580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cent de Beauvais, though he accepts the sphericity of the earth, 

 treats the doctrine of the antipodes as utterly disproved. Yet 

 the doctrine still lived. Just as it had been previously revived by 

 William of Conches and then laid to rest, so now it is somewhat 

 timidly brought out in the thirteenth century by no less a person- 

 age than Albert the Great, the most noted man of science in that 

 time. But his utterances are perhaps purposely obscure. Again 

 it disappears beneath the theological wave, and a hundred years 

 later Nicolas d'Oresme, Geographer of the King of France, a 

 light of science, is forced to yield to the clear teaching of the 

 Scripture as cited by St. Augustine. 



Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the four- 

 teenth century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with ques- 

 tions of this sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano, 

 famous as a physician, having promulgated this with other ob- 

 noxious doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by death ; 

 and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was for this 

 and similar crimes driven from his professorship at Bologna and 

 burned alive at Florence. Nor was this all his punishment : that 

 great painter, Orcagna, whose terrible works still exist on the 

 walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, immortalized Cecco by repre- 

 senting him in the names of hell.* 



Years rolled on, and there comes in the fifteenth century one 

 from whom the world had a right to expect much. Pierre d'Ailly, 

 by force of thought and study had risen to be Provost of the Col- 

 lege of St. Die in Lorraine ; his ability had made that little coun- 

 try village a center of scientific thought for all Europe, and finally 

 made him Archbishop of Cambray and a cardinal. In 1483 was 

 printed what Cardinal d'Ailly had written long before as a sum- 

 ming up of his best thought and research the collection of essays 

 known as the Ymago Mundi. It gives us one of the most striking 

 examples in history of a great man in theological fetters. As he 

 approaches this question he states it with such clearness that we 

 expect to hear him assert the truth ; but there stands the argu- 

 ment of St. Augustine ; there, too, stands the biblical texts on 



* For Vincent de Beauvais and the antipodes, see his Speculum Naturales, Book VII, 

 with citations from St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, cap. xvi. For Albert the Great's 

 doctrine regarding the antipodes, compare Kretschmer as above with Eicken, Geschichte, 

 etc., p. 621. Kretschmer finds that Albert supports the doctrine, and Eicken finds that he 

 denies it a fair proof that Albert was not inclined to state his views with dangerous clear- 

 ness. For D'Oresme, see Santarem, Histoire de la Cosmographie, vol. i, p. 142. For Peter 

 of Abano, or Apono, as he is often called, see Tiraboschi ; also Ginguene, vol. ii, p. 293 ; 

 also Naude, Histoire des Grands Hommes de Magie. For Cecco d'Ascoli, see Montucla, His- 

 toire des Mathematiques, i, 528 ; also Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. vi, p. 320 ; also 

 Kretschmer, p. 59. Concerning Orcagna's representation of Cecco in flames of hell, see 

 Eenan, Averroes et l'Averroisme, Paris, 1867, p. 328. 



