The Scientific Culture of the Baltic Mathematician, Physician, and Calendar-Maker Laurentius Eichstadt (1596–1660)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to Laurentius Eichstadt, a Baltic astronomer of the generation between Tycho and Hevelius. As a calendar-maker, Eichstadt used and tested the astronomical tables and the planetary theories of his elder contemporaries, Longomontanus and Kepler; as a town physician and gymnasium professor, he taught mathematics and astronomy alongside medicine and natural philosophy in Stettin and Gdańsk. Eichstadt’s indefatigable engagement with theory, practice, and teaching is marked by his continuous reassessment, adjustment, and revision of views in astronomy, physics, and metaphysics, aimed at bringing these fields in better agreement with each other and with empirical observation. Eichstadt’s critical attitude did not prevent him from remaining committed to his scholastic legacy. As a matter of fact, his creative reworking and teaching of astronomy and philosophy bear witness to the long vitality of the northern European scientific tradition rooted in Melanchthonian literacy and Aristotelian philosophy. The work and conceptions of this participant in the astronomical debates of the early seventeenth century offers us an insight into the complex interplay of technical astronomy and metaphysical discourse in a time of transition from a geometrical approach to planetary theory resting on Aristotelian metaphysics to a post-Keplerian physical–mathematical science unifying heavens and earth.