Tommaso Campanella

Page 13

But Wisdom is the ruler of the liberal arts, of mechanics, of all sciences with their magistrates and doctors, and of the discipline of the schools. As many doctors as there are, are under his control. There is one doctor who is called Astrologer original: "Astrologus"; in this period, the term often encompassed both astronomy and astrology; a second, Cosmographer original: "Cosmographus"; a scholar of the world's physical geography and mapping; a third, Arithmetician; a fourth, Geometrician; a fifth, Historiographer; a sixth, Poet; a seventh, Logician; an eighth, Rhetorician; a ninth, Grammarian; a tenth, Physician original: "Medicus"; an eleventh, Natural Philosopher original: "Physiologus"; one who studies the laws of nature and physical reality; a twelfth, Politician; a thirteenth, Moralist.

They have but one book, which they call Wisdom, and in it all the sciences are written with conciseness and marvellous fluency of expression. This they read to the people after the custom of the Pythagoreans Followers of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, known for their communal living and secretive, oral transmission of mathematical and mystical knowledge. It is Wisdom who causes the exterior and interior, the higher and lower walls of the city to be adorned with the finest pictures, and to have all the sciences painted upon them in an admirable manner.

On the walls of the temple and on the dome, which is let down when the priest gives an address, lest the sounds of his voice, being scattered, should fly away from his audience, there are pictures of stars in their different magnitudes, with the powers and motions of each, expressed separately in three little verses.

On the interior wall of the first circuit all the mathematical figures are conspicuously painted—figures more in number than Archimedes The famous Greek mathematician and engineer of Syracuse or Euclid The "Father of Geometry" from Alexandria discovered, marked symmetrically, and with the explanation of them