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Optical Corrections in the Sculpture of Donatello

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Robert Munman (au). There is considerable evidence for Donatello’s use of optical corrections that scholars have largely ignored. It may come in some degree from an unwillingness to accept the idea that such visual effects, developed only in the 16th century & not common until the Baroque, were even possible in the early Renaissance. This study, by its arguments & its photographic evidence, may reopen the discussion of optical corrections in the work of Donatello &, perhaps, in that of some of his contemporaries & followers as well. Contents: Introduction; Donatello’s Sculpture in the Round; The Reliefs; Bibliography of Frequently Cited Sources; & 64 black & white photos of Donatello’s sculptures.

Fighting for the Good Cause: Reflections on Francis Galton's Legacy to American Hereditarian Psychology

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Gerald Sweeney (au). Sir Francis Galton is well understood to have served as an influential mentor for the educational psychologists who supplied crucial doctrine to American eugenics in its classic period, 1903 to 1930. Yet the nature of his influence has never been specified. The psychologists' own claim as to the Galton's contribution -- that he provided sufficient justification for their absolutist hereditarianism -- was clearly disingenuous. Rather, the English polymath appears to have functioned in large part as a model for these figures, who appear to have been instrumentally informed by their perceptions of Galton's ulterior purposes in constructing eugenics as he did. Any of various features in the 45-year-long course of that development could have encouraged these particular legatees to appreciate both Galton & his product as surreptitious stanchers of democracy.

Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography: Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 85, part 6)

Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography: Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 85, part 6)

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Contents: Section 1: The Geographical Concepts: Boundaries in Arabo-Islamic Cartography; & Boundaries in the Arabo-Islamic Geographic & Historical Texts; Section 2: Travelers’ Experiences at Internal Boundaries, the Area Concept in Arabo-Islamic Geography, & the Relation of Zone-Boundaries to Basic Tenets of Arabo-Islamic Culture; Boundaries in the Writings of Travelers in the Islamic Empire; The Concept of Area in Muslim Geographic thought; & Boundary Characteristics as a consequence of Embedded Attitudes of the Culture: Section 3: Genesis of Boundary Zones Involving non-Arab Muslim States; & Section 4: Summary & Conclusions. Illustrations. A reprint of the Amer. Philosophical. Soc. Transactions 85-6 (1985)

Journals of Christian Daniel Claus and Conrad Weiser: A Journey to Onondaga, 1750: Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 84, part 2)

Journals of Christian Daniel Claus and Conrad Weiser: A Journey to Onondaga, 1750: Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 84, part 2)

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In Feb. 1750, Thomas Lee, the Pres. of the Virginia Council, wrote a letter to Conrad Weiser, his good friend. In the exchange of correspondence that followed, Lee asked Weiser, the experienced & influential Indian agent, to be a part of his proposal to unite the English colonies with the Six Nations. After discussing Lee’s plan with the gov. of PA, Weiser prepared to travel to Onondaga, deep in Iroquois country. Weiser’s principal task there was to invite Iroquois representatives to a council at Fredericksburg, where Lee would address them, give them presents, &, it was hoped, negotiate a peace between the two adversaries, the Iroquois & the Catawbas. But Weiser was unable to convince the Iroquois to attend Lee’s council. Illus.

Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables

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E.S. Kennedy (au). The most impressive aspect of the source material for the study of medieval oriental astronomy is its overwhelming quantity of Byzantine Greek, Sanscrit, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, & Turkish astronomical & astrological manuscripts. Anyone wishing to assist in building up a precise & detailed picture of Islamic astronomy is constrained to choose his material from amid a welter of easily available manuscripts. Of these manuscript masses it is possible to isolate a fairly well-defined group of works, the “zijes,” which make up the most significant & historically rewarding subclass of the whole. A “zij” consists essentially of the numerical tables & accompanying explanation sufficient to enable the practising astronomer, or astrologer, to solve all the standard problems of his profession, i.e. to measure time & to compute planetary & stellar positions, appearance, & eclipses. This paper is a survey of the number, distribution, contents, & relations between “zijes” written in Arabic or Persian during the period from the 8th through the 15th centuries of the Christian era. Illus. Oversize.

Henry Adams & His World

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David R. Contosta (ed); Robert Muccigrosso (ed). Contents: Introduction, by David R. Contosta & Robert Muccigrosso; Lies, Silence, & Truth in the Writings of Henry Adams, by Edward Chalfant; Henry Adams & Politics, by Ari Hoogenboom; Henry Adams & the American Century, by David R. Contosta; Religion as Culture: Henry Adams’s ‘Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres’, by Alfred Kazin; Henry Adams’s Anthropological Vision as American Identity, by Eugenia Kaledin; Henry Adams & the American Artists: The Two Mansions, by Paul R. Baker; A Dissenting View of John Quincy Adams, by Peter Shaw; Henry Adams & the European Tradition of the Philosophy of History, by John Lukacs; & Failure or Success? Our Legacy from Henry Adams, by Earl N Harbert.

Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 64, part 7)

Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 64, part 7)

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Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 50, Part 10)

Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 50, Part 10)

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Occitan Translations of John XII & XIII-XVII from a Fourteenth-Century Franciscan Codex (Assisi, Chiesa Nuova MS. 9)

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M. Roy Harris (au). Manuscript 9 of the Biblioteca Storico-Francescana of the Chiesa Nuova in Assisi is an anthology of Franciscan writings in the Occitan language. Since the appearance in 1955 of Ingrid Arthur’s ed. of the Occitan version of Bonaventure’s bio. of St. Francis, scholars have devoted increasing attention to MS. 9. However, studies of Occitan biblical translations have not dealt with the translations of John XII-XVII found in that manuscript. This work provides an ed. of these passages accomp. by a study of their Vulgate origin among the Spiritual Franciscans. Because of the widespread & growing interest in the manuscript as a whole, this vol. offers a general historical treatment of the religious milieu which spawned the translations & the collection containing them.

Descartes's Theory of Light & Refraction: A Discourse on Method

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A. Mark Smith (au). Contents: (I) Introduction; (II) The Basic Issues: A Historical Overview; & Descartes’s Perspectivist Sources; (III) Descartes’s Analysis of Refraction: Cartesian Light-Theory; The Analysis of Refraction; & A Critical Evaluation; (IV) The Foundations of Perspectivist Optics: Perspectivist Light-Theory; The Quantization of Light; & Comparison with Descartes’s Theory of Light; (V) The Perspectivist Analysis of Refraction: The Physical Model; The Physical “Explanation” & The Final Cause; (VI) The Perspectivist Grounds of the Cartesian Proof: The Mathematical Implications; The Cosine Relation; From Cosines to Sines; & Descartes Revisited; (VII) The Cartesian Legacy Reconsidered: Cartesian Light-Theory as a Culmination; Toward a Kinetic Theory of Light; & The Epistemological Consequences. Appendices: The Sine-Law Before Descartes; The Fermat-Descartes Controversy; Kepler, Descartes & the Anaclastic; & A Note on the Principle of Natural Economy. Illustrations.