An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot

An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot

After some considerable time spent in making collections for the work which is now submitted to the public, I became aware that a biography of Michael Scot was in existence which had been composed as early as the close of the sixteenth century. This is the work of Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, who was born in 1553. He studied medicine at Padua, but soon turned his attention to mathematics, especially to the historical developments of that science. Taking holy orders, he became Abbot of Guastalla in 1586, and in the quiet of that cloister found time to produce his work De le vite de Matematici of which the biography of Scot forms a part. He died in 1617. This discovery led me at first to think that my original plan might with some advantage be modified. Baldi had evidently enjoyed great advantages in writing his life of Scot. His time lay nearer to that of Scot by three hundred years than our own does. He was a native of Italy, where so large a part of Scots life was passed. He had studied at Padua, the last of the great schools in which Averros, whom Scot first introduced to the Latins, still held intellectual sway.[viii] All this seemed to indicate him as one who was exceptionally situated and suited for the work of collecting such accounts of Michael Scot as still survived in the south when he lived and wrote. The purpose he had in view was also such as promised a serious biography, not entirely, nor even chiefly, occupied with the recitation of traditional tales, but devoted to a solid account of the philosophers scientific fame in what was certainly one of the most considerable branches of science which he followed. It occurred to me therefore that an edition of Baldis life of Scot, which has never yet been printed, might give scope for annotations and digressions embodying all the additional material I had in hand or might still collect, and that a work on this plan would perhaps best answer the end in view. A serious difficulty, however, here presented itself, and in the end proved insuperable, as I was quite unable to gain access to the work of Baldi. It seems to exist in no more than two manuscripts, both of them belonging to a private library in Rome, that of the late Prince Baldassare Boncompagni, who had acquired them from the Albani collection. The Boncompagni library has been now for some time under strict seal, pending certain legal proceedings, and all my endeavours to get even a sight of the manuscripts were in vain. In these circumstances I fell back upon a printed volume, the Cronica de Matematici overo Epitome dellIstoria delle vite loro, which is an abbreviated[ix] form of Baldis work and was published at Urbino in 1707. The account of Michael Scot which it gives is not such as to increase my regret that I cannot present this biography to the reader in its most complete form. Thus it runs: Michele Scoto, that is Michael the Scot, was a Judicial Astrologer, in which profession he served the Emperor Frederick II. He wrote a most learned treatise by way of questions upon the Sphere of John de Sacrobosco which is still in common use. Some say he was a Magician, and tell how he used to cause fetch on occasion, by magic art, from the kitchen of great Princes whatever he needed for his table. He died from the blow of a stone falling on his head, having already foreseen that such would be the manner of his end. Now Scots additions to the Sphere of Sacrobosco are among the more common of his printed works, while the tales of his feasts at Bologna, and of his sudden death, are repeated almost ad nauseam by almost every early writer who has undertaken to illustrate the text of Dante. So far as we can tell, therefore, Baldi would seem to have made no independent research on his own account regarding Scots life and literary labours, but to have depended entirely upon very obvious and commonplace printed authorities. To crown all, he assigns 1240 as the floruit of Michael Scot, a date at least five years posterior to that of his death! On the whole then there is little cause to regret that his work on this subject is not more fully accessible. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 55280
Author: Brown, J. Wood (James Wood)
Release Date: Aug 6, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English