The British Society for the History of Science

Touches of Sweet Harmony. Pythagorean Cosmology and Renaissance Poetics by S. K.

Heninger,; Pythagorean Palaces. Magic and Architecture in the Italian Renaissance by G. L.
Hersey
Review by: Charles B. Schmitt
The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 11, No. 1, French Science (Mar., 1978),
pp. 78-79
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History of
Science

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78

Book Reviews

area, the implications for our picture of ancient technology are very considerable.
NORMAN A. F. SMITH

ImperialCollege,London

RENAISSANCE

>

Touches of Sweet Harmony. Pythagorean

Cosmology and Renaissance
Poetics. By S. K. Heninger, Jr. San Marino. California: The Huntington
Library, I974. Pp. xvii-+446+52
plates. $I9.50.
Pythagorean
Palaces.
Magic
and Architecture
in the Italian
Renaissance.
By G. L. Hersey. Ithaca & London: Cornell University
Press, 1976. Pp. 2i6+plates+tables.
?i8.
There is perhaps more disagreement about the proper interpretation of
Pythagoreanism than about any other of the ancient traditions of philosophy and
science. There are so few early sources for its study, and the teachings of the
founder of the tradition, Pythagoras of Samos (sixth century BC), were so
transformed by the later school that interpretation of the different layers
of the tradition is most difficult. What we know of the Pythagorean tradition
is a mixture of rigorous and brilliant mathematical insights with somewhat
bizarre moral teachings. The two blended together into a mysticism which
quite early became fused with Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrine. Thus,
it has remained very troublesome to disentangle the various strands, not only
for scholars of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but also for scholars down
to the present day.
Like so many other ancient traditions Pythagoreanism benefited from a
Renaissance revival through the efforts of the Italian humanists. In the course
of the fifteenth century many new sources of information were discovered,
translated, and assimilated, including the relevant writings of Diogenes
Laertius, Porphyry, Jamblichus, and Proclus. That the revival of Pythagorean
ideas had a significant impact on Renaissance and early modern scientific
thought can no longer be doubted, though the precise role of the influence
and the detailed way in which it came about are still the subject of vigorous
scholarly debate. The classic study arguing for the positive value of
Pythagoreanism on the development of modern science is, of course, E. A.
Burtt's The metaphysicalfoundations of modernphysical science, first published in
I932 but still the centre of much debate.
Part of the problem of interpreting the influence of Pythagoreanism
lies in the difficulty alluded to above of distinguishing a specific Pythagorean
factor from those attributable to Platonic, Neoplatonic, or Hermetic elements,
all of which have been so much emphasized by recent interpreters of Renaissance
thought. This problem lies at the heart of the recent books by S. K. Heninger
and G. L. Hersey. While Heninger seems aware of this serious problem, he
cannot escape entirely from the predicament to which the extant source
materials condemn him. Hersey, on the other hand, seems largely unaware
of the many problems to be faced by the student of intellectual history.
Professor Heninger is primarily interested in the relation of Pythiagorean
cosmology to Renaissance poetics, i.e. his orientation is that of a literary
historian. As we might expect, his work is stronger on the literary than on
the scientific side. Nevertheless, he gives a thorough and generally accurate
account of Pythagoreanism and its history based on the best primary and
secondary works available. As might be anticipated, the author tends to
overemphasize Pythagoreanism in Renaissance culture, vis-a-vis other traditions
such as scepticism, atomism, Stoicism, and Aristotelianism. He does, however,

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Book Reviews

79

realize that the Renaissance interpretation of Pythagoreanism (and Platonism)

was significantly different from our interpretation of it, a point as yet not
generally realized by most historians of science.
All in all this book makes for good reading and is packed with much
useful information and many bibliographical leads. Moreover, it has many
well-chosen and previously little known illustrations which contribute to its
value. While the strongly literary emphasis of the book (particularly on
literature of the English variety) does detract somewhat, it is in the final analysis
a worthwhile contribution which I do not think severely distorts the historical
reality of Pythagoreanism in the Renaissance.
Pythagoreanpalaces, published at the press of Burtt's own university by
G. L. Hersey, Professor of Art History at Yale University, is a completely
different story. It is a book primarily on the history of architectural theory,
and I shall leave it to the specialists of that field to evaluate it in that regard
(see the review by B. Boucher in Times literarysupplement,I8 March 1977,
p. 323). There are, however, other aspects to the book which might briefly be
commented on here. First of all, the title is extremely misleading: the book
has nothing (or at least very little) to do with Pythagoreanism. The putative
Pythagorean connexion is a figment of the author's imagination. The first
word of the title could with equal or greater justification be 'Platonic',
'Neoplatonic', 'Hermetic', 'Magic', 'Numerological' or any of a number of
similar epithets. The justification for 'Pythagorean' seems to lie in the mistaken
contention that the cube was somehow the ideal solid for the Pythagoreans
(p. I9). There is, however, little historical justification for this interpretation.
As we learn from Diogenes Laertius (VIII, 35): 'He [Pythagoras] held that
the most beautiful figure is the sphere among solids, and the circle among plane
figures'. In any case there is some confusion in the sources whether it is the
regular tetrahedron rather than the cube which is the basic solid unit built
up of the Pythagorean system of numbers [see G. S. Kirk & J. E. Raven,
The presocraticphilosophers,Cambridge, I957, 3I7 f.], a point discussed by
Heninger (pp. 72-3, 79). In any case Hersey sees cubes everwhere in palaceseven where they do not exist, as the many illustrations of his book sadly disclose.
The author's interpretation of Renaissance writers is on no firmer
foundation. Ficino particularly is garbled, as when it is contended that 'Ficino
like Vitruvius uses the word "idea" to mean "visual concept"' (p. 35). A
quick check of the text in question tells us that Ficino is referring to the Ideas
in the mind of God in the usual Neoplatonic way, i.e. as the really existent
forms upon which creation is based.
Though this book has all the trappings of scholarship (refererLces,Latin
texts, bibliography) it is woefully deficient in sensitive interpretation of the
texts in question. One is nearly tempted to think that it is a conscious and
clever satire (a la Poohperplex)of the excesses of certain types of scholarship
which see symbols, mystical interpretations, and Hermneticemblems behind
every cliche. Among other things the author formulates a concept of cubices
rationeswhich becomes central to his argument [see section 0.2, pp. 27-5, and
the referencesin the index, p. 273], claiming to find it in Vitruvius [V.praef. 3],
who obviously knew that cubicusis an adjective of the second declension. The
danger is that Hersey's book will be read for years to come and that Pythagorean
cubicesrationes[based on both a misunderstanding of Pythagoras and of Latin
syntax] will become a central interpretative concept for unsuspecting young
historians.
CHARLES

B.

The WarburgInstitute,Universityof London

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SCHMITT