Cornelius Gemma (1535-1578)
Conference Proceedings
Hiro Hirai (ed.),
Cornelius Gemma: Cosmology,
Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain
(Supplemeti di Bruniana
& Campanelliana, Studi 10), Pisa-Roma, Fabrizio Serra, 2008.
Cornelius Gemma (1535-1578), the son of the famous mathematician and
cosmographer Gemma Frisius, was a professor of medicine at the University of
Louvain. Until recently he has been almost totally neglected by scholars,
although he played an important role in the intellectual map of the second half
of the sixteenth century. His main works, De
arte cyclognomica (Antwerp, 1569) and De
naturae divinis characterismis (Antwerp, 1575) are true “hidden gems”
in early modern intellectual history. They encompasses the cluster of problems on medicine, astronomy, astrology, teratology, divination, prophecy,
eschatology, encyclopaedism, art of memory, etc. and drew the particular
attention of such eminent minds of the time as Guillaume Postel, Jean Bodin or
Johannes Kepler. The present volume stems from the conference entirely devoted
to Gemma (Ghent, 23 February 2007) and organised by the Centre for History of
Science (sarton.UGent.be) at Ghent University as a part of its project
“Reevaluation of the Sciences in the Low Countries in the
Renaissance” (GOA 12.517.03). It furnishes the first substantial survey
on this elusive figure through multidisciplinary approaches.
Cosmology and Astrology
Fernand Hallyn, "A Poem on the Copernican System:
Cornelius Gemma and his Cosmocritical Art"
Germana Ernst, "Il
linguaggio universale dei cieli: Cornelio Gemma, Tycho Brahe, Tommaso
Campanella"
Dario Tessicini, "«Vere Gemmeum
est?»: Cornelio Gemma e la stella nuova del 1572"
Medicine
and Prodigy
Jean Céard, "La notion de
prodige selon Cornelius Gemma"
Concetta Pennuto, "Cornelius
Gemma et l'épidémie de 1574"
Hiro Hirai, "«Prisca Theologia» and Neoplatonic
Reading of Hippocrates in Fernel, Cardano and Gemma"
Method
and Sapientia
Stephen Clucas, "Cornelius Gemma and Universal
Method"
Thomas Leinkauf, "Cornelius
Gemma, Philosophie und Methode: Eine Analyse des ersten Buches der Ars cyclognomica"
Now Available!
“al di là degli ottimi contenuti è, a mio
parere, un autentico capolavoro di tipografia.” (Fabrizio Serra, the publisher)
Conference Programme
Friday 23 February 2007
Room “Oude Infirmerie” at Het Pand
Welcome & Opening
9h00-9h15
Fernand Hallyn, "Introduction"
Session 1: "Prodiges"
Jean Céard (Paris X), "La notion de
prodige selon Cornelius Gemma" 9h15-10h00
Germana Ernst (Roma III), "Divination
et signes célestes chez Campanella et Gemma" 10h00-10h45
Session 2:
Medicine
Concetta Pennuto (Genève), "Cornelius Gemma et
l'épidémie de 1574" 11h00-11h45
Hiro Hirai (Ghent), "Neoplatonic
Reading of Hippocrates in Fernel, Cardano and Gemma" 11h45-12h30
Session 3: Sophia
Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck College, London), "Cornelius Gemma and Encyclopaedism" 14h00-14h45
Thomas Leinkauf (Münster), "Philosophie
und Methode im Werk des Cornelius Gemma" 14h45-15h30
Session 4: Cosmos
Dario Tessicini (Durham), "The Reception of Cornelius Gemma's
Cosmological Works" 15h45-16h30
Steven Vanden Broecke (Katholieke Universiteit
Brussel), "Society,
Christianity, and Philosophy in the Work of Cornelius Gemma" 16h30-17h15
Organized by Fernand Hallyn & Hiro Hirai, Centre
for History of Science,
Ghent University (Belgium)
Elemental
Bibliography
Fernand G. Van Ortroy, Bio-Bibliographie
de Gemma Frisius, fondateur de l’école belge de géographie, de son fils
Corneille et de ses neveux les Arsenius (Brussels: Lamertin, 1920).
Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia UP, 1941), v. 5, pp. 406-409.
François Secret, "Cornelius Gemma et la prophétie de la Sybille
tiburtine", Revue d’histoire
ecclésiastique 64 (1969), pp. 423-431.
François Secret, L’ésotérisme
de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie (Genève: Droz, 1969), pp. 53-55, 59-60, 110.
Jean Céard, La nature et les prodiges (Genève: Droz
1977), pp. 365-73.
Paolo Rossi, Clavis Universalis
(Bologna: Il Mulino, 1983), 2 ed., pp. 21, 77, 78, 214.
Giancarlo Zanier, Ricerche sulla
diffusione e fortuna del De incantationibus di Pomponazzi (Florence: Nuova Italia, 1975), pp. 85-87.
Giancarlo Zanier, Medicina e Filosofia tra ’500 e
’600 (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 1983), pp. 68-70.
Thomas Leinkauf, "Scientia universalis, memoria und status corruptionis : Überlegungen zu philosophischen und theologischen Implikationem der Universalwissenschaft sowie zum Verhältnis von Universal wissehscat und Theorien des Gedächtnisses", in Ars memorativa : Zur kulturgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der Gedächtniskunst, 1400-1750, ed. Jörg Jochen Berns & Wolfgang Neuber (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), pp. 1-34.
Tabitta Van
Nouhuys, The Age of Two-Faced Janus: The
Comets of 1577 and 1618 and the Decline of the Aristotelian World View in the
Netherlands (Leiden: Brill, 1993), passim.
Martin
Mulsow, "Seelenwagen
und Ähnlichkeitsmaschine: Zur Reichweite der praktischen Geometrie in der Ars cyclognomica von Cornelius Gemma", in Jörg Jochen Berns
& Wolfgang Neuber (eds), Seelenmaschinen.
Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom
späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne (Wien: Fink, 2000), pp.
249-278.
Fernand Hallyn, "Un poème sur le système copernicien:
Cornelius Gemma et sa ‘cosmo-critique’", Les Cahiers
d’humanisme 2 (2001), pp. 51-70.
Steven Vanden
Broecke, The Limits of Influence: Pico,
Martin Mulsow, "Arcana naturae : Verborgene Ursachen
und universelle Methode von Fernel bis Gemma und Bodin", in Thomas Leinkauf (éd.), Der Naturbegriff in der Frühen Neuzeit
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005), pp. 31-68.