.
For instance, the circumference of a circle is the topos of all the points equidistant to a given point. For Greek locus theorem, see Thomas (1951, 490–501).
- 28.
“Place is as it were a sort of outline (proupographe) of the whole position (thesis) and of its parts, and so to say a mold (tupos) into which the thing must fit, if it is to lie properly and not be diffused, or in an unnatural state.” Damascius, cited by Simplicius, In Aristotelis physicorum libros quattuor priores commentaria and translated by Sorabji (1988, 206). Also see Casey (2013, 91).
- 29.
See e.g. Alder (2002, Chap. 5).
- 30.
Sorabji (2004, 242).
- 31.
See Vincenzo de Risi’s chapter in this volume, as well as Jean Seidengart’s.
- 32.
“Or cette conception permet à Ibn al-Haytham ce qui était interdit à ses prédécesseurs: de pouvoir comparer les différents solides géométriques, ainsi que les diverses figures, qui occupent un même lieu, aussi bien que les lieux qu’ils occupent. Il lui est désormais permis de penser leurs relations de repérage, positions, formes et grandeurs, comme il le projetait dans Les Connus.” Rashed (2002, 662).
- 33.
- 34.
“Non est quantitas. Et si quantitas est, non est illa categoriarum, sed ante eam, eiusque fons et origo.” Patrizi (1587, 15v).
- 35.
See especially Grant (1979).
- 36.
If He was capable of creating a body in extra-cosmic space, it followed that He was present there. Because He was immutable, He had always occupied this space.
- 37.
“[…] unde & veraciter omnipraesens sicut & omnipotents dici potest. Potest quoque simili ratione dici quodammodo infinitus, infinitè magnus, seu magnitudinis infinitae, etiam quodammodo licet Metaphysicè & impropriè extensiue […]” Bradwardine (1618, 179).
- 38.
Kirschner (2000, 167–170).
- 39.
See especially Bruno’s De immenso. See Grant (1981, 191).
- 40.
The contrast and similarity with Bruno’s contemporary, the mystic and theologian Valentin Weigel (1533–1588), studied by Alessandro Scafi, is striking. Weigel argues that the world hangs against an infinite abyss of God, which is not conceptualized as a Brunean infinite space, but as a spiritual nothingness.
- 41.
Cf. Grant (1981).
- 42.
Cees Leijenhorst (1996).
- 43.
Martine Pécharman (2014). We would like to thank Martine Pécharman for making her text available to us before publication.
- 44.
Simon (2003).
- 45.
- 46.
Vanden Broecke (2000, 133).
- 47.
Gemma Frisius’ nephews, Walter and Jeremias Arsenius, were instrument makers. The signatures on the instruments often referred to Gemma Frisius, e.g.: ‘Gualterus Arsenius nepos Gemmae Frisii’. These instruments were very popular and used by John Dee, Tycho Brahe and others.
- 48.
- 49.
On the exactness of the water currents, Rossby and Miller (2003).
- 50.
Hallyn (2008, 52).
- 51.
There is a wide range of works on perspective spaces in art and architecture, and their rapport with natural philosophy, beginning with Panofsky’s classic study: Panofsky (1927). Also see Kubovy (1988); Damisch (1987). For more recent volumes, see Cojannot-Le Blanc et al. (2006), Carpo and Lemerie (2008); Massey (2007).
- 52.
- 53.
Apianus and Frisius (1564, ff.3r).
- 54.
- 55.
Ptolemy’s Geography was rendered into Latin by Jacopo d’Angelo, who gave the book the title Cosmographia because Ptolemy’s method connected the earth with the heavens. The translation circulated in manuscript form from 1406 onwards.
- 56.
Cf. Alder (2002).
- 57.
See esp. Chap. 18 of Frisius (1530).
- 58.
Pogo (1935).
- 59.
Goldstein (1987), especially 173.
- 60.
- 61.
“Quae enim ars tot praestigiarum, tot fallaciarum, in quibus humana mens per se caecutire nata est, rationes monstrat? Quae scientia tot miraculorum causas aperit? Parua moles ingentis magnitudinis saepè apparet: curua rectis, recta curuis […] quibus natura ingenium hominis vel ludificari, vel certè ad causarum inquisitionem mouere voluit? […] sola Optice has naturae fallacias retegat […]” Péna (1557) , aa.iir-aa.iiv of praefatio.
- 62.
- 63.
For Galileos conservative position in the case of cometary parralax, see e.g. Gal and Chen-Morris (2013, Chap. 3).
- 64.
Here we are on familiar terrain, researched in detail and described in extenso in history of science textbooks.
- 65.
Of course, we are not referring here to a “connected history” that connects different places and studies circulations of knowledge, but rather to a historiography that connects different practices in order to better understand interconnections between various conceptualizations of different spaces.
- 66.
Euclid (1570, page 24 of Dee’s unnumbered preface).
- 67.
Apian and Frisius Apianus (1564) [1533]. See the definition of cosmography under caput primum, 1r.
- 68.
- 69.
This is from the table of contents of François de Belleforest’s 1575 French translation, La cosmographie universelle de tout le monde. For a list of the translations and editions, see McLean (2007, 346).
- 70.
- 71.
For the early modern development of mapping and the great difference between the sixteenth-century vision of the world and what had come before, see Smith (2008).
- 72.
- 73.
We cite the 1575 French translation. Münster (1575, 5).
- 74.
“La mer donc des ce jour n’eut point sa situation naturelle, ains estant retiree en la partie opposite de cette masse terrestre, a autant redoublé sa profondeur, comme elle a descouvert de la terre.” Ibid., 6.
- 75.
Other Renaissance savants of considerable repute, among them Gregor Reisch (1467–1525), also carried Buridan’s idea well into the sixteenth century. See Besse (2003, 91–96).
- 76.
The image illustrates a passage from Jean Peckham’s Tractatus de sphera.
- 77.
Münster (1550, 1).
- 78.
Vogel (2006, 477–478).
- 79.
Ibid.
- 80.
Apian and Frisius (1964, 3r).
- 81.
See Besse (2003, 16).
- 82.
Ptolemy (2000, 60).
- 83.
He makes a point of telling his readers that mountains and valleys, although impressive from up-close, hardly modify the “perfect rotundity” or “perfect sphericity” of the earth.
- 84.
“[…] les nerfs pour la continuation qu’ils ont avec leur principe, comme ont les rayons avec le Soleil, apportent du cerveau le pouvoir reelle en un corps bien subtil, qui est l’esprit animal […]” du Laurens (1615, 7r).
- 85.
On this interconnectedness of mind, body and environment through spirits and imagination, see e.g. Vermeir (2004). The idea that the imagination was so powerful that it could extend its action outside the body was often debated in medieval discussions of action at a distance.
- 86.
- 87.
For example, Cicero (1917) II.49. Early modern writers did not ignore “spatium” or its frequent variant “spacium.” However, they stuck to the other connotations. Consider how Rheticus, explaining the Copernican order, fans out a series of terms each referring to a different kind of space: “[…] between the concave surface of Mars’s orb [orbis], and the convex orb of Venus, the space [spacium] must be large enough to surround the globe [globum] of the earth, along with the adjacent elements and the Lunar orb.” “…sed intra concauam superficiem orbis Martis, et conuexam Veneris, cum satis amplum relictum sit spacium, globum telluris cum adiacentibus elementis, orbe Lunari circundatum…” We have used the edition of the Narratio prima (1540) published in 1596 and reprinted in Kepler (1937).
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Regier, J., Vermeir, K. (2016). Boundaries, Extents and Circulations: An Introduction to Spatiality and the Early Modern Concept of Space. In: Vermeir, K., Regier, J. (eds) Boundaries, Extents and Circulations. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41075-3_1
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