The Ash Wednesday Supper by Bruno Giordano;Gatti Hilary;

Author:Bruno, Giordano;Gatti, Hilary;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2018-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

[Fig. 5 © The British Library Board, C.37.c.14.(2.) p. 75.]

SMITHUS. I would like to know if those who are near very high mountains would suffer from this impediment.

THEOPHILUS. No, but those who are near lower mountains would. Because no mountains are very high if they are not also very large, so that their size cannot be determined by our sight. It is for this reason that they comprehend numerous artificial horizons, in which the accidental features of some cannot modify the others. So that when we say very high mountains, we do not mean those like the Alps or the Pyrenees; but we refer to the whole of France lying between two seas, the Ocean to the north and the Mediterranean to the south. Starting from those seas and going towards the Auvergne, one mounts ever higher, as is the case with the Alps or the Pyrenees, which were once the peak of an enormously high mountain. But then it was fragmented by time (which produces the same thing in other places as part of the process of renovation of the parts of the earth), forming so many individual elevations which we call mountains. As for the example produced by Nundinius referring to the mountains of Scotland, where perhaps he has been, it is clear that he has no understanding of what very high mountains are. Because, to be truthful, the whole of this island of Britannia is a mountain which rears its head above the waves of the Ocean. The crest of this mountain is to be considered the highest place in the island; and if this crest were to reach the zone of tranquil air, it would prove that this is one of those very high mountains, where the place of the happiest living things is perhaps to be found. Alexander of Aphrodisias writes about Mount Olympus, where the behaviour of the sacrificial ashes demonstrates it to be an example of a very high mountain, whose air lies above the limits and regions of the earth.53

SMITHUS. You have satisfied me with respect to this topic, and revealed to me many secrets of nature which are hidden under this key. From your reply to the argument based on the winds and the clouds, it is possible to deduce a reply to another argument proposed by Aristotle in the second book of On the Heavens and the Earth, where he says that it would be impossible that a stone thrown up into the air should fall perpendicularly down.54 What would happen would be that the rapid motion of the earth would leave the stone behind and to the west. Furthermore, if we think of this projection as taking place within the earth, it would necessarily be the case that with the motion of the stone every relation of straight and oblique lines would alter, given that there is a difference between the movement of a ship and the movement of those things which are in the ship. If this were

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