Books by Neil Tarrant
UCL Press, 2024
Open Access PDF
Available free from
www.uclpress.co.uk/ScienceofNaples
Long neglected in the h... more Open Access PDF
Available free from
www.uclpress.co.uk/ScienceofNaples
Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and
early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have
revised received understanding of the political and
economic significance of the city of Naples and its
rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its
importance in the history of science, however, has
remained relatively unknown.
The Science of Naples provides the first dedicated
study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English
language. Drawing on contributions from leading
experts in the field, this volume presents a series of
studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold
contributions to European scientific culture in the
early modern period and considers the importance
of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories
for the production of new knowledge.
Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which
Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to
debates within the Republic of Letters that continued
until deep into the nineteenth century. They also
show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters
yielded unique insights that contributed to the
development of fields such as medicine and
volcanology. Taken together, these studies resituate
the city of Naples as an integral part of an
increasingly globalised scientific culture, and
present a rich and engaging portrait of the
individuals who lived, worked and made scientific
knowledge there.
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Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2022
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Journal Articles by Neil Tarrant
Religions, 2024
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Annals of Science, 2020
Historians have portrayed the papal bull Coeli et terrae (1586) as a significant turning point in... more Historians have portrayed the papal bull Coeli et terrae (1586) as a significant turning point in the history of the Catholic Church's censorship of astrology. They argue that this bull was intended to prohibit the idea that the stars could naturally incline humans towards future actions, but also had the effect of preventing the discussion of other forms of natural astrology including those useful to medicine, agriculture, and navigation. The bull, therefore, threatened to overturn principles established by Thomas Aquinas, which not only justified long-standing astrological practices, but also informed the Roman Inquisition's attitude towards this art. The promulgation of the bull has been attributed to the 'rigour' of the incumbent pope, Sixtus V. In this article I revise our understanding of this bull in two ways. First, I reconsider the Inquisition's attitude towards astrology in the mid-sixteenth century, arguing that its members promoted a limited form of Thomist astrology that did not permit the doctrine of inclination. Second, using Robert Bellarmine's unpublished lectures discussing Aquinas's views of astrology, I suggest that this attitude was common during the sixteenth century, and may have been caused by the crisis of Renaissance astrology precipitated by the work of Giovanni Pico.
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Zygon, 2019
Historians have often argued that from the midsixteenth century onward Italian science began to d... more Historians have often argued that from the midsixteenth century onward Italian science began to decline. This development is often attributed to the actions of the so-called CounterReformation Church, which had grown increasingly intolerant of novel ideas. In this article, I argue that this interpretation of the history of science is derived from an Italian liberal historiographical tradition, which linked the history of Italian philosophy to the development of the modern Italian state. I suggest that although historians of science have appropriated parts of this distinctive narrative to underpin their account of Italy’s seventeenth-century scientific decline, they have not always fully appreciated its complexity. In this article, I consider the work of two scholars, Francesco de Sanctis and Benedetto Croce. Both explicitly suggested that although the actions of the Church caused Italy to enter into a period of decline, they in fact argued that science represented one of the few areas in which Italian intellectual life actually continued to thrive.
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Preternature, 2019
In this article I discuss the ecclesiastical censorship of physiognomy in post–Tridentine Italy. ... more In this article I discuss the ecclesiastical censorship of physiognomy in post–Tridentine Italy. Existing studies of the criteria used by the Roman Inquisition to examine operative arts have rightly emphasized continuities with the opinions of earlier authorities, and especially those of Thomas Aquinas. Historians have, nevertheless, tended to suggest that Aquinas’s ideas were transmitted to the Inquisition and Congregation of the Index virtually unchanged by texts such as Nicholas Eymerich’s Directorium inquisitorum. In this paper I highlight divergences in the opinions of authorities such as Augustine, Aquinas, Eymerich, and Nicholas Peña, a sixteenth-century consultor to the Congregation of the Index and editor of Eymerich’s text. I suggest that during the sixteenth century the Church’s centralized organs of censorship drew on each of these approaches, but failed satisfactorily to resolve the precise status of physiognomy. In turn this created considerable ambiguities in the practice of censorship at a local level.
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Ambix, 2018
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Ambix, 2018
In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Roman Inquisition developed criteria to prosecute... more In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Roman Inquisition developed criteria to prosecute a series of operative arts, including various forms of divination and magic. Its officials had little interest in alchemy. During that period the Roman Inquisition tried few people for practising alchemy, and it was rarely discussed in official documents. Justifications for prosecuting alchemists did exist, however. In his influential handbook, Directorium inquisitorum, the fourteenth-century inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich had developed a clear rationale for the investigation and prosecution of alchemists as heretics. His position was endorsed in the 1570s by Francisco Peña in his commentary on Eymerich’s handbook. In this article I explore the reasons why alchemy held this ambiguous status. I argue that members of the Dominican Order developed two traditions of thinking about alchemy from Aquinas’s thought. The first, and closest to Aquinas’s own belief, held that alchemy was a natural art that posed no danger to the Christian faith. The second, developed by Eymerich from a selective reading of Aquinas’s writings, indicated specific circumstances in which alchemists could be investigated. The Roman Inquisition’s response to alchemy vacillated between the positions advocated by Aquinas and Eymerich.
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Sixteenth Century Journal, 2015
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History of Science, 2014
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The British Journal for the History of Science, 2013
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Chapters by Neil Tarrant
Science Religion and Nationalism: Local Perceptions and Global Historiographies, edited by Jaume Navarro and Kostas Tampakis, 2024
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C. Zwierlein and V. Lavenia (eds), Fruits of Migration: Heterodox Italian Migrants and Central European Culture, 1550-1620, 2018
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Book Reviews by Neil Tarrant
English Historical Review , 2024
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Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2024
Franses's treatment of Byzantine views of the afterlife may be the core of his book, but it is on... more Franses's treatment of Byzantine views of the afterlife may be the core of his book, but it is only incidental to his main purpose, which is to elucidate the Byzantine donor portrait. But his presentation of the portrait as a means of influencing the donor's posthumous destiny requires a view of the afterlife that was full of terrors and perils rather than one overseen by a merciful God, as official teaching suggested. Franses therefore emphasises the importance of the alternative narrative, which provided what he was looking for. He becomes impatient not only with the Byzantine theologians for turning a blind eye to the inconsistencies that existed in their concept of the afterlife, but also with modern commentators for taking at face value 'first-hand reports and explanations of beliefs', which were designednot necessarily consciouslyto mislead as a way of masking blatant inconsistencies. The author is working within a framework provided by the concept of 'misrecognition', whereby misrepresentation or suppression of inconvenient facts and ideas springs from the need not so much to deceive others, as oneself, and serves as a way of preserving the integrity of belief when its different strands come into conflict. This is an idea developed by the influential social scientist Pierre Bourdieu (-), whose work provides much of the intellectual underpinning of Franses's book. At first sight, it applies rather well to the differing versions that the Byzantines apparently entertained of the afterlife. The difficulty is that the Byzantines themselves approached the matter rather differently. Take the Orthodox Patriarch Germanos II (-), who was a contemporary of the first debate between the Latin and Orthodox Churches over purgatory. He was not directly involved, but he will certainly have received a report on it. His hair-raising account of the perils of the afterlifereplete with tollgates and demons of the upper airalerts us to the fact that the highest ranks of the hierarchy subscribed to the alternative narrative of the afterlife and did not see it as in direct opposition to official teaching. Stress on the perils of the afterlife only emphasised the necessity of the wisdom and mercy of God. Rather than two different concepts of the afterlife being in contradiction they reinforced each other. It is an illustration of how differently the Latins and the Greeks framed the problem of the afterlife. The former solved it, as the author notes, by creating a mechanistic system of absolution, which 'cut out aspects of true forgiveness and charity of God'. To the Byzantines this was nothing less than 'an infringement or usurpation of divine mercy and divine power' (p. ), which their views on the afterlife preserved. Not only is thisdespite earlier criticisma sympathetic treatment of the Orthodox position, but by approaching the problem from a new direction the author forces us to look afresh at an old and increasingly stale debate, which has depths that until he drew our attention to them were ignored. MICHAEL ANGOLD UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH Religious practices and everyday life in the long fifteenth century (-). Interpreting changes and changes of interpretation. Edited by Ian Johnson and Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues. (New Communities of Interpretation, .) Pp. incl. ills. Turnhout: Brepols, . €. JEH () ; doi:./S This volume of essays originated in an international colloquium held in Lisbon in , which was designed not only to reopen discussion of the issue of continuity
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British Journal for the History of Science, 2023
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Journal of Religious History , 2023
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Incontri, 2022
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Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 2022
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British Journal for the History of Science, 2022
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Books by Neil Tarrant
Available free from
www.uclpress.co.uk/ScienceofNaples
Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and
early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have
revised received understanding of the political and
economic significance of the city of Naples and its
rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its
importance in the history of science, however, has
remained relatively unknown.
The Science of Naples provides the first dedicated
study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English
language. Drawing on contributions from leading
experts in the field, this volume presents a series of
studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold
contributions to European scientific culture in the
early modern period and considers the importance
of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories
for the production of new knowledge.
Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which
Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to
debates within the Republic of Letters that continued
until deep into the nineteenth century. They also
show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters
yielded unique insights that contributed to the
development of fields such as medicine and
volcanology. Taken together, these studies resituate
the city of Naples as an integral part of an
increasingly globalised scientific culture, and
present a rich and engaging portrait of the
individuals who lived, worked and made scientific
knowledge there.
Journal Articles by Neil Tarrant
Chapters by Neil Tarrant
Book Reviews by Neil Tarrant
Available free from
www.uclpress.co.uk/ScienceofNaples
Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and
early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have
revised received understanding of the political and
economic significance of the city of Naples and its
rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its
importance in the history of science, however, has
remained relatively unknown.
The Science of Naples provides the first dedicated
study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English
language. Drawing on contributions from leading
experts in the field, this volume presents a series of
studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold
contributions to European scientific culture in the
early modern period and considers the importance
of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories
for the production of new knowledge.
Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which
Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to
debates within the Republic of Letters that continued
until deep into the nineteenth century. They also
show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters
yielded unique insights that contributed to the
development of fields such as medicine and
volcanology. Taken together, these studies resituate
the city of Naples as an integral part of an
increasingly globalised scientific culture, and
present a rich and engaging portrait of the
individuals who lived, worked and made scientific
knowledge there.