23
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
I. Chinnici, G. Consolmagno (eds.), Angelo Secchi and Nineteenth Century Science,
Historical & Cultural Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58384-2_2
Chapter 2
The Scientific Tradition of the Society
of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo
Secchi
Ugo Baldini
2.1 The Historical Problem of “Jesuit Science”
To understanding the scientific background of the Jesuit priest Angelo Secchi, we
must be aware that there is a persistent “black legend” about the Society of Jesus.
The notion of the Jesuits as a secretive, combative religious order has embroiled the
Society in controversy and created so many adversaries that its image is inevitably
colored by religious and ideological prejudice. As far as science is concerned, the
legend is that, at least until the eighteenth century, the scientific role of the Jesuits
was to oppose any new direction or new idea that threatened the Aristotelian or
neoscholastic worldview. With few exceptions, only in recent decades have studies
in the history of science looked more deeply into various aspects and important
figures in the Jesuits’ overall contribution to the field, countering the old stereotype.
Some elements of the “legend” originated in the anti-Jesuit polemic which began
in the sixteenth century, not only among the Protestants and Anglicans, but also
within some sectors of Catholicism (including the Dominican order). It grew almost
exponentially during the Enlightenment, assuming a paradigmatic form in L. de
Jaucourt’s article “Jésuite” in the Encyclopédie, and it was systematized in much of
positivist historiography. It hardly needs saying that like any deep and widespread
historical phenomenon, it arose and grew because some grounds for it actually
existed; however, much recent historiography has shown that the absolutistic version that has long been accepted as common wisdom in a large part of Western
opinion is untenable, at the religious, social, and pedagogic levels as well as at the
scientific level. Two general assessments can be found in Burke (2001) and
Nelson (2002).
U. Baldini (*)
University of Padua, Padua, Italy
e-mail: ugo.baldini@unipd.it
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
I. Chinnici, G. Consolmagno (eds.), Angelo Secchi and Nineteenth Century Science,
Historical & Cultural Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58384-2_2
Chapter 2
The Scientific Tradition of the Society
of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo
Secchi
Ugo Baldini
2.1 The Historical Problem of “Jesuit Science”
To understanding the scientific background of the Jesuit priest Angelo Secchi, we
must be aware that there is a persistent “black legend” about the Society of Jesus.
The notion of the Jesuits as a secretive, combative religious order has embroiled the
Society in controversy and created so many adversaries that its image is inevitably
colored by religious and ideological prejudice. As far as science is concerned, the
legend is that, at least until the eighteenth century, the scientific role of the Jesuits
was to oppose any new direction or new idea that threatened the Aristotelian or
neoscholastic worldview. With few exceptions, only in recent decades have studies
in the history of science looked more deeply into various aspects and important
figures in the Jesuits’ overall contribution to the field, countering the old stereotype.
Some elements of the “legend” originated in the anti-Jesuit polemic which began
in the sixteenth century, not only among the Protestants and Anglicans, but also
within some sectors of Catholicism (including the Dominican order). It grew almost
exponentially during the Enlightenment, assuming a paradigmatic form in L. de
Jaucourt’s article “Jésuite” in the Encyclopédie, and it was systematized in much of
positivist historiography. It hardly needs saying that like any deep and widespread
historical phenomenon, it arose and grew because some grounds for it actually
existed; however, much recent historiography has shown that the absolutistic version that has long been accepted as common wisdom in a large part of Western
opinion is untenable, at the religious, social, and pedagogic levels as well as at the
scientific level. Two general assessments can be found in Burke (2001) and
Nelson (2002).
U. Baldini (*)
University of Padua, Padua, Italy
e-mail: ugo.baldini@unipd.it