Consilience

Consilience is “the linking together of principals from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory” (Merriam Webster Online). This word comes to mind more often than not, when I begin thinking of the Renaissance. Some might say that perhaps the greatest example of this would be the linking of Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the printing press, and the church. I do not believe this to be so. Martin Luther may have greatly impacted the church but that is where his power ended. I believe that the greatest form of consilience throughout the renaissance was that of Galileo, the printing press, and the church. The combination of these three things created such a large impact that it even affected the ways in which people viewed themselves as humans.

Printing Press

“A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image” (Wikipedia.com). It was invented in the 1430’s by a man named Johann Gutenberg. This was revolutionary because for the first time people could mass produce copies of articles and get them out into the public. This was a critical invention for materials such as books, newspapers, flyer's, and the development of scientific journals. This was a critical piece in the spread of literacy and in the decline of Latin. This discovery redefined the term public knowledge.

Galileo

“Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, who played a major role in the scientific revolution” (Wikipedia). Through his sketches and looking through his telescope he proved that the sun has sunspots, that Venus and the moon both go through phases and that the Earth revolves on its axis. He drew several pictures of the phases of the moon and he wrote several books about the astronomical laws behind it. He was a devout Roman Catholic but reached a point of great controversy with the church, due to his scientific discoveries. He was a man that helped redefine what it meant to be a human.

Catholic Church

“The Catholic Church is the largest Christian church, representing around half of all Christians, and is the largest organized body of any world religion” (Wikipedia). The Catholic Church was the political head of everything during the renaissance. For the most part what was considered religiously correct would be considered politically correct. It was socially, politically, economically, and religiously accepted. People connected with one another through religion, the head of the government was the pope, and instead of paying regular taxes alone the citizens would pay a 10% tithe to the church.

Galileo's drawings of the moon

These three elements all link together in many different ways. Galileo made great discoveries through his telescope and made sketches of them and wrote several books about them. The printing press came along and allowed Galileo’s drawings and books to be published and mass produced. This invention made his knowledge more accessible to the general public. Galileo’s theories disagreed with certain aspects of the Catholic religion. So in effect, Galileo produced works of art that when mass produced changed the public’s idea's of religion and how they interacted with the church.

This affected the political and economical aspects of people’s lives drastically. Politically speaking, the citizens had been under the rule of the pope and when they began to see that everything did not revolve around the Earth, that they were simply just men on one tiny planet, they started to stray from the church. People that disagree with the teachings of the church, will not allow themselves to be ruled by such a power for very long. Economically speaking, people began to spend their money in other places. People do not want to give their money to a foreign power anymore than they want to be ruled by one.

This piece of consilience had a great impact on people socially and intellectually as well. Socially people began to interact with each other more outside of the church setting. People began to interact with one another in ways that the church would have found outrageous. It became a more accepting society all the way around. New ideas were no longer a forbidden evil. Intellectually people blossomed because of the impact that this had. The people in the hierarchy of the church were no longer the only ones accepted as brilliant. More people began to read and due to the printing press they could gain access to one of Galileo’s books and fill their minds with ideas that would have formerly been considered wicked.

The last and perhaps most important factor that Galileo, the printing press, and the church had a any significant impact on was aesthetics. All of what people believed had been turned upside down. Up until this point in time, everyone had faith in the concept of the sun revolving around the Earth. When it became public knowledge that the Earth was one of many planets and simply revolved around on its own axis and that we were simply one of many it did harm initially to many people’s psych. The church immediately jumped into war with this idea because it states in the Bible that everything revolves around the Earth. For example: Psalm 104:5 “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever”, Psalm 93:1 “The Lord reigns, He is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved” and 1 Chronicles 16:30 “Let all the earth be moved at His presence: for He hath founded the world immoveable.” This theory would potentially mean hard core evidence proving the Bible wrong. This was majorly devastating and mind boggling during this era. The people believed at this point in time that it may be hypocritical and contradictory to the Bible, the word that they lived by, but they could not ignore foolproof evidence.

The printing press, Galileo, and the church together had a huge impact on the renaissance and even on our world today. It redefined how people saw themselves and even how they viewed others around them. This is one undeniably important piece of consilience. It reshaped what was considered politically and socially acceptable during this era and even affected peoples psych. It boosted the rate of people’s expected intellectual capabilities and influenced how they spent their hard earned cash every week. Overall it affected people’s beliefs and what they chose to be most valuable in life. It revolutionized every aspect of that time period and forever changed the world as they knew it.

Ashley Nichols