Hugh of St Victor, Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Place of the Mechanical Arts in Medieval Architectures of Knowledge

This contribution engages with the problematic position of the mechanical arts within medieval systems of knowledge. Superseding the secondary position assigned to the mechanical arts in the Early Middle Ages, the solutions proposed by Hugh of St Victor and Gundissalinus were highly influential during the thirteenth century. While Hugh’s integration of the mechanical arts into his system of knowledge betrays their still ancillary position as regards consideration of the liberal arts, Gundissalinus’s theory proposes two main novelties. On the one hand, he sets the mechanical arts alongside alchemy and the arts of prognostication and magic. On the other, however, using the theory put forward by Avicenna, he subordinates these “natural sciences” to natural philosophy itself, thereby establishing a broader architecture of knowledge hierarchically ordered. Our contribution examines the implications of such developments and their reception afforded at Paris during the thirteenth century, emphasising the relevance that the solutions offered by Gundissalinus enjoyed in terms of the ensuing discussions concerning the structure of human knowledge.

Leonardo Da Vinci. The Apology of Eye

The article is devoted to Leonardo da Vinci’s “eye is less deceived than any other sense” maxima. Leonardo’s belief about painting being the most perfect instrument for one’s ontology and epistemology is shown. Based on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Treatise on Painting”, a compilation of Leonardo’s works, the author explores how visual arts (and painting in particular) had come up to the forefront of the Italian Renaissance. Moreover, it is shown how painting takes a leading cultural role in Europe even to this day following the Renaissance. The article reveals why Leonardo da Vinci viewed painting to be better than science, mechanical arts and other liberal arts. The article considers the possibility of transforming personal experience into the universal experience of mankind. It also considers the focus on experience, direct comprehension of reality and varietà concept. The article is dedicated to the peculiarity of Leonardo’s art style, including its unique sfumato technique and chiaroscuro. The article also deals with the idea of Leonardo being the personification of the Renaissance’s creativity. As a result, he was the one who encapsulated the Renaissance period and simultaneously laid the foundation for further development of the arts for several centuries.

A New Methodology for Measuring Tsunami Resilience Using Theory of Springs

Resilience is a deeply rooted word in theory of elasticity, which is firstly introduced to English by Thomas Young in 1807 in his treatise “A course of lectures on natural philosophy and the mechanical arts”. However, recently it is frequently used in ecology, economics, social sciences, and as everyone knows in the disaster literature. The purpose of this article is to investigate the mechanical background of word resilience, discuss lessons we could learn from the theory of elasticity for evaluating tsunami resilience, and finally, to propose a new mathematical model based on theory of springs. The mathematical model is in compliance with a pragmatic conceptual framework for evaluating resilience. The effective resilience of a given area can be calculated by aggregation of three components namely, onsite capacity, instantaneous survivability, and recovery potential of the area. The authors suggest that the magnitude of each component depends on socioeconomic, infrastructural and geographical factors of the area considered. Here, we show that aggregation of the individual components can be done in compliance with the theory of springs by analogizing effective tsunami resilience to effective spring constant. The mathematical model will be useful for evaluating the resilience of townships to hydrological disasters and also planning resilient townships, specifically to tsunami.

SPIRITED METALS AND THE OECONOMY OF RESOURCES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN MINING

ABSTRACT This article examines the perception and valuation of mineral resources in sixteenth and seventeenth-century European mining regions. It aims to critically review the utilitarian and anthropocentric view of mining and mineral resource production, circulation and consumption that is shaped by a long tradition of economic history and history of technology. To understand human relation to the underground and its resources only in terms of innovation and rationalization means to ignore the many different layers by which resource landscapes affected the miner’s perception of nature and mineral matter. The literary, material and visual culture of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century central European mining sites proves to be fruitful ground for historicizing the interplay between manual labor, mechanical arts, natural resources and religion in mining landscapes. This paper aims to connect the material and immaterial or the physical and symbolic dimensions of human-nature entanglement in early modern mining and suggests a way to locate human and geological agency within the context of a divine oeconomy.