MA ///AM/. I TICAL SCIENCES. 



99 



to underestimate the importance.of the labours of Batecumbe, an Englishman, 

 who composed so many works on astronomy ; of Peyrbaeh, an Austrian, who 

 conceived an ingenious theory of the planets; or of Gaspard Peucer, a 

 Saxon, who described the motion of the stars, and represented for the first 

 time the true configuration of the earth. 



But it may be said that all the science of the Middle Ages is summed 

 up in the memorable book of Pic Mirandola, " De omni re scibili," which 



Fig. 73. Arc with Double Compartment for Fig. 74. Small Quadrant, or Quarter of 



measuring the Shortest Distances of the a Circle, in Copper GUt. 



Stars. 



Fac-simile of Copper Engravings in the Work, "Tychonis Brahe Astronomic Instauratre 

 Mechanica" (Noribergae, apud Levinum Hulsium, 1602, in folio). 



contains nine hundred propositions embracing the totality of human know- 

 ledge at this epoch. Pic Mirandola was but nine-and-twenty years of age 

 when ho undertook to sustain in public these nine hundred propositions 

 against any one who would accept the immense responsibility of this scientific 

 and oratorical tournament, in which, as may be supposed, the mathematical 

 and astronomical sciences held a large place. No one came forward to pick 

 up the glove, but Pic Mirandola's book, submitted to pontifical censure, was 



