Sunspots and the Sun King

The author introduces this erudite study through an analogy. Astronomers trained in the Classical tradition took it as axiomatic that the surface of the sun is smooth and in a constant state, but in 1615 Galileo observed ‘spots’ which appeared to traverse the disc of the sun, thereby ‘blemishing’ its perfection and presenting orthodox theory with an anomaly. Post-Galilean astronomers had to decide whether the spots were real or illusory; if they were the former, they could not be reconciled with existing theory, which therefore would have to be amended. In a similar manner, proposes Ellen M. McClure, the socio-political conflicts of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century France called existing ideas on monarchy into question and forced contemporaries to reassess their thinking on its nature and functions. The process continued into the reign of Louis XIV and found expression, not only in learned treatises but also in diplomacy and the theatre....

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