Celio Calcagnini

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Opere, 1544

Celio Calcagnini (Ferrara, 17 September 1479 – Ferrara, 24 April 1541), also known as Caelius Calcagninus, was an Italian humanist and scientist from Ferrara. His learning as displayed in his collected works is very broad.[1]

He had a wide experience: as soldier, academic, diplomat and in the chancery of Ippolito d'Este. He was consulted by Richard Croke on behalf of Henry VIII of England in the question of the latter's divorce.[2] He was a major influence on Rabelais's literary and linguistic ideas and is presumed to have met him in Italy, as well as being a teacher of Clément Marot[3] and was praised by Erasmus.[4]

He had a contemporary reputation as an astronomer, and wrote on the rotation of the Earth. He knew Copernicus in Ferrara at the beginning of the sixteenth century.[5] His Quod Caelum Stet, Terra Moveatur is a precursor of the De Revolutionibus of Copernicus, though A. C. Crombie qualifies his rotational theory as "vague",[6] and is often dated to about 1525.[7]

Works[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Marchetti, V. (1973). "Calcagnini, Celio". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 16 (in Italian). Treccani.it. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  2. ^ Quirinus Breen, "Celio Calcagnini (1479-1541)", Church History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (September 1952), pp. 225-238.
  3. ^ Michael Andrew Screech, Rabelais. p. 289, p. 378; Stanley G. Eskin, "Physis and Antiphysie: The Idea of Nature in Rabelais and Calcagnini", Comparative Literature, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring, 1962), pp. 167-173.
  4. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas Brian Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (2003), p. 242.
  5. ^ "Copernicus, Early life and training: Ferrara". Hsci.ou.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-07-13.
  6. ^ A. C. Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science II (1959 edition), p. 166.
  7. ^ R. J. Schoeck, The Geography of Erasmus, p. 201, in Fokke Akkerman, Arie Johan Vanderjagt, A. H. Van Der Laan, Northern Humanism in European Context, 1469-1625: From the 'Adwert Academy' to Ubbo Emmius (1999).

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