Ancient and Mediaeval Science 43 



arts and crafts. The historian of science cannot examine the Parthenon, Hagia 

 Sophia, or the cathedral of Chartres without deep emotion and without the oppor- 

 tunity of learning much concerning the science of their builders. 



Instruments and other small objects may be found in the musetims and especially 

 in the museums of science such as exist in Haarlem and Leiden, Paris, South Kensing- 

 ton, Oxford and Cambridge, Munich, Washington and Chicago, etc. The authen- 

 ticity of each item requires a special demonstration but for the purpose of study or 

 teaching, copies of duly accredited items are generally as good as the originals. 



Iconographic documents are pictures or images representing the original items. 

 When those items are extant, the pictures of them are comparable to other copies, 

 and have almost as much documentary value as the originals. When the items are 

 lost, the reliability of each image must be appraised separately. Some drawings or 

 printed images are tfiemselves original documents, e.g., the engineering sketches of 

 Leonardo da Vinci or the printed placards of ancient universities. 



The most attractive of the monuments are statues, busts, or painted portraits; 

 the most attractive of the iconographic documents are drawn, engraved or printed 

 portraits. The tradition of portraits anterior to the fifteenth century is exceedingly 

 diflBcult to establish. It is precarious at best, for it can hardly bear any solution of 

 continuity between the living man at one end and the document in our hand at 

 the other. Even in the case of modern men of science their iconographic tradition 

 can be easily broken or jeopardized (e.g., when the legends of two portraits are 

 accidentally interchanged in an article or a book). 



There is no reason whatsoever to believe in the genuineness of any bust or statue 

 of any ancient man of science. The busts bearing such names as Plato, Euclid, 

 etc., are impostures. Mediaeval likenesses of contemporary men of science are al- 

 most equally unreliable, except in the case of a few illuminated MSS. When a lim- 

 ner was asked to illustrate and illuminate a given text he sometimes added the portrait 

 of the author (e.g., the author ofiFering his book to his patron, a kind of iconographic 

 dedication). It is possible that some of these portraits are real portraits, yet it is 

 almost impossible to prove their genuineness. 



Statues of modern men of science have generally no value as iconographic evi- 

 dence, and should not be reproduced as portraits, except faute de mieux. Indeed, 

 most statues are posthumous, hence second hand, and a statue derived from a two 

 dimensional portrait may be very far removed from reality. 



Similar remarks apply to medals; almost every portrait in medallic form is posthu- 

 mous and second-hand or n-th hand. Such medals are valuable witnesses of a man's 

 fame, of memorial ceremonies or other events. 



Historians of science should always deal with the available monuments as well 

 as with the texts, and they should never neglect the iconographic traditions. They 

 should bear in mind, however, the fragility of such traditions and be extremely 

 cautious. 



For additional information on this topic see Sarton: Iconographic honesty (Isis, 

 30, 222-35, 1939); Portraits of ancient men of science (Lychnos, 249-56, 1 fig., 

 Uppsala 1945). Paul Schrecker (Isis, 32, 126). 



