Transformations of Early Modernity PDF

TRANSFORMATIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY NBU CIVICS PART 2/3: THE COLUMBO-COPERNICAN REVOLUTION THE LONGER STORY BEHIND ‘RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES’  Reminder: the longer story behind the very idea of human rights/liberties/freedom goes back to a period of grand w...

TRANSFORMATIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY NBU CIVICS PART 2/3: THE COLUMBO-COPERNICAN REVOLUTION THE LONGER STORY BEHIND ‘RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES’  Reminder: the longer story behind the very idea of human rights/liberties/freedom goes back to a period of grand worldview transformations in European history  This period: ‘early modernity’ or ‘early modern era’ (often capitalised)  Roughly spans over 1500-1800  Provided the immediate soil for the rise and triumph of the idea of human rights and liberties  Another aspect of this grand transformation: the mental image of the outer world – terrestrial and celestial alike  Two key names in this regard:  Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) (image source)  Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) (image source) (1) COLUMBUS ASIA JERUSALEM  Maps are fantastic mental images of the world, and they are full of ideology; consider e.g. this map from 1265 EUROPE A.D. – for many hundreds of years, the world used to look like this (source): AFRICA MEDITERRA- NEAN SEA (1) COLUMBUS  In Columbus’ time little had changed: still the well-known tripartite global geographical division ➡️  Right: a world map produced by the German cartographer Henricus Martellus Germanus (1481/91?); probably used by Columbus on his first mission to America (source). EUROPE AFRICA ASIA (1) COLUMBUS What Columbus did in brief:  Got funding for a mission, as there was economic hunger for alternative routes to Asia and avoiding hostile armies (e.g. Ottomans, Tatars)  Suggested that going west via the back side of the globe would take the crew to the ‘East Indies’ like this ➡️  NB: around the same time, other explorers took different routes, e.g. Vasco da Gama, who reached India via Africa’s southern Cape of Good Hope (1497) (1) COLUMBUS  To accomplish this, Columbus was provided with an additional map and instructions by the Florentine natural scientist Paolo Toscanelli (1397- 1482), who was convinced such a back shortcut existed.  Toscanelli’s original idea of the back side of the Earth ( source) ➡️ (1) COLUMBUS  What actually happened was that, by chance, Columbus reached America (without either intending or realising the discovery)...  First point of contact: island of San Salvador in the Bahamas (Holy Saviour, 12 October 1492); native name: Guanahani)  https://maps.app.goo.gl/xW wgG62oDejqgCG86 San Salvador island, Bahamas (source) (1) COLUMBUS  There were numerous expeditions to the ‘Indies’ during the following decade, and the example of Columbus was followed by English and Portuguese navigators; Europeans reached much of what today is North/South America…  However, it was not until the Spring of 1503 when another sailor, Florence’s Amerigo Vespucci returned from his expedition to (nowadays) Brazil and wrote a letter to Lorenzo Pietro di Medici entitled Mundus novus, ‘The New World’; this quickly became a full-scale sensation: ‘In passed days I wrote very fully to you of my return from new countries, which have been found and explored with the ships, at the cost and by the command of this Most Serene King of Portugal; and it is lawful to call it a new world, because none of these countries were known to our ancestors and to all who hear about them they will be entirely new. For the opinion of the ancients was, that the greater part of the world beyond the equinoctial line to the south was not land, but only sea, which they have called the Atlantic; and even if they have affirmed that any continent is there, they have given many reasons for denying it is inhabited. But this opinion is false, and entirely opposed to the truth. My last voyage has proved it, for I have found a continent in that southern part; full of animals and more populous than our Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and even more temperate and pleasant than any other region known to us’ (source). (1) COLUMBUS Title page and inner section of Vespucci’s De novo mundo (source) and Vespucci himself (source): (1) COLUMBUS The famous ‘Ostrich Egg Globe’ (1504, Leonardo?), which names America ‘MUNDUS NOVUS’ (source): (1) COLUMBUS  In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller composed a new map of the world (based on Martellus’ map; source ).  It strongly credited Vespucci for his discovery... (1) COLUMBUS  After Vespucci’s first name (Amerigo, Lat. ‘AMERICUS’), the ‘New World’ was called America  (Why not ‘Columbia’?...) IN SUM: WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN Medieval world map ⬅️➡️Abraham Ortelius, Typus orbis terrarum, 1570 (source): (2) COPERNICUS  Likewise in the field of astronomy: throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the universe looked completely different as compared to today  This pre-modern universe = ‘Christian Aristotelian geocentric cosmos’, i.e.: o Founding father is ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) o Accepted and further developed during Europe’s Christian Middle Ages o Also: ‘Ptolemaic universe/cosmos’ – after the name of the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy (right, source), who canonised the model in his Mathematical Syntaxis (mid-2nd century A.D.), the only surviving ancient comprehensive work on astronomy (therefore the most influential one)  Built around several pillar points: o Heavenly bodies are spherical o Earth stands at the universal cosmological centre o Ten being the perfect number, there are ten primary cosmological layers  (0) EARTH ‘8TH SKY’ (= firmament of (1) MOON immovable stars) (2) MERCURY ‘9TH SKY’ (= crystal sky/of (3) VENUS primordial water) (4) SUN ‘10TH SKY’ (= of the first mover of (5) MARS things) (6) JUPITER ‘EMPIREUM’ (= the ‘dwelling place of (7) SATURN God and the chosen ones’ above the Heavens) THE ARISTOTELIAN- Peter Apian, CHRISTIAN Cosmopgraphia (1524) ( COSMOS source) (2) COPERNICUS  What Copernicus did was to turn all this upside down with his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543; see autograph, right): o ‘The ancient philosophers sought to establish that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the universe...’ – i.e. it does (1) neither rotate around its axis, nor (2) move around another heavenly body.  Neither (1) nor (2) is correct! o AXIAL MOVEMENT: ‘We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface. Why then do we still hesitate to grant it the motion appropriate by nature to its form rather than attribute a movement to the entire universe, whose limit is unknown and unknowable?’ – i.e., it is much simpler to rotate the Earth around its axis than to rotate the whole universe around the Earth. o ORBITAL MOVEMENT: ‘Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions. This is indicated by the planets, apparent nonuniform motion and their varying distances from the earth. These phenomena cannot be explained by circles concentric with the earth’ – i.e., planetary movement cannot be explained from a geocentric point of view. o (English translation quoted from here.)  Hence: Copernicus’ brave heliocentric model...  SUN ‘IMMOVABLE SPHERE OF THE FIXED STARS’ MERCURY VENUS EARTH & MOON MARS Copernicus’ autograph, De revolutionibus (1520- JUPITER 1541?) (source) SATURN COPERNICUS’ UNIVERSE IN SUM: UNIVERSE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN The Ptolemaic universe ⬅️➡️Copernican universe (Andreas Cellarius, Harmonia macrocosmica, 1660):