The tracts on the sphere: Knowledge restructured over a network

Abstract

The essay focuses on the early modern tradition of commentaries on the late Medieval work of Johannes de Sacrobosco, Tractatus de sphaera. Arguing that a new knowledge system founded on the geocentric worldview emerged during the thirteenth century, the work analyzes how and why such a knowledge system changed during the early modern period in correlation with the development of practical knowledge, which emerged in the framework of the phenomenon of journeys of exploration. It is shown that new subjects were added to the original texts and finally codified and printed in the early modern editions of the text, thus creating new structures of knowledge. By applying methods derived from social network analysis, the essay finally examines how a single new subject, namely a mathematical demonstration concerning the division of the Earth's surface into climate zones, entered the history of commentary treatises on the Sphere and how it spread over time and space by being adopted into further editions published in other places and by different printers. By means of this case study, this work concludes with the analysis of the process that leads from one abstract structure of knowledge to the next.