Essay Review: Oresme Redivivus: Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motions. A Treatise on the Uniformity and Difformity of Intensities Known as Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum

Crombie A. C. , “Historical commitments of biology”, British journal for the history of science, iii (1966–7), 97–108. See: Diels H. , Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (5th ed., Berlin, 1934), i. 432; Thomas L , Selections illustrating the history of Greek mathematics (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1939), i, 4–5. Archytas would seem to be referring to preceding Pythagoreans, for he has started by praising the judgment of mathematicians (), and these must be taken to be the “they” of the sentence. (For a somewhat differing translation see, Nicomachus of Gerasa , Introduction to arithmetic, tr. d'Ooge Martin Luther (New York, 1926), 185.)

Crombie A. C. , op. cit. (n. 1), 98.

Kuhn T. S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago and London, 1962).

Holton G. , “Presupposition in the construction of theories”, in Woolf H. (ed.), Science as a cultural force (Baltimore, 1964), 77–108.

Burtt E. A. , The metaphysical foundations of modern physical science (London, 1925).

I associate (perhaps wrongly) this term with a course of lectures on Greek Science by Dr G. E. r. Lloyd in the University of Cambridge in 1965. “A program for an explanation” is spoken of in Einstein A. Infeld L. , The evolution of physics (Cambridge, 1961 ed.), 264.

Curtze M. , “Ueber die Handschrift R.4°.2, Problematum Euclidis explicatio der Königl. Gymnasialbibliothek zu Thorn”, Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik, xiii (1868), Supplement, 45–104, p. 97.

Günther S. , “Die Anfänge und Entwickelungsstadien des Coordinatenprincipes”, Abhandlungen der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft zu Nürnberg, vi (1877), 1–50, espec. p. 35. In fact both Curtze (see n. 7) and Günther were arguing mainly from the Tractatus de latitudinibus formarum, which is by Jacobus de Sancto Martino and not by Oresme; see p. 85 of the volume under review.

Duhem P. , Etudes sur Léonard de Vinci, iii (Paris, 1913), 375. The description is retained in Duhem P. , Le Système du monde, vii (Paris, n.d.), 534.

See for example: Coolidge J. L. , A history of geometrical methods (Dover reissue, New York, 1963), 117; Schramm M. , “Steps towards the idea of function”, History of science, iv (1965), 70–103, p. 90; Crombie A. C. North J. D. Schramm M. , “Physics and astronomy”, in Atti del Primo Convegno Internazionale di Ricognizione delle Fonti per la Storia della Scienza Italiana: I secoli XIV–XVI (Florence, 1967), 3–48, pp. 15–18.

Günther S. , Geschichte des mathematischen Unterrichts im deutschen Mittelalter (Berlin, 1887), 182.

Maier A. , An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft (2nd edn, Rome, 1952), 369–371.

Maier A. , Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie (2nd edn, Rome, 1951). 105–107.

Durand D. B. , “Nicole Oresme and the mediaeval origins of modern science”, Speculum, xvi (1941), 167–185, p. 180.

See: Wilson C. , William Heytesbury (Madison, 1960), 3, 24–25, 174; Grant E. , “Late medieval thought, Copernicus, and the scientific revolution”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxiii (1962), 197–220, p. 205; Molland A. G. , “The geometrical background to the ‘Merton School’”, British journal for the history of science, iv (1968–9), 108–125, pp. 113–114.

Maier A. , Ausgehendes Mittelalter, i (Rome, 1964), 342–343. A similar passage is in Maier A. , op. cit. (n. 13), 104.

Bracketed page numbers in the text will always refer to the volume under review.

Maier A. , op. cit. (n. 16), 343.

Pp. 540–541. I have slightly altered Clagett's translation.

Subtilissimi Ricardi Suiseth Anglici Calculationes noviter emendate atque revise (Venice, 1520). F. 2va: Capiatur ergo unus motus qui per tantum distet a non gradu sicut ista caliditas summa a non gradu caliditatis. F. 2vb: Si gradus summus caliditatis non sit remissus respectu alicuius caliditatis, tamen, respectu alicuius alterius intensi, sicut est motus vel aliquid huiusmodi, quod est ista caliditate intensius, dicitur ista caliditas remissa.

See pp. 58–61 of the volume under review and various places in Swineshead Richard , op. cit. (n. 20)—e.g., f.8rb: Consequentia tenet sicut de quantitate seu de quanto, nam … Sic igitur est de intensione. Sequitur igitur quod b est solum finite intensum.

Pp. 226–227. I have slightly altered Clagett's translation.

Bridges J. H. , (ed.), The “Opus majus” of Roger Bacon (Oxford, 1897), i, 119.

Bridges J. H. , op. cit. (n. 23), i, 123–124; cf. ii, 539–541.

Hooke Robert , Micrographia (Dover reissue, New York, 1961), 58.

De coelo, II. 4.

See especially his A history of magic and experimental science (8 vols., New York, 1923–58).

See for example: Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, v (Oxford, 1920). 6–8; Bacon Roger , Opera quaedam hactenus inedita (London, 1859), 531. In an as yet unpublished paper I have discussed in more detail Bacon's relation to magic.

Clagett has “he”, but the Latin is “quidam”.

See n. 1.