Cosmological talk – Three dialogues on the heavens in early seventeenth‐century Amsterdam (2018)
This essay investigates the extent to which natural philosophical and literary discourses converged in the chambers of rhetoric of early seventeenth‐century Amsterdam. The inquiry is based on a set of three dialogues written by the merchant, diplomat, and rhetorician Theodoor Rodenburgh. Rodenburgh was clearly invested in expanding both his own and his audiences’ knowledge of the stars, as is witnessed by his various writings that incorporate celestial teachings. The dialogues feature experts on the stars that instruct diplomats, servants, noble ladies, and other inquisitive individuals in the workings of the heavens. These passages can be traced to texts published by specialists in spherical cosmology and astrology. The inclusion of cosmological themes was meant to stimulate reflection not only on the constitution of the heavens, but also on the place of the human in Creation. In tracing Rodenburgh's teachings on the heavens, this essay shows that rhetoricians, in addition to their already significant repertoire of philosophical resources, worked unencumbered on and with cosmological knowledge.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Chapter
Semler, L. E.;
(2011)
The Magnetic Attraction of Margaret Cavendish and Walter Charleton
(/isis/citation/CBB001250687/)
Article
Nunzio Allocca;
(2014)
La luna e il libro della natura. Su Italo Calvino e l’eredità di Galileo
(/isis/citation/CBB365165189/)
Book
Aït-Touati, Frédérique;
Emanuel, Susan;
(2011)
Fictions of the Cosmos: Science and Literature in the Seventeenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001250411/)
Book
Margócsy, Dániel;
(2014)
Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age
(/isis/citation/CBB001422029/)
Article
Steffen Ducheyne;
(2021)
Using one’s talents in honor of God: Lambert ten Kate (1674-1731) and Isaac Newton’s natural philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB795418608/)
Book
Stuckrad, Kocku von;
(2010)
Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities
(/isis/citation/CBB001201627/)
Article
Rothman, Aviva;
(2009)
Forms of Persuasion: Kepler, Galileo, and the Dissemination of Copernicanism
(/isis/citation/CBB000932204/)
Book
Spranzi, Marta;
(2004)
Galilée, Le “Dialogue sur les deux grands systèmes du monde”: Rhétorique, dialectique et démonstration
(/isis/citation/CBB000954392/)
Book
Laetitia Rimpau;
(2021)
Visionen Neuer Wissenschaft: Zur Dialogischen Dichtung Von Dante Alighieri Und Johannes Kepler
(/isis/citation/CBB771504606/)
Book
Ioannis D. Evrigenis;
(2014)
Images of Anarchy: The Rhetoric and Science in Hobbes's State of Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB998612853/)
Article
Spranzi-Zuber, Marta;
(2005)
Galileo's “Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems”: Rhetoric and Dialogue
(/isis/citation/CBB000670802/)
Article
Alice Lamy;
(2019)
Defining Nature in Medieval Cosmological Literature: The Founding Principle of Contradiction in the Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris, the Anonymous Placides et Timéo, and the Image du monde of Gossuin of Metz
(/isis/citation/CBB957243430/)
Book
Giorgio Stabile;
Franco D'Intino;
Massimiliano Lenzi;
Stefania Montacutelli;
Elisabetta Orsini;
Antonella Pagano;
Pina Totaro;
Luisa Valente;
(2023)
L'esperienza della natura. Pensiero scientifico e disincantamento del mondo da Aristotele a Leopardi
(/isis/citation/CBB768409550/)
Book
Leonardo da Vinci;
Paolo Bordonali;
(2018)
I diluvi e il tempo. Aforismi e frammenti filosofici
(/isis/citation/CBB769235863/)
Book
Claire Preston;
(2015)
The Poetics of Scientific Investigation in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB277054891/)
Chapter
Belgioioso, Giulia;
(2009)
“Toute hyperbole tend là, de nous amener à la vérité par l'excès de la vérité, c'est-à-dire par la mensonge”: les parcours hyperboliques qui amènent à la vérité de Balzac à Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001021834/)
Chapter
Evans, Meredith;
(2013)
Matrices of Force: Spinozist Monism and Margaret Cavendish's Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World
(/isis/citation/CBB001201711/)
Article
Barreca, Francesco;
(2011)
The Allegory of War in Johannes Keplers' Astronomia Nova
(/isis/citation/CBB001024834/)
Article
Lyke de Vries;
(2022)
Protecting Academia and Religion: Andreas Libavius’s Criticism of a General Reformation
(/isis/citation/CBB629444913/)
Article
Clucas, Stephen;
(2008)
Galileo, Bruno and the Rhetoric of Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB000931541/)
Be the first to comment!