Author Archives:
The Invention of Discovery
Part 1: Travel and Discovery in Antiquity
[Note: This post is dedicated to my friend Jack Wright, Regents Professor of Geography at New Mexico State University, like Herodotus an inveterate traveler, like Pytheas a curious wanderer.] Humans are by nature discoverers. Anthropologists tell us that our earliest discoveries, the ones that have been taken to define human nature—the invention of tools, for […]
Kepler and the Star of Bethlehem
On the evening of the 17th of October 1604, as the clouds finally lifted over the city of Prague to reveal a clear night sky, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed a new star in the feet of the Constellation of Serpens. The supernova (now known as SN 1604) burned brightly through the night and […]
Renaissance Astrology and the Vagaries of Markets
J. P. Morgan is supposed to have said, “Millionaires don’t use astrology; billionaires do.” Morgan would have known. He hired the best astrologer money could buy, the famous Evangeline Adams, whose clients also included Enrico Caruso, J. Paul Getty, Wallis Simpson, and Mary Pickford. Operating out of a suite in the Carnegie Hall Building, Adams […]
Astrology and Prophecy in the Renaissance
The biggest media event of the sixteenth century occurred in 1523-24, when scores of astrologers jumped onto a bandwagon of collective hysteria by proclaiming the imminent end of the world. The final days, the astrologers announced, would occur as a result of a second Deluge brought on by a conjunction of the three upper planets, […]
“Two hundred thousand hardships, privations, and dangers”: A Spanish Naturalist in the New World
Fourteen hundred ninety-two has gone down in history as Spain’s annus mirabilis—and the year the modern world began. The year commenced, appropriately enough, with great fanfare in a field outside the fabled city of Granada. Its main characters were King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, who by marriage had united Spain’s two […]
The Age of How-To
What made us modern? The list of the attributes of modernity keeps growing and changing. Once modernity meant “progress”; but that one took a huge shellacking in the last century, when some of the most “modern” nation-states behaved worse than the worst barbarian states of the Dark Ages. Then it was science—until anthropologists forced us […]
The Marvelous Virtues of Precipitato
In the Renaissance, diseases frequently took on terrifying aspects. They were dangerous enemies, never to be taken lightly. Even familiar diseases such as leprosy and plague were feared adversaries that had to be combated with every means at hand. Besides such familiar sicknesses, early modern Europe was besieged by a host of new and mysterious […]
The Monster of Ravenna
“From the highest to the lowest, the people seem fond of sights and monsters.”— Oliver Goldsmith, 1762. In March, 1512, two decades after Christopher Columbus set sail on the momentous voyage that would open up the New World to the European consciousness and seven years before Martin Luther pinned his ninety-five theses to Wittenberg’s cathedral […]
Science as a Hunt
Do myths tell profound truths about the world? The 17th century English philosopher and Lord Chancellor Sir Francis Bacon thought so. Bacon, who is widely regarded as having first developed a philosophy of experimental science, was a diligent student of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Convinced that the ancient myths concealed deep mysteries, he wrote […]
The Lure of the Charlatan
In an earlier post, I discussed the source of the Renaissance charlatan’s power and suggested that charisma—that difficult to pin down, divinely endowed quality that inspires devotion and awe in others—was the secret of the charlatan’s ability to manipulate an audience and attract buyers for his nostrums. The sociologist Max Weber defined charisma as “a […]
