INTRODUCTION: ‘THE GREAT BOOK OF NATURE’ AND THE ‘LITTLE BOOKS OF MEN’

Problems associated with the rise of modern science lend themselves to a similar argument. In other words, I think the advent of printing ought to be featured more prominently by historians of science when they set the stage for the downfall of Ptolemaic astronomy, Galenic anatomy or Aristotelian physics. This means asking for a somewhat more drastic revision of current guidelines than seems necessary in Reformation studies. In the latter field, the impact of printing may be postponed; but at least it is usually included among the agents that promoted Luther's cause. The outpouring of tracts and cartoons left too vivid and strong an impression for the new medium to be entirely discounted when investigating the Protestant Revolt. The contrary seems true in the case of the so-called ‘scientific revolution.’ Although a few authorities have suggested that sixteenth-century science was revolutionized by the ‘cataclysmic’ effect of printing, they do so by stressing a ‘mass movement’ which seems singularly unimpressive to other historians of science. For exploitation of the mass medium was more common among prognosticators and quacks than among Latin-writing professional scientists, who often withheld their work from the press. When important treatises did appear in print, they rarely achieved the status of bestsellers.