Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

This is a print on demand Publication. Ciriaco di Filippo de’ Pizzicolli (b. 1391) was the most prolific recorder of Greek & Roman antiquities, particularly inscriptions, in the 15th cent.; he is entitled to be called the founding father of modern classical archaeology. Of his early life our knowledge rests mostly on the materials for a “Vita” put together by his friend Francesco Scalamonti, which largely reproduces Ciriaco’s own records & carries his biography down to 1435. This “Vita” survives in a single manuscript published in 1792. The editors have re-edited Scalamonti’s “Vita” from the original mss. with a translation. Also includes an intro. to the text & its previous pub., its authorship, its sources, & its likely date of composition. Concludes with a chronology of the events narrated in the “Vita.”

In the 19th century, Joseph Lister related the germ theory of fermentation to the cause of putrefaction in wounds. Listerism was adopted because its success was greater and more consistent than other methods of healing the sick. The circumstances which made this possible were a theory for explaining the scientific evidence, and a courageous person like Joseph Lister who was capable of bringing about the necessary changes. This study records how with much pain and trial and error the prevention of nosocomial infections was achieved in the 19th century. Today, we have learned we must implement again Lister’s prevention techniques and other precautions in our hospitals to prevent the spread of nosocomial infections. Illus.

The Curatorial Department of the American Philosophical Society presents a catalogue of the exhibition held in Philosophical Hall from June 2003 through December 2004. The exhibit focuses on the blending of art and science in the study of natural history in North America. It explores the cultural assumptions that governed the practice of natural history on the North American continent in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Focusing on the study of living things -- plants, animals, and indigenous peoples -- it looks at how and why Euro-Americans of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods went about explaining the world the way they did. Exhibit items include historical specimens, manuscript materials, first-edition books, and art work.

Illuminated manuscripts are among the more intimate works of art surviving from the medieval period. The Queen Mary Psalter (c. 1316?-21) has long been recognized as one of the most outstanding English Gothic manuscripts. Its devotional texts are framed by an encyclopedic series of narrative images painted in a delicate and courtly style. The psalms are introduced by an Old Testament preface in which tinted drawings are explained by French captions. The psalm decoration incorp. a combination of framed illuminations of the life of Christ at the beginnings of important psalms, and tinted drawings in the bottom margin of every page that tell stories ranging from the bestiary to the lives of the saints. Winner of the 2000 Millennium Award. 100+ illus.

This is a print on demand Publication. This is a reprint, this is not an original. Contents: Introduction; Ptolemy: A Biographical Sketch; The “Optics”: A Biographical Sketch; An Overview of the “Optics”; The Historical Influence of the “Optics”; English Translation; & Bibliography. The English translation of this text is based upon Albert Lejeune’s critical Latin text of 1956, which was reprinted in the 1990s along with a French translation & supplementary annotations. Illus.

These essays offer a sampling of the incredible wealth of knowledge and expertise of David E. Pingree (1933-2005), Brown Univ. Professor of the History of Math. and Classics. His contributions to the history of science are immeasurable. Pingree defined science as “a systematic explanation of perceived or imaginary phenomena”: “This broad view of science includes astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences with which we are familiar today as well as those subjects deemed nonscientific by today’s standards, such as astrology and magic . . . .”[Pingree] repeatedly demonstrated that not only were each of these subjects worthy of study in their own right, but that in the Ancient and Medieval periods these fields were closely interconnected. Illus.

Driving human reason too far in the analysis of deep problems often leads to irresolvable inconsistencies and contradictions. In this 2002 J.F. Lewis Award-winning monograph, Gunther Stent traces the origins and development of the paradoxes of free will in this well-crafted introduction to philosophical debates regarding freedom of will. Free will poses one of the oldest and most vexatious philosophical problems, dating back to the beginnings of moral philosophy in ancient Greece. Pure theoretical reason implies that our actions are determined, while practical theoretical reason tells us that our will is free. Stent examines the arguments of moral responsibility versus determinism, from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, Niels Bohr, and Max Planck.

In the late 17th and early 18th cent., Francois-Roger de Gaignieres (FRG) amassed an impressive collection of drawings of the tombs and other monuments of France. That collection is today divided between the Bodleian Lib. in Oxford and the Bibliotheque Nationale (BN) in Paris. Ironically, the 16 vol. of the collection now housed in Oxford include the drawings of the most prestigious French tombs. Contents: The Revolution and the Royal Tombs of France; The FRG Drawings and the Restoration of the Royal Tombs of France; The Oxford Collection of FRG Drawings and the Tracings of the BN; Kerrich’s Drawings and Engravings of French Monuments; and The Disappearance of the Oxford Collection of FRG’s Drawings from the French Royal Library. Illustrations.

Charles V was a scholarly king who commissioned French versions of ancient & medieval treatises for the express purpose of guiding his government. To translate Aristotle’s “Politics” he chose Nicole Oresme, an ingenious philosopher whose aptitude & attitudes made him an effective supporter of the Valois monarchy. Oresme’s task was to take his text out of the language of a small but international community of scholars & adapt it to serve the French people, making it accessible to a new & broad audience. Contents: Oresme & his Version of the “Politics”; Oresme & the Commentary Tradition of the “Politics”; Nat. Sovereignty & the Hierarchy of Communities; The Public State & the Common Good; The “Politics,” the “Livre de Politiques,” & the Church; Aristotle, Oresme, & Gallicanism; Conclusion; & Bibliography.

There is considerable evidence for Donatello’s use of optical corrections that scholars have largely ignored. It may come in some degree from an unwillingness to accept the idea that such visual effects, developed only in the 16th century & not common until the Baroque, were even possible in the early Renaissance. This study, by its arguments & its photographic evidence, may reopen the discussion of optical corrections in the work of Donatello &, perhaps, in that of some of his contemporaries & followers as well. Contents: Introduction; Donatello’s Sculpture in the Round; The Reliefs; Bibliography of Frequently Cited Sources; & 64 black & white photos of Donatello’s sculptures.

Manuscript 9 of the Biblioteca Storico-Francescana of the Chiesa Nuova in Assisi is an anthology of Franciscan writings in the Occitan language. Since the appearance in 1955 of Ingrid Arthur’s ed. of the Occitan version of Bonaventure’s bio. of St. Francis, scholars have devoted increasing attention to MS. 9. However, studies of Occitan biblical translations have not dealt with the translations of John XII-XVII found in that manuscript. This work provides an ed. of these passages accomp. by a study of their Vulgate origin among the Spiritual Franciscans. Because of the widespread & growing interest in the manuscript as a whole, this vol. offers a general historical treatment of the religious milieu which spawned the translations & the collection containing them.

In this thought-provoking book, Gossman focuses on Overbeck’s “Italia and Germania” to discuss the importance of religious conversion in Romantic thought. Gossman gives excellent translations from original German sources that are not only accurate but may enable the Anglophone reader to truly grasp the spirit of the sources. This book serves as a thoughtful and elegantly written introduction to the way of thinking of one of the most important of the Nazerene painters. It treats the evolution of the Nazarene artists’ preoccupation with religious issues in an engaging manner and offers a social-historical and theological context to Overbeck’s painting by looking interestingly at a wide range of issues and contacts in his early Nazarene period. Illus.

This is a print on demand publication. A study of the Nyugat movement in the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of the organizers of which was the father of author Mario D. Fenyo. The objective purpose of this study is twofold. First, it is an attempt to formulate a methodology, a theory of the political function of literature. Second, it is a case study. Contents: The Historical Context; The Literary Context; The Financial Context; The Political Attitudes of the Nyugat Writers; Numbers and Literature; The Nyugat and the Intellectuals; The Nyugat and the Working Class; The Nyugat versus the Establishment; and The Mirror or the Hammer. Illustrations.

As the essays in this collection make plain, Isaiah Berlin invented neither the term "Counter-Enlightenment" nor the concept. However, more than any other figure since the eighteenth century, Berlin appropriated the term, made it the heart of his own political thought, and imbued his interpretations of particular thinkers with its meanings and significance. His diverse treatment of writers at the margins of the Enlightenment, who themselves reflected upon what they took to be its central currents, were at once historical and philosophical. Berlin sought to show that our patterns of culture, manufactured by ourselves, must be explained differently from the ways in which we seek to fathom laws of nature.

Isaiah Thomas was a leading 18th-cent. patriot, printer, publisher, and bookseller in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin. Founder of the Amer. Antiquarian Soc., he donated his library and newspaper files to the Society’s archive. Here, Lacey offers a representative sampling of the illustrated publications of the Massachusetts printer to show the great variety of 18th-cent. American imprints that used images to enhance or modify the meaning of the text. She bridges the gap between several scholarly fields, including art history, literary criticism, the study of visual culture, and the history of the book. Illustrations are not judged exclusively on their artistic merit; they are analyzed for what they say about early American values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions. Illus.

Contents: Discovery of the Antikythera shipwreck; Discovery of and research on the mechanism fragments, 1902-73; The casing, general construction, and dial work; The arrangement of the plates and components of the mechanism; The door plates and orientation and use of the mechanism; The accuracy of gear teeth numbers; Description of individual gears and gear trains; The inscriptions; The Antikythera mechanism as an historical document; The early history of gearing and clockwork; and The invention of complicated clockwork and the differential gear. App.: Composition of the metal fragments (contrib. by Earle Caley and Cyril Smith); and Tech. note on radiography of fragments. Illus.

Seeking to enlarge an understanding of the nature of chemical science & explain how the concepts being taught in the classroom came to be, Siegfried presents a simple, readable account of how in the 18th cent. chemical composition slowly abandoned the centuries- long tradition of metaphysical elements of earth, air, fire, & water. Through the work of such scientist as Lavoisier, Dalton, & Davy, chemical theory moved from metaphysical elements to operationally functional atoms. The book is based on chemical writings of 17th- & 18th-cent. chemists; references to recently published secondary works are intended for the benefit of readers who wish to enlarge their perspectives on the development of early chemical thinking.

This is a print on demand publication. The right to defend oneself & one’s property came into conflict with medieval rulers’ attempts to maintain public order. As the French monarchy asserted its claims to sovereignty, the concept of “lese-majeste,” or treason, grew, but so did the belief that the king ruled by popular consent for the good of the kingdom. By the late 16th cent., heresy was being seen as a kind of treason, & religious arguments began to play a vital role in the new context of religious warfare. It was the convergence of these various elements during the 16th-cent. wars of Religion which resulted in the formulation of theories of resistance which asserted the right of the people to defend themselves against “bad” kings. This work explores the legal theories used to justify that development.

Josiah Franklin, a tallow chandler and soapmaker, remains a marginal figure in most biographies of his well-known son, Benjamin Franklin, due largely to a lack of written documentation. Biographers of Franklin included him mainly from a genealogical viewpoint, and few of them gave him further attention. Here, Huang has reconstructed Josiah Franklin’s life based on fragmented yet valuable manuscripts in several archival sites in the Boston area, such as his bills, letters, subscriptions, participation in petitions, and court warrants for his legal disputes. She has also drawn info. from newspapers, diaries, business accounts, inventories, deeds, and probate records which were useful to assess his trade and financial circumstances. Illus.

This is a print on demand publication. Contents: Price, Priestley, & the English Millennialist Tradition; The Political Millennialism of Price & Priestley; The Modes & Language of Republican Millennialism; The Country Program & Millennial Expectations; Revolution, the Millennium, & the Future Progress of the Mind; Necessity & Liberty: The Cosmic & Human Tension; Price, Priestley, & English Political Thought; Appendix; & Bibliography.

Summerseat is an 18th century Georgian manor house that was saved from dereliction and decay twice in the 20th century by the good citizens of Morrisville. Summerseat was not only the headquarters of General George Washington for a week in December 1776, but was also owned by four prominent 18th century Americans: Adam Hoops, Thomas Barclay, Robert Morris, and George Clymer. This volume discusses: Summerseat in History, Summerseat the House, and its first two owners, Hoops and Barclay. Appendices: Adam Hoops and Benjamin West; Summerseat Inventory; Transcriptions of Adam Hoop’s Properties; Summerseat in the 20th Century; and Mapping Summerseat. Illustrations.

Some essays includs: Jefferson’s Evolving Plans for a University for America; The Inductive Sciences of Education in the Early Republic; Jefferson’s Indian Hall at the University of Virginia; The American Philosophical Society, 1743-46; Spanish Imperial Geography and the Early Republic in the Age of Jefferson; Andre Michaux, Jefferson, and the “Injunction of Science”; Jefferson, Inoculation, and the Norfolk Riots; Jefferson, Military Technology, and the State; Jefferson’s Architecture as Applied Science; Jefferson’s System for Working from Home; Polite Sociability and Jewish Migrants; Pursuit of Status in 18th-Century Pennsylvania; Jefferson and the Quest for Legacy. Illus.

Pre-Columbian Maya interest in the waxing and waning of the Moon is well documented. This rare example of interdisciplinary scholarship brings together a deeply penetrating knowledge of positional astronomy and Maya hieroglyphic writing, two highly disparate areas of study, and synthesizes them into a thorough interpretation of the relationship between astronomical concepts in the Maya codices and monumental inscriptions. Prompted by the recent discovery of the Xulum 10K-2 lunar table, this volume is a logical follow-up to work published in 2011 by the Brickers, “Astronomy in the Maya Codices.” It is a comprehensive study of the Maya lunar calendar. Illus.

This Dictionary: explains technical Roman legal terms, translates & elucidate those Latin words which have a specific connotation when used in a juristic context or in connection with a legal institution or question, & provides a brief picture of Roman legal institutions & sources as a sort of an introduction to them. The objectives of the work, not the juristic character of available Latin writings, therefore, determined the inclusion or exclusion of any single word or phrase. This dict. is not intended to be a complete Latin-English dict. for all words which occur in the writings of the Roman jurists or in the various codifications of Roman law. The reader must consult a general Latin-English lexicon for ordinary words that have no specific meaning in law or juristic language. Reprinted 1980.