From Pious to Polite

Pythagoras in the Res publica litterarum of French Renaissance Mathematics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5306392
AutoresRichard J Oosterhoff (0000-0001-5419-7644, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen74
Número4
Páginas531-552
Fecha de publicación2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
EditorialProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jhi.2013.0039
OpenAlexW2154460691
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas20

Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Pythagoras became a purveyor of polite secrets. To the Florentine Neoplatonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino, Pythagoras was a prophet or priest whose cryptic sayings might allow a glimpse into cosmic mysteries. By the 1650s one was as likely to find Pythagoras adorning a treatise on the theory of disciplines like swordsmanship and dancing. Numbers had come down to earth. This paper charts the first, crucial part of this inversion in meanings and importance attributed to Pythagoras-and so to mathematics-among French mathematicians in the first part of the sixteenth century

Art · Art history · Fifteenth · Linguistics · Literature · Politeness · Pythagorean theorem · The Renaissance · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Renaissance Literature and Culture