Censoring Science in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Recent (and Not-So-Recent) Research

Abstract

Questions regarding extent of ecclesiastical censorship in sixteenth-century Italy and its impact on practice of science have long attracted attention of historians of science. For many years these questions have been hard to address. Perhaps most important obstacle facing scholars has been severely restricted access to Archives of Congregation of Doctrine of Faith (ACDF), which houses many of extant records of Roman Inquisition and Index. Until relatively recently, only a handful of scholars were granted access to a limited range of records. Consequently, only a selection of documents, relating to a limited number of famous trials, were ever studied let alone published. Many of these obstacles were removed in 1998, when papacy opened these archives.1 For first time historians have been able to access materials necessary to assess ambition, scale, organisation and effectiveness of censorship conducted by Inquisition and Index. Seizing this opportunity, Ugo Baldini and Leen Spruit have co-ordinated a project that has combed archives looking for documents relating to censorship of modem science, from foundation of Roman Inquisition in 1543 to 1808. In 2009 they published first in a projected series of volumes of documents.2 The materials now made available would, they hoped, permit creation of a new picture of these institutions, one that afforded far greater sensitivity to the slow, but significant development of criteria, culture and philosophical mentality of members and functionaries of Congregations, and finally as to effects of ecclesiastical censorship.3In seeking to address this last issue, effects of censorship, Baldini and Spruit explicitly engaged with enduring and familiar arguments about Church and its attitudes towards science. They observed that:Until recently, most studies on relationship between Catholic Church and modem science and philosophy were characterised by a strong anti-clerical flavour. It had in fact been generally assumed that ignorant censors and a fundamentally negative attitude towards modem intellectual developments would have caused decline of science and natural philosophy in Italian and Iberian peninsulas with respect to Protestant Europe.4Baldini and Spruit here pointed to long-standing perception that Catholic Church was hostile to not only science, but towards modem ideas more generally. One of most important aspects of Baldini and Spruit's work is providing resources that will make it possible to question and re-evaluate many of these assumptions.Using documents that they have located, Baldini and Spruit have begun process of rethinking Church's impact on science. In section of their Introduction 'The Effects of Ecclesiastical Censorship, they suggested that extent of ecclesiastical censorship was actually far less significant than many historians had supposed previously. Having reviewed evidence from sixteenth century, they could identify only three trials during which individuals were examined for philosophical and views.5 The picture concerning censorship of books is, they noted, more complex. Baldini and Spruit's investigations have provided documents relating to seventy-six authors of scientific works placed into one or more of various classes of Index.6 They suggest that since press-control only reached its peak between 1587 and 1596 the major effects of ecclesiastical censorship regarding science and natural philosophy became tangible during next century. Focusing on sixteenth century, they concluded that direct effects of censorship - that is trials, prohibition and censurete - have probably been overstated.7 Although less easy to quantify, they suggested that indirect effects of censorship - fear of censure engendered within intellectual community - almost certainly shaped the intellectual milieu in which contemporary and philosophical research developed. …