http://www.frame-uk.demon.co.uk/congress/history_of_university.htm

The History of the University of Bologna

The University of Bologna was formed between the 11th and 14th centuries, mainly around the study of Roman law as laid down in the Justinian Code. Thanks to the work of Irnerius, who initiated a systematic study of the Corpus Juris of Gratian and to whom we owe the first complete compilation of canon law, the University of Bologna became famous throughout Europe.

At the beginning of the 12th century, students began flocking to Bologna from all parts of Europe. It was Pope Pius IV who in 1561 ordered that a big new building should be constructed to provide a more decorous and more functional seat for the artists' and the jurists' schools. AntonioTerribilia was put in charge of the project, and work began in the early months of 1562. The opening ceremony was on 21 October 1563.

A private scientific association was formed in Bologna at the end ofthe 17th century, called the Accademia degli Inquieti, in accordance with the wishes of a group of young students. In 1714, when the Senate of Bologna founded the Institute of Science in the Palazzo Poggi, the Accademia degli Inquieti was incorporated into the Institute. The city Senate and the Holy See, in particular during the papacy of Benedict XIV, donated significant funds to enable the Institute and the Academy to purchase modern scientific instruments and to publish the volumes of the Commentarii, thus giving Bologna a major position in the European scientific world.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/adelardbath1.html

Medieval Sourcebook:
Adelard of Bath: The Impact of Muslim Science
Preface to His Very Difficult Natural Questions, [Dodi Ve-Nechdi] c. 1137

urged me to publish something fresh in the way of Arabian learning. As the rest agreed with him, I took in hand the treatise which follows: of its profitableness to its readers I am assured, but am doubtful whether it will give them pleasure. The present generation has this ingrained weakness, that it thinks that nothing discovered by the moderns is worthy to be received -the result of this is that if I wanted to publish anything of my own invention I should attribute it to someone else, and say, "Someone else said this, not I." Therefore (that I may not wholly be robbed of a hearing) it was a certain great man that discovered all my ideas, not 1. But of this enough.

This is funny and the opposite of today. Today people do not want to waste their time if what you have to say is not completely original.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/theophilus.html

Medieval Sourcebook:
Theophilus:
An Essay Upon Diverse Arts, c. 1125

Also uncertain is the date of the work. Lynn White, Jr., has recently asserted that Theophilus' third preface is an answer to St. Bernard's attack on Cluniac art. Since White imagines it to have been a prompt reply, he places the date of Theopbilus' book in the third decade of the twelfth century and guesses that it was written in 1122-23. Certainly the views expressed by Theophilus are diametrically opposed to those of St. Bernard. In a full and reasoned discussion, the former defends the important place of art in God's universe.

I quote this as an illustration of the debate of ideas by means available in the latter Middle Ages. White's view that Theophilus' response was prompt may well be correct but let us look at the definition of "prompt" in this context. We are talking on a timescale of years. In our modern world of global communications, the Internet, and email "that is so last minute" takes on a whole new meaning.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bacon2.html

Medieval Sourcebook:
Roger Bacon:
On Experimental Science, 1268

Having laid down the main points of the wisdom of the Latins as regards language, mathematics and optics, I wish now to review the principles of wisdom from the point of view of experimental science, because without experiment it is impossible to know anything thoroughly.

There are two ways of acquiring knowledge, one through reason, the other by experiment. Argument reaches a conclusion and compels us to admit it, but it neither makes us certain nor so annihilates doubt that the mind rests calm in the intuition of truth, unless it finds this certitude by way of experience. Thus many have arguments toward attainable facts, but because they have not experienced them, they overlook them and neither avoid a harmful nor follow a beneficial course. Even if a man that has never seen fire, proves by good reasoning that fire burns, and devours and destroys things, nevertheless the mind of one hearing his arguments would never be convinced, nor would he avoid fire until he puts his hand or some combustible thing into it in order to prove by experiment what the argument taught. But after the fact of combustion is experienced, the mind is satisfied and lies calm in the certainty of truth. Hence argument is not enough, but experience is.

The weakness in this line of arguement is that while experience may teach one to not put their hand in the fire is does not inform them of the nature of combustion. It tells them nothing of the conversion of molecules by heat and the release of energy. Theory and experience must go hand in hand to provide fuller understanding and to validate that understand and show its limits.

http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo//Things/copernican_system.html

In the fifteenth century, the reform of European astronomy was begun by the astronomer/humanist Georg Peurbach (1423-1461) and his student Johannes Regiomontanus (1436-1476). Their efforts (like those of their colleagues in other fields) were concentrated on ridding astronomical texts, especially Ptolemy's, from errors by going back to the original Greek texts and providing deeper insight into the thoughts of the original authors. With their new textbook and a guide to the Almagest, Peurbach and Regiomontanus raised the level of theoretical astronomy in Europe.

I would like to find deeper reference to this. This is indicative of an awareness of the degradation that had crept into manuscripts as a result of scribe's errors. The lifespans of this two is concurrent with the development of the printing press by Gutenberg.

http://www.treasure-troves.com/bios/Peurbach.html

Peurbach, Georg von (1423-1461)

Austrian astronomer and mathematician who attempted to refine the Ptolemaic system with the use of sine tables written in Arabic numerals. He published his ``new theory of the planets'' in Theoricae Novae Planetarum, which contained a cosmological construction of the celestial spheres (which he believed to have solid reality). It became the primary astronomy textbook, replacing The Sphere. He was commissioned to translate the Almagest. He collaborated with his pupil Regiomontanus, who added a knowledge of Greek to Peurbach's understanding of Ptolemy's mathematics. Together, they produced the Epitome of the Almagest, the clearest rendering of Ptolemy's work yet translated. Peurbach also attempted to refine the Alfonsine Tables and Ptolemaic system with the use of sine tables using Arabic numerals, which had been introduced by Fibonacci but had not yet been universally adopted.

ibid

Regiomontanus (1436-1476)

German name: Johann Müller. German astronomer who revised the Alfonsine tables using improved methods of calculation. He studied under Peurbach helping him translate Ptolemy's Almagest. The product was the Epitome of the Almagest, the clearest rendering of Ptolemy's work yet translated. Regiomontanus was a staunch advocate of Ptolemy's astronomy, deriding the possibility that the Earth moved, and insisting that rotation on its axis was foolish.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/References/Peurbach.html

References for Georg Peurbach

Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).
Articles:

ibid

Georg Peurbach studied at Vienna, graduating in 1446. In 1453 he was awarded a Master's Degree then travelled through Europe and lectured in Germany, France and Italy on astronomy. He was appointed court astronomer by King Ladislaus of Hungary in 1454. Peurbach was served as professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna.

Peurbach wrote on astronomy and gave tables of eclipse calculations in Tabulae Ecclipsium. He observed Halley's comet in June 1456 and wrote a report on his observations. He made further observations of comets and, together with Regiomontanus, recorded the lunar eclipse of 3 September 1457 from a site near Vienna. Peurbach published further tables, checked by his own eclipse observations, and devised astronomical instruments.

In Theoricae Novae Planetarum Peurbach gave Ptolemy's epicycle theory of the planets. Peurbach believed that the planets were in solid crystalline spheres although he believed that their motions were controlled by the Sun. He also constructed a large globe which depicted the stars.

He wrote on the computation of sines and chords. His book Algorismus, an elementary textbook on practical calculations, was popular and reprinted several times.

Regiomontanus was Peurbach's student and they collaborated on a number of works including Epitome in Ptolemaei Almagestum.

ibid

Johann Regiomontanus was born Johann Müller of Königsberg but he used the Latin version of his name (Königsberg = "King's mountain"). Regiomontanus was a pupil of Peurbach. In 1461 he was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna, filling the chair vacated by Peurbach. In 1468 Regiomontanus was appointed astronomer to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

A translator and publisher, Regiomontanus made important contributions to trigonometry and astronomy. His book De triangulis omnimodis (1464) is a systematic account of methods for solving triangles.

Regiomontanus built an observatory in Nuremberg in 1471 with funds from his patron and fellow scientist Bernard Walther. He also built a workshop to construct instruments at Nuremberg. He wrote Scipta giving details of his instruments.

In January 1472 he made observations of a comet which were accurate enough to allow it to be identified with Halley's comet 210 years (and three returns of the 70 year period comet) later. He also observed several eclipses of the Moon, a total eclipse on 3 September 1457, a partial eclipse on 3 July 1460 and another total eclipse on 22 June 1461.

Regiomontanus's interest in the motion of the Moon led him to make the important observation that the method of lunar distances could be used to determine longitude at sea. It was many years, however, before the position of the Moon could be predicted with sufficient accuracy to make the method practical and instruments constructed to give the lunar position with the high degree of accuracy necessary for the method. Regiomontanus describes how the position of the Moon can be used to determine longitude in the ephemerides for the years 1474-1506 which he published.

In common with many others he wrote on calendar reform, for example he wrote Kalendarium and De Reformatione Kalendarii.

Pope Sixus IV summoned Regiomontanus to Rome in 1475 to advise on calendar reform and to become bishop of Regensburg. However he died before he could take office. Some accounts say he was poisoned by his enemies, other accounts say he died of the plague.

http://metalab.unc.edu/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/d-mathematics/Greek_astro.html

The Revival of an Ancient Science

One of the most powerful creations of Greek science was the mathematical astronomy created by Hipparchus in the second century B.C. and given final form by Ptolemy in the second century A.D. Ptolemy's work was known in the Middle Ages through imperfect Latin versions. In fifteenth-century Italy, however, it was brought back to life. George Trebizond, a Cretan emigre in the curia, produced a new translation and commentary. These proved imperfect and aroused much heated criticism. But a German astronomer, Johannes Regiomontanus, a protege of the brilliant Greek churchman Cardinal Bessarion, came to Italy with his patron, learned Greek, and produced a full-scale "Epitome" of Ptolemy's work from which most astronomers learned their art for the next century and more. Copernicus was only one of the celebrities of the Scientific Revolution whose work rested in large part on the study of ancient science carried out in fifteenth-century Italy.

ibid

Georg Peurbach and Johannes Regiomontanus, Epitome of the Almagest
In Latin, Late fifteenth century

The "Epitome of the Almagest" was written between 1460 and 1463 by Georg Peurbach and Johannes Regiomontanus at the suggestion of Cardinal Bessarion. It gave Europeans the first sophisticated understanding of Ptolemy's astronomy, and was studied by every competent astronomer of the sixteenth century. The illustration here shows the distance of the sun from the earth as 1210 terrestrial radii (about 4,800,000 miles), which is too small by a factor of twenty, but gives a solar parallax (the maximum displacement due to observing the sun from the surface rather than from the center of the earth) of less than 3 minutes, still well below the limit of observational accuracy.

Barb. lat. 156 fols. 53 verso - 54 recto math20 NS.20

http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/vatican.html

. . . By the fourteenth century, the great ancient city had dwindled to a miserable village. Perhaps 20,000 people clung to the ruins despite the ravages of disease and robber barons. Popes and cardinals had fled to Avignon in southern France. Rome was dwarfed in wealth and power by the great commercial cities and territorial states farther north, from Florence to Venice. In the Renaissance, however, the popes returned to the See of Saint Peter. Popes and cardinals straightened streets, raised bridges across the Tiber, provided hospitals, fountains, and new churches for the public and splendid palaces and gardens for themselves. They drew on all the riches of Renaissance art and architecture to adorn the urban fabric, which they saw as a tangible proof of the power and glory of the church. And they attracted pilgrims from all of Christian Europe, whose alms and living expenses made the city rich once more. The papal curia--the central administration of the church- -became one of the most efficient governments in Europe. Michelangelo and Raphael, Castiglione and Cellini, Giuliano da Sangallo and Domenico Fontana lived and worked in Rome. Architecture, painting, music, and literature flourished. Papal efforts to make Rome the center of a normal Renaissance state, one which could wield military as well as spiritual power, eventually failed, but Rome remained a center of creativity in art and thought until deep into the seventeenth century.

The popes had always had a library, but in the middle of the fifteenth century they began to collect books in a new way. Nicholas V decided to create a public library for "the court of Rome"--the whole world of clerics and laymen, cardinals and scholars who inhabited the papal palace and its environs. He and Sixtus IV provided the library with a suite of rooms. These were splendidly frescoed, lighted by large windows, and furnished with elaborate wooden benches to which most books were chained. And, unlike some modern patrons, the popes of the Renaissance cared about the books as well as about the buildings that housed them. They bought, borrowed, and even stole the beautiful handwritten books of the time. The papal library soon became as spectacular a work of art, in its own way, as the Sistine Chapel or Saint Peter's. It grew rapidly; by 1455 it had 1200 books, 400 of them Greek; by 1481, a handwritten catalogue by the librarian, Platina, showed 3500 entries--by far the largest collection of books in the Western world. And it never stopped growing, thanks to bequests, purchases, and even, sometimes, military conquests.