On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio
Author: Michael Friedman
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2024-01-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3031408810

The book offers an analysis of Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio - a hitherto-unpublished manuscript written in German and Latin that deals with weaving, knitting and other textile practices, attempting to present as well various fabrics and textile techniques in a scientifical and even mathematical framework. The book aims to provide the epistemological, technical and historic framework for Jungius’ manuscript, inspecting fabrics, weaving techniques as well as looms and other textile machines in Holy Roman Empire during the Early Modern Period. It also offers a unique investigation of the notion and metaphor of ‘texture’ during this period, and explores, within the wider context of the ‘meeting’ or ‘trading zones’ thesis, the relations between artisans and natural philosophers during the 17th century. The book is of interest to historians of philosophy and mathematics, as well as historians of technology.

What Painting is

What Painting is
Author: James Elkins
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1999
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780415921138

Here, Elkins argues that alchemists and painters have similar relationships to the substances they work with. Both try to transform the substance, while seeking to transform their own experience.

Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance

Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance
Author: Katelijne Schiltz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2015-04-23
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1316299899

Throughout the Renaissance, composers often expressed themselves in a language of riddles and puzzles, which they embedded within the music and lyrics of their compositions. This is the first book on the theory, practice and cultural context of musical riddles during the period. Katelijne Schiltz focuses on the compositional, notational, practical, social and theoretical aspects of musical riddle culture c.1450–1620, from the works of Antoine Busnoys, Jacob Obrecht and Josquin des Prez to Lodovico Zacconi's manuscript collection of Canoni musicali. Schiltz reveals how the riddle both invites and resists interpretation, the ways in which riddles imply a process of transformation and the consequences of these aspects for the riddle's conception, performance and reception. Lavishly illustrated and including a comprehensive catalogue by Bonnie J. Blackburn of enigmatic inscriptions, this book will be of interest to scholars of music, literature, art history, theology and the history of ideas.

Active Materials

Active Materials
Author: Peter Fratzl
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2021-12-20
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3110562065

What are active materials? This book aims to introduce and redefine conceptions of matter by considering materials as entities that ‘sense’ and respond to their environment. By examining the modeling of, the experiments on, and the construction of these materials, and by developing a theory of their structure, their collective activity, and their functionality, this volume identifies and develops a novel scientific approach to active materials. Moreover, essays on the history and philosophy of metallurgy, chemistry, biology, and materials science provide these various approaches to active materials with a historical and cultural context. The interviews with experts from the natural sciences included in this volume develop new understandings of ‘active matter’ and active materials in relation to a range of research objects and from the perspective of different scientific disciplines, including biology, physics, chemistry, and materials science. These insights are complemented by contributions on the activity of matter and materials from the humanities and the design field. Discusses the mechanisms of active materials and their various conceptualizations in materials science. Redefines conceptions of active materials through interviews with experts from the natural sciences. Contextualizes, historizes, and reflects on different notions of matter/materials and activity through contributions from the humanities. A highly interdisciplinary approach to a cutting-edge research topic, with contributions from both the sciences and the humanities.

Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies

Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies
Author: S. Hutton
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9400922671

Of all the Cambridge Platonists, Henry More has attracted the most scholar ly interest in recent years, as the nature and significance of his contribution to the history of thought has come to be better understood. This revival of interest is in marked contrast to the neglect of More's writings lamented even by his first biographer, Richard Ward, a regret echoed two centuries after his 1 death. Since then such attention as there has been to More has not always served him well. He has been dismissed as credulous on account of his belief in witchcraft while his reputation as the most mystical of the Cambridge 2 school has undermined his reputation as a philosopher. Much of the interest in More in the present century has tended to focus on one particular aspect of his writing. There has been considerable interest in his poems. And he has come to the attention of philosophers thanks to his having corresponded with Descartes. Latterly, however, interest in More has been rekindled by renewed interest in the intellectual history of the seventeenth century and Renaissance. And More has been studied in the context of seventeenth-cen tury science and the wider context of seventeenth-century philosophy. Since More is a figure who belongs to the Renaissance tradition of unified sapientia he is not easily compartmentalised in the categories of modern disciplines. Inevitably discussion of anyone aspect of his thought involves other aspects.

Reading Eustathios of Thessalonike

Reading Eustathios of Thessalonike
Author: Filippomaria Pontani
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2017-02-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110523205

Despite the relevance of Eustathios to both Classical and Byzantine studies, no monograph and no collective volume in English has yet been devoted to his figure. This book attempts to fill in this gap by addressing the various facets of his output - above all his commentaries on Homer, Dionysius the Periegete, Pindar, and the Iambic Canon on the Pentecost; but also his historiographical work, his speeches and his theological production receive due attention. The book also tackles several aspects of Eustathios‘ style (proverbs, allusions, etc.), and the meaning of his work in the context of his historical moment. Addressed at specialists but also at graduate students with an interest in the reception of Classical antiquity and in Byzantine civilisation, the volume gathers papers by leading scholars from various countries, and it opens up new paths of research in several areas of philology and history, above all by interweaving and juxtaposing Eustathios‘ dimension as an Homerist and an immensely learned classical scholar with his capacities as an orator, a highly praised teacher, a rhetorically refined writer of Greek prose, an historian of his own turbulent times, and an archbishop who had to fulfil his everyday duties.

Giordano Bruno and the Geometry of Language

Giordano Bruno and the Geometry of Language
Author: Arielle Saiber
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351933671

Giordano Bruno and the Geometry of Language brings to the fore a sixteenth-century philosopher's role in early modern Europe as a bridge between science and literature, or more specifically, between the spatial paradigm of geometry and that of language. Arielle Saiber examines how, to invite what Bruno believed to be an infinite universe-its qualities and vicissitudes-into the world of language, Bruno forged a system of 'figurative' vocabularies: number, form, space, and word. This verbal and symbolic system in which geometric figures are seen to underlie rhetorical figures, is what Saiber calls 'geometric rhetoric.' Through analysis of Bruno's writings, Saiber shows how Bruno's writing necessitates a crafting of space, and is, in essence, a lexicon of spatial concepts. This study constitutes an original contribution both to scholarship on Bruno and to the fields of early modern scientific and literary studies. It also addresses the broader question of what role geometry has in the formation of any language and literature of any place and time.

Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass

Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass
Author: Yo Tomita
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2013-10-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107469902

The B-minor Mass has always represented a fascinating challenge to musical scholarship. Composed over the course of Johann Sebastian Bach's life, it is considered by many to be the composer's greatest and most complex work. The fourteen essays assembled in this volume originate from the International Symposium 'Understanding Bach's B-minor mass' at which scholars from eighteen countries gathered to debate the latest topics in the field. In revised and updated form, they comprise a thorough and systematic study of Bach's Opus Ultimum, including a wide range of discussions relating to the Mass's historical background and contexts, structure and proportion, sources and editions, and the reception of the work in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the light of important new developments in the study of the piece, this collection demonstrates the innovation and rigour for which Bach scholarship has become known.