Luís Ribeiro and Inês Bénard speakers at the conference “The Power of the Planets: The Social History of Astral Sciences Between East and West“.

Luís Ribeiro will present “Modernising Astrology in the East: the Jesuits and the introduction of European astrology in China and Japan.”

During the seventeenth century the Jesuit missionaries  promoted the dissemination of European scientific and technological knowledge in the Far East, particularly in China. Among this knowledge was astrology which was part of the mathematical studies as a practical and prognosticatory facet of astronomy. China and Japan were not unfamiliar with western forms of astrology since they had been exposed to it during the medieval period from of Indian and Arabic sources. However, these practices were overshadowed the mathematical sophistication brought by the Jesuits, who immediately attempted to oversee the astrological prognostication in China. This lecture will discuss the interest in the new European astrological methodologies and how the Jesuits became one of the main vehicle for the introduction of Early Modern astrology in China, Japan, and neighbouring territories.

Inês Bénard will present “Communication in Practice: Iberian and Indian Ocean Stellar Altitude Measurements in Comparison.”

Portuguese and Indian Ocean nautical practices underwent a turning point at the end of the fifteenth century. Two groups of navigators originally trained in different world regions began to interact on a regular basis, contrasting ideas and techniques. The consequences of this encounter are visible in the way the practices developed. The sources themselves do not mention explicitly instances of circulation of knowledge, but a systematic comparison of sixteenth-century instructions and descriptions allows one to perceive the appearance of new information. This was the case of applied astronomy. Iberian ways for using the skies to either help finding direction at sea, or to mark the location of places on paper, developed to incorporate ideas already existing in Indian Ocean practice. This talk will introduce the topic of circulation of knowledge between the two star-navigation practices, trying to provide examples of information that may have circulated, and also to suggest some of processes by which it may have circulated.

20-21 May 2024, Università di Bologna, Ravenna, Italy