dialogue (and struggle) among books. a look at science books and divination in particular, selected...

Stefano Rapisarda

DIALOGUE (AND WRESTLE) AMONG BOOKS

A LOOK AT SCIENCE BOOKSAND DIVINATION IN PARTICULAR

In a series of books published between 1973 and 1994, thefamous, influential, and controversial literary critic Harold Bloomformulated two high-impact ideas concerning literary creation,and, by extension, artistic creation in general. First, that literarycreation is based on an either «agonistic» or «imitative» strugglewith earlier, existing, influential texts, designated by Bloom by anancient and illustrious word: the Canon 1. Second, that the Canonhas always been standing at the centre of literary creation, andthat a Canon of western texts forms the core of world literaturein our present. These texts are an intellectual pantheon rangingfrom Dante to Joyce, passing by Shakespeare, the absolute centerof the multisecular Canon, and whoever practises literature must,of necessity, react to them, by either agonism or imitation.This second idea was particularly provocative, and should be

understood against the background of a specifically Americandebate about the «Great Books» which were supposed to formthe core of higher academic education. Here, I would like to freeBloom’s theses from that particular context, and try to extendthem from the field of literature to creation in general, andeventually to the creation of knowledge.

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1. The Greek καν�ν literally means «list», and the Canon was the «list offundamental texts», an idea which originated in Alexandria in the III or IIcentury BC, when literature and related activities (textual reconstruction,lexicography, commentary) were, for the first time, practised in a regulated,institutional context, under the name of philology. For a short introductionto the idea of Canon, see K. Gutzwiller, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature,Oxford 2007, 21-23.

«Micrologus’ Library» 65, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014

Bloom’s vision of creation is strongly «dialogic» – and pleasenote that I have deliberately refrained from using the term«intertextual» here. Intertextuality «has come to have almost asmany meaning as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s originalvision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talkingabout allusion and influence» 2. For all its success in critical dis-course, the term has become slippery and ambiguous. The dis-tance between the theorisations of a Kristeva or a Bakhtin andBloom are wide. As far as the former are concerned, I can hardlyenvisage an application outside literary criticism 3. On the con-trary Bloom’s theories about «influence» seem to me to be appli-cable to every kind of creation, even the creation of knowledge.We can attempt to connect these ideas – that is, the Canon as

the core of literature, and the notion of an agonistic approach toit – with those of two key authors in the philosophy of science,Karl Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn.According to Popper, as is well known, science (and human

knowledge in general) advances by conjectures and by the cor-rection of earlier mistakes 4. Thus, it should be consistent withPopper’s ideas to claim that the correction of earlier mistakesconstitutes an «agonistic» approach: «I can do better than you; Ican see further than you; I can correct your mistakes; I can givea broader explanation of phenomena than you can».For Kuhn, struggling with a paradigm is one of the modalities

for the advancement of knowledge 5 – the term «paradigm» is

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2. W. Irwin, «Against Intertextuality», Philosophy and Literature, 28 (2004),228. Irwin propose to ban this term from «the lexicon of sincere and intel-ligent humanists». In any case, despite widespread criticism, a balanced def-inition of intertextuality can be found in Intertextuality. Theory and Practice,M. Worton, J. Still eds., Manchester 1990, 2-3.

3. J. Kristeva, «Word, Dialogue and Novel», in The Kristeva Reader, T. Moied., Oxford 1986, 37.

4. Basic texts are K. R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London1959 (1st German version under the title Logik der Forschung, Mohr Siebeck1934) and Id., Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge,London 1963.

5. Nevertheless we have to specify that this term has sense inside theidea of a revolutionary science as opposed to ‘normal’ science, and accordingto Kuhn it has sense only in the field of exact sciences and not for Human-ities: «As a result, the student in any one of these disciplines [Humanities] is

Canon, others a fluid one; others seem not to have a Canon atall, at least at some points in their history. This applies, for exam-ple, to chiromancy. At least until the second half of the seven-teenth century, there are no traces of an «authoritative» or ago-nistic dynamic in chiromantic discourse, and chiromantic textsnever refer to «technical» authorities 24. Non-technical authori-ties, such as the Secretum secretorum, are rarely quoted. Biblicalquotations are generally absent, until a certain moment, inJohannes Praetorius, Ludicrum chiromanticum 25, where an accumu-lation of biblical quotations appears, in order to give a scripturalbasis to chiromancy:

«I will teach you by the hand of God» 26 (Job XXVII 11);«He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know

his work» 27 (Job XXXVII 7); «Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand

riches and honour»28 (Proverbs III 16);«Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands» 29

(Isaiah XLIX 16).


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24. See for exemple my Manuali medievali di chiromanzia, S. Rapisarda ed.,R. M. Piccione, S. Rapisarda transl. and notes, Roma 2005.

25. G. Scholz Williams, Ways of Knowing in Early Modern Germany.Johannes Praetorius as a Witness of his Time, London 2006.

26. «docebo vos per manum Dei».27. «qui in manu omnium hominum signat, ut noverint singuli opera sua».28. «longitudo dierum est in dextera illius, et in sinistra Eius divitiae et

gloria».29. «ecce in manibus descripsite».

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Fig. 1. Ludicrum chiromanticum Praetorii: seu, thesaurus chiromantiae […]/ autoris M. Johannis Praetorii, Jenae, Impensis Johannis Bartholom […]Litteris Caspari Freyschmidii, 1661.

Moreover two classical quotations from Horace and Pindar,quite «weak», simply referring to parts of the hand, from Epistu-lae XVIII 66 («fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum»,«Thy patron will applaud thy sport with both thumbs») andOlympians X 25 respectively («ΣΥΝ ΘΕ�Ι ΡΑΛΑΜΑ», «underGod’s hand»).This abundance of mottos is not the only novelty. In the left

corner of the frontispiece we have the representation of theactual Canon of the discipline, through the visualization of thethree authorities, explicitly quoted as a model of chiromanticaldiscourse, Hermes Trismegistus, Johannes de Indagine andRudolphus Goclenius:

On the contrary, astronomy/astrology is strongly canonized.From the Tetrabiblos on, Ptolemy is, and will for many centuries be,the absolute centre of its Canon. If Shakespeare is the centre of theWestern Canon according to Bloom, then one may be tempted tosay that Ptolemy is the Shakespeare of western astronomy/astrol-ogy. An excellent idea of this long-lasting Canon is given by theBologna University curriculum that I will discuss shortly.


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Fig. 2. Detail.

books, whose quantitative impact and intellectual influence wereneglected in the historiography of his time. Of course, his objec-tive was different from ours: he aimed to restore some greatbooks of the middle ages, rejected on aesthetic or formalgrounds as part of «the humanistic reaction of the so-calledRenaissance» 33. But the effect was the same: he could draw up alist of great books which formed the basis of the education andscientific perception of medieval scholars. Books which, in otherwords, formed the real Canon of a medieval cleric. The idea of«the centre of the Canon» effectively amounts to the same thing.Certainly, everything is fluid in the textual history of knowl-

edge.

2. The papers collected here relate to several of the issuesmentioned above: the dialogue between patristic works and theBible on the subject of predicting the future (Erik Niblaeus); themaking and dissemination of Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Centiloquiumagainst the background of a dialogue between rational knowl-edge and divine inspiration (Jean-Patrice Boudet); an Occitantext of practical prognostication, the Dodechedron, consideredagainst the background of this genre in Latin, French and Occi-tan (Katy Bernard); an analysis of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSAshmole 304, a finely decorated manuscript which transmits a«visual canon» of authorial portraits, which notably diverges fromthe textual canon (Allegra Iafrate); the Liber de sortibus of ThomasAquinas and its dialogue with the tradition of biblical sortes(Alberto Alonso Guardo); the evolution of tradition in themedieval Ars notoria (Julien Véronèse). They consider texts in terms of their own individual aspects

(the author, the structure of the work, its background and objec-tives), in terms of their context (political, social, cultural), andfinally in terms of their intertextual connections (their «sources»,impact, success; how they were imitated, refuted, re-used and dif-fused). I envisage this as a first step toward a methodology for draw-

ing up and defining a Canon of medieval and early modern


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33. Ibid., 374.

land 38, as Italy 39, inventories are available too. In Spain, unfortu-nately, as far as I know no equivalent initiative has been under-taken as yet. To check the effectiveness of Canon in practical terms, we can

begin by investigating the inventories of the library of Charles Vof France. Needless to say, this was extraordinarily rich, even fora medieval royal library. As far as astrology and astronomy areconcerned, not to mention the other divinatory techniques,there were at least one hundred books 40. Some of them, as isto be expected, had been attributed to Ptolemy. We find fourmanuscripts of the «Almagesti Ptolomei», plus a «CommentumGerbet [sic] super Almagestum et Alfragani» 41, and anothervolume containing a calendar extracted from the Almagestus 42. Sofar as Tetrabiblos is concerned, there were at least ten copies of itin Charles’ library, five in French and five in Latin 43. In addition,the king owned seven copies of the Centiloquium, six in Latinand one in French 44.With this in mind, it is worth noting that the Centiloquium, for

all its brevity, was no less influential than Ptolemy’s major, sys-tematic work. In fact, its limited length and aphoristic form wasan aid to its diffusion, and its authority none the slighter for it.A very great part of the inventory lists works by Arabic

authors, much more numerous even than those of Ptolemy, andthis at a time when the great era of Arabic astrology is often saidto be waning. In Charles’ library inventory from Abdala son ofHaly to Zahel we find more than 80 Arabic works 45.


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38. P. Lehmann et al., Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskatalogen Deutschlands undder Schweiz, Königlich bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Münchened., München 1928.

39. Some regions as Tuscany, Lombardy and Piedmont have been thor-oughly covered in the project RICABIM, Repertorio di Inventari e Cataloghidi Biblioteche Medievali / Repertory of Inventories and Catalogues of MedievalLibraries; other regions are in progress.

40. L. Delisle, Recherches sur la Librairie de Charles V, II, Paris 1907, 92-120, passim.

41. Ibid., 94-95.42. Ibid., 104.43. Ibid., 113-14 and 119.44. Ibid., 101 and 110-11, «Ptolomèe et Centiloge […] escript en

françois», 114-15.45. Ibid., Table de l’Inventaire, 201-16.

tial, even considered essential. One example comes from the 1405curriculum for astronomical studies at the University of Bologna:

In the first year of astrology you have to read the algorithmsde minutis et integris; then, after having read them, you will readthe first book of Euclide’s Geometry with the commentary ofCampanus. After having read it, you have to read the table ofAlphons, together with the canons of John of Saxong, probably.After having read them, you have to read the Theorica planetarum.

In the second year, you have to read at first the treatise of theSphere, and after having read it, you will read the second bookof Euclide’s Geometry, after having read it, you have to read theCanons super tabulis of John de Linerijs. After having read them,you have to read the treatise on the astrolabe by Messahalla. In the third year you have to read Alcabitius, after which you

have to read the Centiloquium by Ptolomy with the commen-tary of Haly. After which you have to read the third book of[Euclide’s] Geometry, after which you have to read the treatiseon the quadrant. In the fourth year you have to read all the Quadripartitus,

after which you have to read the book about unseen urine. Afterwhich you have to read the third part of Almagesti 48.

The only Arabs here are a treatise on the astrolabe by Messa-halla and Alcabitius, prescribed to be read the end of the secondyear and the beginning of the third year respectively. In addition,


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48. «In astrologia, in primo anno, primo legantur Algorismi de minutis etintegris, quibus lectis, legatur primus geometriae Euclidis cum commentoCampani. Quo lecto, legantur Tabulae Alfonsi cum canonibus [Johannis deSaxonia?]. Quibus lectis legatur Theorica planetarum [Gerardi]. In secundoanno, primo legitur Tractatus de sphera [Johannis de Sacrobosco], quo lectolegetur secundus [liber] geometriae Euclidis, quo lecto leguntur Canonessuper tabulis [de Johannes] de Linerijs. Quibus lectis, legantur Tractatus astro-labii Mes[sa]chale [sic]. In tertio anno, primo legatur Alkabicius, quo lectolegatur Centiloquium Ptolomei cum commento haly [sic]. Quo lecto legaturtertius [liber] geometriae [Euclidis], quo lecto, legatur Tractatus quadrantis. Inquarto anno, primo legatur Quadripartitus [Ptolomei] totus, quo lectolegatur Liber de urina non visa. Quo lecto legatur dictio tertia Almagesti[Ptolomei]», in Statuti della Università e dei collegi dello studio bolognese,Bologna 1888, 276, quoted in J.-P. Boudet, Entre science et «nigromance». Astrolo-gie, divination et magie dans l’Occident médiéval (XII e-XVe siècle), Paris 2006, 289.

we find here a book called the De urina non visa (On UnseenUrine, 1219), a fourth-year reading, prescribed to be studiedbetween the Quadripartitus and the Almagestus, which was anormal reading for both physicians and astronomers/astrologers,but which would soon disappear from the Canon 49. Its author,William the English, considered himself to have been an innova-tor, and set out to write his treatise in order to establish a newapproach, unknown to the ancients. Trying to solve uroscopy inmedical astrology was in fact a new challenge, «ab antiquorumneminem specialiter editum vel inventum». However, for all of itswide circulation, his text did not have the devastating impact onthe paradigm of uroscopy which he might have intended. Evenin the golden centuries of astrology, physicians continued topractise the direct observation of urine rather than studying itsimplications with the astrological chart of the patient.

Nevertheless, the most effective way in determining theimpact of a particular text, and its subsequence influence, seemsto be following the trial of its quotations.To test this conclusion, we can turn to some especially erudite

- and hence replete with quotations - examples, such as John ofSalisbury’s Policraticus 50 or Nicole Oresme’s Livre de divinacions 51.The list of divinatory techniques in the Policraticus is takendirectly from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies (VIII, 9, 5), almostword for word, then corroborated with classical and biblical quo-tations 52. The Bible, of course, is the basic source for aphorismsand quotations, first of all Leviticus, XX, 27 53: «A man also orwoman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely

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49. A very recent edition in L. Moulinier-Brogi, Guillaume l’Anglais, lefrondeur de l’uroscopie médiévale (XIII e siècle): Édition commentée et traduction duDe urina non visa, Genève 2011.

50. Cfr. Ioannis Saresberiensis Policraticus I-IV, K. S. B. Keats-Rohan ed.,Turnhout 1993, 57-61 (engl. transl. Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints ofPhilosophers, Being a Translation of the First, Second, and Third Books and Selec-tions from the Seventh and Eighth Books of the Policraticus of John of Salisbury,J. B. Pike ed., Minneapolis 1938 [reprint New York 1972]).

51. As in n. 10 above.52. Policraticus, 57-61.53. «vir sive mulier in quibus pythonicus vel divinationis fuerit spiritus

morte moriantur lapidibus obruent eos sanguis eorum sit super illos».

Oresme as they seem to have been from Charles V’s library. TheCanon we can extract from Oresme’s book is extremely interest-ing, and in fact, we can extract a double canon, thanks to thepeculiar construction of the text. In the opening Oresme imme-diately declares his thesis and its relation to Cicero’s De divina-tione. The remainder of the work is constructed in the form ofpro and contra, rigidly separated in the process of argumentation.So we have a sharp separation of authorities in favour of divi -

nation and authorities against it. The main authority against isCicero or Tullius, as he is first called, quoted thirteen times. Theopening quotation gives us the key to Oresme’s intentions. Hewants to be the new, modern, rationalist Cicero for the benefitof his king Charles.Oresme makes a collection of Biblical quotations against divi -

nation:

«Neither let there be found among you any one that shallexpiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through thefire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams andomens, neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor any onethat consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seekeththe truth from the dead» 56 (Deuteronomy XVIII 10-11);

«There is no soothsaying in Jacob, nor divination in Israel» 57

(Numbers XXIII 23);

«For thou hast cast off thy people […] because they […] havehad soothsayers» 58 (Isaiah II 6);

«And they forsook all the precepts of the Lord their God […]and they gave themselves to divinations, and soothsayings» 59 (2Kings XVII 16-17);

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56. «non inveniatur in te qui lustet filium suum, aut filiam, ducens perignem; aut qui hariolos sciscitetur, et observet somnia atque auguria, nec sitmaleficus. nec incantator, nec qui phytones consulat, nec divinos, aut querata mortus veritatem».

57. «non est augurium in Jacob, nec divinatio in Israel».58. «proiecist enim popolum tuum […] qui repleti sunt ut olim et

augures».59. «et dereliquerunt omnia precepta Domini dei sui […] et divinationi -

bus inserviebant et auguriis».

Article 4Are the celestial bodies a cause of human acts?

It seems that the celestial bodies are a cause of human acts:[…]

Objection 3: Astronomers (astrologi) frequently make true pronounce-ments about wars and other human acts, the principles of which are theintellect and the will. But they would not be able to do this by appealto the celestial bodies if the celestial bodies were not a cause of humanacts. Therefore, the celestial bodies are a cause of human acts.[…] Reply to objection 3: The majority of men follow their passions,

which are movements of the sentient appetite with which the celestialbodies can cooperate, whereas a few wise men resist passions of this sort.And so in many cases (in pluribus) the astronomers can make true predic-tions, especially general predictions (possunt praedicere et maxime in com-muni). However, they cannot make specific predictions, because nothingprevents a man from resisting his passions through free choice. Hence,even the astronomers themselves admit that «a wise man dominates thestars», viz., to the extent that he dominates his own passions 84.

In fact, also in this case the quotation is usually employed in arather far-fetched manner. In the Renaissance especially it cameto be interpreted as «the expert in astrology will dominate thestars», whereas Aquinas meant it in the sense of: «The wise manwill resist his natural passions», and this is more or less the sensein which Oresme translated and commented the motto: «Thewise man, thanks to his prudence and free will, can resist the evilsignified by the stars» 85.

Jean-Patrice Boudet has now detected a new source of thissentence, solving what Coopland characterised as «one of theminor mysteries of history» 86: the quotation seems to originate


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in speciali, quia nihil prohibet aliquem hominem per liberum arbitriumpassionibus resistere. Unde et ipsi astrologi dicunt quod sapiens homo domi-natur astris, inquantum scilicet dominatur suis passionibus».

84. New English Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae(Summa Theologica), A. J. Freddoso ed., in progress, http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm.

85. «Et a ce propos dit Ptholomee que “un homme sage a segnourie surles estoilles” c’est a dire que par sa prudence et par sa franche volenté ilpeut resister au mal qui est signifié par les estoilles» […], Oresme, Contro ladivinazione, 106.

86. Coopland, Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers, 175.

in Albert the Great, who may indeed have been the first to for-mulate it. From Albert it passed to his pupil Thomas, who sent itinto the world through the gate of his celebrated Summa theolo-giae. It was through Thomas Aquinas that it came to be knownby most, including Nicole Oresme, who interprets it in the (dif-ficilior) thomistic way. Above are suggestions and issues which could be considered in

future workshops. But as time is a factor, let us begin with thefirst speech.This paper benefited in the course of time of two great inter-

national enterprises, respectively the Project «Schicksal, Freiheitund Prognose. Bewältigungsstrategien in Ostasien und Europa»,sponsored by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschungof the Federal Republic of Germany at the InternationalesKolleg für Geisteswissenschaftliche of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and the «Corpus digi-tal de la ciencia medieval en la Corona de Aragón y en su con-texto latino y románico: obras vernáculas, Arnau de Vilanova yVicent Ferrer (CIVERLAT)» (FFI2011-29117-C02, 2012-2014),sponsored by the Gobierno de España, Ministerio de Ciencia eInnovación (MICINN), thereafter Ministerio de Economía yCompetitividad (MECO), at the University of Barcelona, Spain.I am deeply grateful to the Board of Directors of both projects.

ABSTRACT

In some books published between 1973 and 1994, the famous andcontroversial literary critic Harold Bloom formulated a theory of lite -rary creation, and, by extension, of artistic creation in general. In hisopinion, literary creation is based on an either «agonistic» or «imitative»struggle with earlier, existing, influential texts, designated by him by anancient and illustrious word: the Canon. In this essay I will try toextend this concept to the creation of knowledge. It also appears to bebased on the «agonistic» or «imitative» struggle with influential textualauthorities and scientific texts have their own Canon as well, marked insome case by fluidity, in others by a long-term continuity. In the fieldof medieval divination, some techniques appear to have a very strongCanon, as astronomy/astrology, others seem to have a week Canon ornot to have a Canon at all, at least at some points in their history, as

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chiromancy. Sources for the definition of the Canon may be bookinventories; citations of authoritative books; quotations of books inindividual works, and finally single sentences employed as mottos,emblems, authoritative/supportive or to-be-confutated quotations.

Stefano RapisardaUniversità di Catania

IFKG Visiting Fellow and Research [email protected]


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