Something “happened” to science between 1450-1750. The sun replaced the earth at the center of the cosmos, Europeans encountered new worlds and new peoples, and heaven and earth shook to the impact of new technologies like telescopes and heavy artillery. Yet how much was really new? Did all these changes merge into one phenomenon that we can call “the scientific revolution”? And were there many such revolutions or could the very idea be a modern invention? From optics and anatomy to alchemy and magic, this course will ask exactly how natural knowledge was shaped, challenged and exploited between the late Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.
