29
other advances with the first experimental confirmation of Galileo’s law for falling
masses. Likewise, the works of Villalpando, Cabeo, Kircher, and Lana Terzi—to
name just a few—are much more than just collages of novelties. Moreover, precisely because they were written at an accessible level, they attracted the attention
of the public to issues, and answers, in realms not usually covered in a typical
school curriculum.
Another criticism, namely that “Jesuit science” might have been important in the
history of education of science, but it generally stopped from crossing the threshold
of radically new ideas, neglects Boscovich’s revolutionary matter theory. Boscovich’s
case does not explain that of Secchi (who in any event did not adopt his ideas); but
it is another example of the issue of a scientific researcher’s relationship with the
traditions of his Jesuit order (for a comparison on a strictly scientific level, see
Abetti 1963).
2.5 The New Ratio and Secchi’s Education
The scientific figure of Angelo Secchi raises an interesting question. His training,
teaching and research, and his life were entirely internal to the Society of Jesus, an
institution that at first glance appeared to be wholly self-contained—a fundamental
reason given for its supposed separation from the profound changes happening in
science before 1773. In the almost half-century after its suppression in 1773, enormous progress continued to occur in the “hard” scientific disciplines and astronomy
(such as the birth of analytical mechanics, the birth of modern chemistry, the discovery of galaxies, substantial advances in physical optics). However, after its restoration in 1814, all the rules of the order about the teaching of philosophy and the
nature of the universe remained officially in force. Thus, the division between
“Jesuit” and “contemporary” science that had opened up well before 1773 should
also have remained. How could Secchi (and his case was not unique) contribute
decisively to a fundamental and advanced scientific field, as if that division did
not exist?
In 1816, soon after the Society’s restoration, Pope Pius VII established a congregation of cardinals to reorganize education in the Papal States. From this came a
draft General Method of Public Education (1819), which while never executed set
forward certain important principles including the subordination of religious schools
to that Congregation. Thus the almost absolute autonomy enjoyed by the old Society
in the governance of its schools came to an end. In 1818 the same Congregation
proposed the restitution of the Roman College to the Jesuits (after 1773 it had been
the seat of the diocesan seminary), but resistance within the Curia and among the
secular and regular clergy then prevented the implementation of this decision. In
January 1824, a second Congregation of Cardinals for Studies, established by Leo
XII in December 1823 as a permanent ministry, again suggested the return of the
Roman College to the Jesuits. The decree accomplishing this goal confirmed the
right, granted to the college in the 1500s, to confer academic degrees in arts and
2 The Scientific Tradition of the Society of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo Secchi
other advances with the first experimental confirmation of Galileo’s law for falling
masses. Likewise, the works of Villalpando, Cabeo, Kircher, and Lana Terzi—to
name just a few—are much more than just collages of novelties. Moreover, precisely because they were written at an accessible level, they attracted the attention
of the public to issues, and answers, in realms not usually covered in a typical
school curriculum.
Another criticism, namely that “Jesuit science” might have been important in the
history of education of science, but it generally stopped from crossing the threshold
of radically new ideas, neglects Boscovich’s revolutionary matter theory. Boscovich’s
case does not explain that of Secchi (who in any event did not adopt his ideas); but
it is another example of the issue of a scientific researcher’s relationship with the
traditions of his Jesuit order (for a comparison on a strictly scientific level, see
Abetti 1963).
2.5 The New Ratio and Secchi’s Education
The scientific figure of Angelo Secchi raises an interesting question. His training,
teaching and research, and his life were entirely internal to the Society of Jesus, an
institution that at first glance appeared to be wholly self-contained—a fundamental
reason given for its supposed separation from the profound changes happening in
science before 1773. In the almost half-century after its suppression in 1773, enormous progress continued to occur in the “hard” scientific disciplines and astronomy
(such as the birth of analytical mechanics, the birth of modern chemistry, the discovery of galaxies, substantial advances in physical optics). However, after its restoration in 1814, all the rules of the order about the teaching of philosophy and the
nature of the universe remained officially in force. Thus, the division between
“Jesuit” and “contemporary” science that had opened up well before 1773 should
also have remained. How could Secchi (and his case was not unique) contribute
decisively to a fundamental and advanced scientific field, as if that division did
not exist?
In 1816, soon after the Society’s restoration, Pope Pius VII established a congregation of cardinals to reorganize education in the Papal States. From this came a
draft General Method of Public Education (1819), which while never executed set
forward certain important principles including the subordination of religious schools
to that Congregation. Thus the almost absolute autonomy enjoyed by the old Society
in the governance of its schools came to an end. In 1818 the same Congregation
proposed the restitution of the Roman College to the Jesuits (after 1773 it had been
the seat of the diocesan seminary), but resistance within the Curia and among the
secular and regular clergy then prevented the implementation of this decision. In
January 1824, a second Congregation of Cardinals for Studies, established by Leo
XII in December 1823 as a permanent ministry, again suggested the return of the
Roman College to the Jesuits. The decree accomplishing this goal confirmed the
right, granted to the college in the 1500s, to confer academic degrees in arts and
2 The Scientific Tradition of the Society of Jesus and the Formation of Angelo Secchi