4.2. Revolución científica II. La corte, lugar de ciencia.

The Importance of Courts in the European Renaissance

In this section, the speaker discusses how courts were important settings for understanding the culture of the European Renaissance. Despite being places of power representation, only those admitted by lordly power could enter. The court was a space for social relationships and cultural practices.

The Paradox of Court Representation

• The court was the least representative part of society, yet it was in charge of representing political power.

• Only those admitted to that court by lordly power could enter.

Practices Associated with Courts

• Practices associated with courts were governed by the appearance of patrons who funded certain cultural practices.

• Courtiers such as mathematicians, confessors or priests, musicians or astrologers were obliged to obey their lords and behave as if they were just other servants within that courtly world.

Scientific Practices at Court

• Courts developed cultural practices that included important scientific practices.

• Nature collecting began at court and scientific and technological aspects of overseas expansion started to be developed in Iberian powers' courts at the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of sixteenth century.

Relationship between Lord and Courtier

• There is a special relationship between lord and courtier where prestige is related to patronage.

• Galileo Galilei's relationship with his lords, the family Medici of Tuscany, is an example.

Emergence of New Lands

This section discusses how new lands led to an increase in experts recruited into courts to serve interests in geographic expansion. It also highlights how academies are born as products of science from courts.

Increase in Experts Recruited into Courts

• Emergence of new lands, objects, and peoples mobilized an increasing number of courtiers skilled in knowledge and the knowledge of nature.

• Courts gave space to an increasing number of courtiers skilled in knowledge.

Academies Born from Court Culture

• New corporations were organized, including scientific academies born as a product of science from courts.

• A good proportion of the academies born in the second half of the seventeenth century were born inside court culture.

Interests Associated with Court

• As courts grew along with their ceremonies, interests associated with them also grew.

• The practical use that political power can find for activities increasingly determined the prestige of new experimental philosophy.