25
university. This still did not lead to the formal introduction in most schools of disciplines like mathematics that were deemed essential only to medicine, as they could
be left to university courses. However, the Jesuit curriculum placed mathematics in
the second of 3 years of philosophy, following logic and metaphysics.
One year was sufficient for lay students but not to form the future teachers who
were needed to cope with the increase in the number of colleges. And so, on the
initiative of Fr. Christopher Clavius SJ (1538–1612), by around 1570, further education courses were started at the Roman College (and later elsewhere) for members
of the Jesuit order. This course, later formalized as the “Academy of Mathematics,”
has an important historical significance because it was perhaps the first official specialized course on mathematics in the world. Similar courses in other provinces for
teaching future teachers led to the dissemination of the tools of mathematical applications, provided consultants to the governments, and produced the core of mathematics and mathematicians in Catholic Europe well into the eighteenth century.
However, the placement of mathematics within a year devoted to natural philosophy made it essentially subordinate to philosophy. What mathematics might say
about various phenomena of nature (planetary motions, optics, etc.) could not disagree with the explanations given by the Aristotelian cosmology and physics; its
assumptions and results were presumed to have only a descriptive meaning, not an
explanatory one. For example, eccentric orbits and epicycles described, or “saved,”
celestial motions better than simple circular orbits, but they could not be “real.”
Moreover, the ontological status of the mathematical entities was subordinate to two
philosophical disciplines, metaphysics and logic, whose status was considered
superior, conceptually and institutionally. Much of the errors and inadequacies
attributed to “Jesuit science” arose from those aspects, which were hardly the fault
of the mathematicians, whatever their personal ideas (Baldini 1993).
2.3 The Scientific Role of the Society of Jesus Until
the Suppression: Quantity and Quality
In 1803, the editors of an English translation of Charles Bossut’s Essai sur l’histoire
general des mathématiques (1802) added to the text a “Chronological table of the
most eminent mathematicians from the earliest times,” collecting the names of those
mentioned in that work. Bossut himself was a former Jesuit, but that does not appear
to have biased his selection of authors. Of the 92 mathematicians listed for the
1600s, nine were Jesuits; of the 78 in the 1700s, there were five Jesuits. (Note that
the Society was suppressed in 1773, so those five should be compared to a similar
proportion of the 78 in the whole century, or about 60.) Subsequent studies have
expanded that list, but for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe it remains
substantially reliable; thus, one can assume that Jesuits made up between 8 and 10%
of the “eminent” mathematicians. In addition, even though no precise calculation
exists, it may be assumed that Jesuits were responsible for between 20 and 25% of
2 The Scientific Tradition of the Society of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo Secchi
university. This still did not lead to the formal introduction in most schools of disciplines like mathematics that were deemed essential only to medicine, as they could
be left to university courses. However, the Jesuit curriculum placed mathematics in
the second of 3 years of philosophy, following logic and metaphysics.
One year was sufficient for lay students but not to form the future teachers who
were needed to cope with the increase in the number of colleges. And so, on the
initiative of Fr. Christopher Clavius SJ (1538–1612), by around 1570, further education courses were started at the Roman College (and later elsewhere) for members
of the Jesuit order. This course, later formalized as the “Academy of Mathematics,”
has an important historical significance because it was perhaps the first official specialized course on mathematics in the world. Similar courses in other provinces for
teaching future teachers led to the dissemination of the tools of mathematical applications, provided consultants to the governments, and produced the core of mathematics and mathematicians in Catholic Europe well into the eighteenth century.
However, the placement of mathematics within a year devoted to natural philosophy made it essentially subordinate to philosophy. What mathematics might say
about various phenomena of nature (planetary motions, optics, etc.) could not disagree with the explanations given by the Aristotelian cosmology and physics; its
assumptions and results were presumed to have only a descriptive meaning, not an
explanatory one. For example, eccentric orbits and epicycles described, or “saved,”
celestial motions better than simple circular orbits, but they could not be “real.”
Moreover, the ontological status of the mathematical entities was subordinate to two
philosophical disciplines, metaphysics and logic, whose status was considered
superior, conceptually and institutionally. Much of the errors and inadequacies
attributed to “Jesuit science” arose from those aspects, which were hardly the fault
of the mathematicians, whatever their personal ideas (Baldini 1993).
2.3 The Scientific Role of the Society of Jesus Until
the Suppression: Quantity and Quality
In 1803, the editors of an English translation of Charles Bossut’s Essai sur l’histoire
general des mathématiques (1802) added to the text a “Chronological table of the
most eminent mathematicians from the earliest times,” collecting the names of those
mentioned in that work. Bossut himself was a former Jesuit, but that does not appear
to have biased his selection of authors. Of the 92 mathematicians listed for the
1600s, nine were Jesuits; of the 78 in the 1700s, there were five Jesuits. (Note that
the Society was suppressed in 1773, so those five should be compared to a similar
proportion of the 78 in the whole century, or about 60.) Subsequent studies have
expanded that list, but for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe it remains
substantially reliable; thus, one can assume that Jesuits made up between 8 and 10%
of the “eminent” mathematicians. In addition, even though no precise calculation
exists, it may be assumed that Jesuits were responsible for between 20 and 25% of
2 The Scientific Tradition of the Society of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo Secchi