44
studies for pupils of those schools associated with Catholic cathedrals. Coupled
with the three disciplines representing the Trivium, (grammar, rhetoric, and logic)
they gave rise to the Faculty of Liberal Arts, which were prerequisites of studies of
the three major Faculties hosted in the universities of the Middle Ages, namely, law,
medicine, and theology. Within the intellectual climate of the twelfth and thirteenth
century universities, for the first time an interdisciplinary dialogue took place
between the discourse on God (theology) and the discourse on man, society,
and cosmos.
The observation of the sky easily entered into the philosophical reflection on
human religious experience, and the observation of nature in general soon became
part of natural theology: a discourse on God starting from nature, not from the
Scriptures. The natural sciences were practiced in many religious schools and communities of the Renaissance and of the modern age, especially botany, astronomy,
meteorology, alchemy, and crystallography, and later biology, chemistry, and geology. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the official curriculum taught in
Catholic seminaries obliged future priests to be examined, among other disciplines,
in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry.
That a Catholic priest could be assigned to direct an astronomical observatory of
national importance was, for all these reasons, a widely accepted occurrence. On the
other hand, the interest of Christianity for scientific research extended beyond the
boundary of Catholic Church, as witnessed by many Protestants, ministries, and
laymen involved in the sciences. In Italy, a close relationship between astronomy
and the Catholic Church was well in place in the epoch of Secchi, as can be seen by
the many astronomical observatories supported by religious orders and individual
priest-scientists (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione 1956).
These scholars of the starry sky operated, of course, not only in the limited extent
of the Pontifical States—which in the epoch of Secchi included a small area within
central Italy—but also across the Italian territory at large, from Lombardy to Sicily.
Almost all Italian astronomical observatories established from the end of the eighteenth century onward had a religious member or a priest as its founder. They
often developed from small observatories built on the roofs of seminaries and religious schools for educational purposes.
The funding for instruments and research was covered by individual benefactors
or by the scholarly community. In some cases, as occurred in the first university
observatory in Bologna, both Popes Clemens XI (1700–1721) and Innocent XIII
(1721–1724) provided the resources necessary to build the Observatory Tower and
supplied the instruments as that territory was part of the Pontifical States. The
Jesuits of the Brera College founded the first astronomical observatory in Milan,
directed by Luigi La Grange (1711–1783) and then by Ruggiero Boscovich
(1711–1787); when the Jesuit order was suppressed, a member of the Barnabite
order, Barnaba Oriani (1752–1832), made the continuation of scientific studies possible. Theatin Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826), and priests Giuseppe Cassella
(1755–1808), and Giuseppe Toaldo (1719–1797) established the astronomical
observatories in Palermo, Naples, and Padua, respectively.
G. Tanzella-Nitti
studies for pupils of those schools associated with Catholic cathedrals. Coupled
with the three disciplines representing the Trivium, (grammar, rhetoric, and logic)
they gave rise to the Faculty of Liberal Arts, which were prerequisites of studies of
the three major Faculties hosted in the universities of the Middle Ages, namely, law,
medicine, and theology. Within the intellectual climate of the twelfth and thirteenth
century universities, for the first time an interdisciplinary dialogue took place
between the discourse on God (theology) and the discourse on man, society,
and cosmos.
The observation of the sky easily entered into the philosophical reflection on
human religious experience, and the observation of nature in general soon became
part of natural theology: a discourse on God starting from nature, not from the
Scriptures. The natural sciences were practiced in many religious schools and communities of the Renaissance and of the modern age, especially botany, astronomy,
meteorology, alchemy, and crystallography, and later biology, chemistry, and geology. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the official curriculum taught in
Catholic seminaries obliged future priests to be examined, among other disciplines,
in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry.
That a Catholic priest could be assigned to direct an astronomical observatory of
national importance was, for all these reasons, a widely accepted occurrence. On the
other hand, the interest of Christianity for scientific research extended beyond the
boundary of Catholic Church, as witnessed by many Protestants, ministries, and
laymen involved in the sciences. In Italy, a close relationship between astronomy
and the Catholic Church was well in place in the epoch of Secchi, as can be seen by
the many astronomical observatories supported by religious orders and individual
priest-scientists (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione 1956).
These scholars of the starry sky operated, of course, not only in the limited extent
of the Pontifical States—which in the epoch of Secchi included a small area within
central Italy—but also across the Italian territory at large, from Lombardy to Sicily.
Almost all Italian astronomical observatories established from the end of the eighteenth century onward had a religious member or a priest as its founder. They
often developed from small observatories built on the roofs of seminaries and religious schools for educational purposes.
The funding for instruments and research was covered by individual benefactors
or by the scholarly community. In some cases, as occurred in the first university
observatory in Bologna, both Popes Clemens XI (1700–1721) and Innocent XIII
(1721–1724) provided the resources necessary to build the Observatory Tower and
supplied the instruments as that territory was part of the Pontifical States. The
Jesuits of the Brera College founded the first astronomical observatory in Milan,
directed by Luigi La Grange (1711–1783) and then by Ruggiero Boscovich
(1711–1787); when the Jesuit order was suppressed, a member of the Barnabite
order, Barnaba Oriani (1752–1832), made the continuation of scientific studies possible. Theatin Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826), and priests Giuseppe Cassella
(1755–1808), and Giuseppe Toaldo (1719–1797) established the astronomical
observatories in Palermo, Naples, and Padua, respectively.
G. Tanzella-Nitti