Matteo Ricci Read Free Page B

Stoics Epictetus and Seneca. In order to hone his dialectic skills, he took part in the customary monthly debates, during which students presented philosophical theses and defended them before an audience of teachers and students in accordance with previously established procedures.
    Even though the philosophical exercises were carried out according to the rules of Aristotelian logic and in the name of reason, the end was theological. The Jesuits saw knowledge as a sword to be carefully honed and used to defend the Church. In no case was study to distract the novices from their religious mission, and still less to lead them onto paths incompatible with the strictest observance of doctrine.
    Ricci attended the courses of rhetoric and philosophy, subjecting himself to what a Jesuit historian describes as “unflagging mental activity, constant practice and exercise, a sort of never-ending gymnastics of the mind.” 20 He is also reported to have taken part in the “academies” or study groups made up of students particularly distinguished for learning, diligence, and piety. During the last year of philosophy, he attended the new course on controversies inaugurated by the young teacher of theology Roberto Bellarmino, a future cardinal and saint destined to become one of the most influential figures in the Society of Jesus. 21
    Christopher Clavius, Mathematics, and Astronomy
    An integral part of the philosophical training imparted in the Jesuit colleges was the study of natural philosophy, understood as the sciences and especially mathematics, which at the time also included astronomy, music, geography, and applied disciplines like mechanics and architecture.
    The second half of the sixteenth century saw mathematics taking on a significant and all-pervasive role in technology and the study of nature. Advanced arithmetical procedures were required in the then developing fields of trade and banking as well as in architecture, the manufacture of cannons, the study of the trajectory of projectiles, and numerous other technical and artisanal activities that called for precise measurement and calculation. Geometric skills were also indispensable in art in order to capture three-dimensional reality on canvas by means of perspective, a technique perfected in the previous century and based on principles that heralded the development of projective geometry. Mathematics was to take on a still more significant role in the following century, becoming the primary tool of the investigation of the physical world for Galileo. As the Pisan scientist wrote in a celebrated passage of his work The Assayer ,
    Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the universe—but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language. 22
    Mathematical knowledge was considered important also for theological purposes. According to the Church and its reworking of the Greek conception of nature, God designed and created the world in accordance with mathematical laws that man was capable of discovering and understanding by means of reason. The search for the laws governing the universe was therefore considered a religious quest, and the discovery of the mathematical relations underlying natural phenomena became a way to celebrate the greatness and glory of God’s work. This philosophical vision was shared by scientists and found expression in the words of one of the great astronomers of the seventeenth century, namely Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), the discoverer of the laws governing the movements of the planets:
    The chief aim of all the investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He has revealed to us in the language of mathematics. 23
    Mathematics was held in great consideration at the Roman College, where the leading role in