In class this week, several questions were raised about the purpose of letters in the Renaissance. Many Renaissance letters cross the narrow line between letter and treatise, and differentiating them is whether they arise from particular circumstances.
Many letters exceeded what we would expect to read today. So what was the motivation behind such long letters? In Galileo’s 1615 Letter to Christina (Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany) for example, Galileo took an original eight page response on his reasons for supporting the heliocentric model and expanded it to a forty eight page treatise.
This letter dealt with his detractors’ religious objections to his support of the Copernican theory. But it was also more. It outlined the narrow-mindedness, lack of vision, and understanding his detractors had. This letter was, in essence, a character assassination of his opponents and those who served to inhibit scientific enquiry—and a treatise. The letter, like many, had in fact a much wider intended audience: that of Galileo’s detractors and those who may have been sitting on the fence on the issue. Galileo attempted to influence this audience through a large array of rhetorical appeals intended to get his readers to recognize that condemning Copernicus’ work was wrong.
This letter, like many others written by Renaissance scientists, was battling centuries’ old prejudices, and therefore had to cover a large amount of content. In some ways, these types of letters helped form a debate of science verses religion, and that was not something that could be done in a couple of pages.
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteI think at the heart of your discussion is that letters of yesterday had more function and purpose associated with them than those of today. They were not commonplace, and they were formal. I fully agree with this observation. Though I think there are some letters that still reflect the spirit of the Renaissance period, like Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, these letters are far outnumbered by the more causal ones people exchange nowadays (especially if you factor in e-mail and Twitter). I am not a historian, and I am also short in the tooth, but I wonder if there are parallels to this in television programming and in telephone use. I can remember when programming did not run all night, and, at the end of the broadcast day, the stations would show an image of the American flag. I wonder if television back then could be argued to be more formal and more thoughtful in its programming? I also think back to the first telephones, as garnered from my memories of watching Little House on the Prairie. It seems that the phones were generally a luxury for the rich---unless it was a shared phone (I think the term is “party line”?), but the conversations, too, appeared to have more purpose---informing of an upcoming visit or that someone is dying (again from my Little House lens). Now, people seemingly call just to “call.”
Cris
Hi, Cris...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I think you are on to something in making a parallel to television programming and the telephone.
In the past, the cost of telephone calls were prohibitive, particularly if one was calling long distance. In the past, important news was more likely to be communicated over the phone (births, marriages, and deaths), and when the phone rang it was an event. Today, I hardly ever pick up my house phone, which seems to be for the exclusive use of telemarketers. Everyone who wants me calls me on my mobile.
Regarding television, I also remember the "end-of-day" image...I think the anthem was also played in the last few minutes of a broadcast. However, I don't think television was more thoughtful and formal in the past than today. As a communication medium, it is relatively new compared to the letters of the past.
You say Galileo intended his letter for wider circulation and a bigger audience than one. Can you elaborate? Was it common for letters of that period to be shared? Or does it just happen to be that this particularly letter survived, and he may have written several others like it?
ReplyDeleteWhat do we take from reading medieval rhetoric in contemporary times? What lessons have we learned from them?
ReplyDeleteDear Brett,
ReplyDeleteYou pose some great questions and I'll try to answer them. The Letter to Christina was written because Galileo was being charged by the Inquisition. The circumstances were these:
In 1610, Galileo had published The Starry Messenger, a record of his telescopic observations of the moon and planets. The success of his book allowed Galileo to retire as professor of mathematics at the
University of Padua and return to his native Tuscany. There, Galileo devoted the rest of his life to research and writing under the patronage of the Grand Duke. He then used information from The Starry Messenger to reassess the Copernican Heliocentric model. However, following its publication, conservative scientists and philosophers began a rhetorical campaign to discredit Galileo. In 1613, the Grand Duchess Dowager Christina at a dinner challenged Benedetto Castelli, a friend of Galileo’s who had succeeded him as Chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa, to explain the conflict between the Biblical interpretation of a static earth verses an earth in motion. This friendly and inquisitive challenge led Galileo to respond to Castelli in a letter that was widely circulated and copied. As a result, conservatives such as Dominicans Tommaso Caccini and Nicollò Lorini attacked Galileo, and Galileo was charged by the Roman Inquisition with heresy. Galileo sought advice and support from his friends and patrons through three long essays on the issues. One of these was the Letter to Christina written in 1615; it dealt with religious objections and was an elaboration of the original letter to Castelli expanded from eight to forty pages.
Galileo had approached the Grand Duchess Dowager rather than the Duke, his patron. Christina had approached Castelli, and she was known to be pious, so perhaps Galileo has trying to reaffirm his faith to his detractors (for how could he be a heretic if he was corresponding with the pious mother of his patron?). And by writing to Christina, he perhaps was hoping to play on her emotions as a woman who would be more receptive to his appeal than a man. The primary audience, however, were his detractors, who he was hoping to persuade to Copernicanism. By writing to Christina, Galileo was also addressing another audience: the lay public that heard his defense of his situation. This audience contained men with political power, as well as mathematicians and philosophers like himself. Galileo’s approach by using the letter forma also reached out to a larger and more important audience with the message that science needs freedom to challenge man’s interpretation of God’s word, not God.
I believe that while letters certainly had an expectation of privacy, it was common to share letters because these were recognized communication tools, particularly among learned men and the ruling classes. Galileo's Letter to Christina was not the only letter of this type. For example, the letters of Tycho Brahe, Keppler, etc. Often, these were disputes among academics.
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this thoughtful and thorough explanation. I believe I am beginning to see and better understand the evolution of certain terms, such as letter or invention, that I hoped to understand through this course on the history of rhetoric. The letter in those times was widely circulated, which we would consider inappropriate today. However, a more current term such as “the personal statement” might help us recognize one of the roles of the letter in that day. This component of the letter may have had the purpose of securing goodwill, as we spoke about in last week's class. I'm not sure that I agree on the expectation of privacy for the letter. How did you come to this conclusion? I am thinking, in contrast, that there may have been an expectation to share the letter in order to heighten the goodwill and ethos surrounding an individual.
Emily
Dear Emily,
ReplyDeleteGood point about the privacy. I remember reading somewhere that the expectation for privacy for letters was different in the past because of the "rarity" of this communication medium...particularly among learned people. I'll see if I can dig up the source.
Dear Rich,
ReplyDeleteYou pose very fundamental questions. I'll attempt to answer them in my blog this week.