Blasius of Parma (Biagio Pelacani da Parma) (c. 13501416) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician and astrologer.
He popularised English and French philosophical work in Italy, where he associated both with scholastics and with early
Renaissance humanist
Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...
s.
He was professor of mathematics at the
University of Padua
The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...
, where he taught from 1382 to 1388; he taught also at the
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...
(1374? to 1378, and again 1389 to 1407), and the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...
(1389 to 1382). His students included
Vittorino da Feltre
Vittorino da Feltre (1378February 2, 1446) was an Italian humanist and teacher. He was born in Feltre, Belluno, Republic of Venice and died in Mantua. His real name was Vittorino Rambaldoni. It was in Vittorino that the Renaissance idea of the com ...
.
Works
Blasius around 1390 wrote a work on
perspective; it drew on
Alhacen
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (; full name ; ), was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq.For the description of his main fields, see e.g. ("He is one of the prin ...
,
John Pecham
John Peckham (c. 1230 – 8 December 1292) was Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292. He was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Friar Minor about 1250. He studied at the University of Paris under ...
, and
Witelo
Vitello ( pl, Witelon; german: Witelo; – 1280/1314) was a friar, theologian, natural philosopher and an important figure in the history of philosophy in Poland.
Name
Vitello's name varies with some sources. In earlier publications he was quo ...
.
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi ( , , also known as Pippo; 1377 – 15 April 1446), considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, p ...
may have known of the work of Blasius through
Giovanni dell'Abbaco.
His ''Tractatus de Ponderibus'' was based on Oxford theories on
laws of motion taken up from the
statics
Statics is the branch of classical mechanics that is concerned with the analysis of force and torque (also called moment) acting on physical systems that do not experience an acceleration (''a''=0), but rather, are in static equilibrium with ...
of
Jordanus Nemorarius
Jordanus de Nemore (fl. 13th century), also known as Jordanus Nemorarius and Giordano of Nemi, was a thirteenth-century European mathematician and scientist. The literal translation of Jordanus de Nemore (Giordano of Nemi) would indicate that he w ...
, and introduced them into Italy. He disagreed with the views of
Thomas Bradwardine
Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1300 – 26 August 1349) was an English cleric, scholar, mathematician, physicist, courtier and, very briefly, Archbishop of Canterbury. As a celebrated scholastic philosopher and doctor of theology, he is often call ...
on
proportion
Proportionality, proportion or proportional may refer to:
Mathematics
* Proportionality (mathematics), the property of two variables being in a multiplicative relation to a constant
* Ratio, of one quantity to another, especially of a part compare ...
, and gave a proof of the
mean speed theorem
The mean speed theorem, also known as the Merton rule of uniform acceleration, was discovered in the 14th century by the Oxford Calculators of Merton College, and was proved by Nicole Oresme. It states that a uniformly accelerated body (starti ...
. He also wrote on the natural philosophy of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
.
Modern editions
* Blaise de Parme, ''Questiones super tractatus logice magistri Petri Hispani'', Paris: Vrin, 2001.
* Blaise de Parme, ''Quaestiones circa tractatum proportionum magistri Thome Braduardini'', Paris: Vrin, 2006.
* Blaise de Parme, ''Questiones super perspectiva communi'', Paris: Vrin, 2009.
References
*
Notes
{{Authority control
1416 deaths
Scholastic philosophers
Italian mathematicians
14th-century Italian mathematicians
Italian astrologers
14th-century astrologers
15th-century astrologers
Italian philosophers
14th-century Italian philosophers
1360s births