Michèle Goyens

Erika Gielen

The authority of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) in reviving human anatomy is without any doubt a landmark in the history of science. Yet his breakthrough was inconceivable without his predecessor?s works. Moreover, later on, his own legacy would not remain untouched or undisputed. The question of scientific authority is not new; however it has hardly been tackled in a multidisciplinary and diachronic way. This volume brings together contributions from international scholars working in the field of theology, art history, philosophy, history of science and historical linguistics. Its goal is to contextualize and analyse the complex interaction between dogma and authority on the one hand and empirical progress on the other, both in the development of anatomy and the views on the human body, mainly before Vesalius?s time. Indeed, it is not the volume?s aim to focus exclusively on the role of Vesalius nor to assess the concept of medical and anatomical authority in a comprehensive way. Avoiding to repeat insights from the history of science as such, it intends to put old views to the test, and to bring up new questions and answers from diverse perspectives concerning the work of Vesalius and his predecessors and successors, by presenting different case studies from Antiquity to the Early Modern Times.

Studies on Medicine and the Human Body from Antiquity to the Renaissance and Beyond

Towards the Authority of Vesalius

Werner Verbeke

Ponencias del coloquio celebrado en Lovaina en Mayo de 2000.

The Dawn of the Written Vernacular in Western Europe

Pieter de Leemans

Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 39Communication leads to an evolution of knowledge, and the free exchange of knowledge leads to fresh findings. In the Middle Ages things were no different. The inheritance of ancient knowledge deeply influenced medieval thought. The writings of ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle reached medieval readers primarily through translations. Translators made an interpretation of the source-text, and their translations became the subject of commentaries. An understanding of the complex web of relations among source-texts, translations, and commentaries reveals how scientific thinking evolved during the Middle Ages. Aristotle's Problemata, a text provoking various questions about scientific and everyday topics, amply illustrates the communication of ideas during the transition between antiquity and the Renaissance.

Aristotle's Problemata in Different Times and Tongues

An Smets

Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 40Medieval translators played an important role in the development and evolution of a scientific lexicon. At a time when most scholars deferred to authority, the translations of canonical texts assumed great importance. Moreover, translation occurred at two levels in the Middle Ages. First, Greek or Arabic texts were translated into the learned language, Latin. Second, Latin texts became source texts themselves, to be translated into the vernaculars as their importance across Europe started to increase.The situation of the respective translators at these two levels was fundamentally different: whereas the former could rely on a long tradition of scientific discourse, the latter had the enormous responsibility of actually developing a scientific vocabulary. The contributions in the present volume investigate both levels, greatly illuminating the emergence of the scientific terminology and concepts that became so fundamental in early modern intellectual discourse. The scientific disciplines covered in the book include, among others, medicine, biology, astronomy, and physics.

Michèle Goyens

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