Dear Zoe, Glenn and Chris,

And Ken, Klaus, Michael and Terry, and all



First let me tell you the friday it was a national holiday, in Portugal so, 
I'm getting to my email box just, now.

I guess that I know what Glenn meant and, in abstract that could be so. I 
just have my personal experience, like Chris and Zoe , and from my 
graduation group in Architecture at my school, back 1986, the three most 
outstanding draughtsman of the course are doctors now.

This has an historical and cultural explanation. The relative weight of 
drawing skills in the final assessment of a graduation course in 
architecture at least in Portugal at that time was very high, so three 
finest draughtsman were also the finest assessed students. When the open 
call for positions started at our Faculty we did get in (we started 
lecturing at the age of 23). Then, in order to stay on  the system, we had 
to get a doctoral degree).

Drawing had also gave us a sense of rigor, much in the sense, that Michael 
and Terry are addressing in other posts. The process of drawing, from 
observation to actually designing is very rigorous, demanding and yet also 
culturally embedded, with cognitive aspects that in fact prepare greatly for 
research.

On thing that I've been discussing with Ken for the past months has to do 
with this. What I know from the Disegno Academy of Florence (1563) and the 
Disegno Academy of Rome (1600) is that the academicians gathered around what 
they called a Science: Disegno.

Academies were born because the gremial and university system was not 
serving the purposes of knowledge! Galileo was an exception in the 
university system! He wasn't the Europe's leading scientist, he was almost 
the Europe's sole scientist, in modern terms.

Aristotelians, Peripatetic ruled the natural sciences in the university.

Disegno as a science was a growing concept from century and a half before 
since Alberti's De Pictura.

I find in the Disegno Academies the forefathers of Design and not the 
gremial medieval activities. The Forefathers of Design as of Natural 
Sciences had to shift from Aristotle to Plato. What Herbert Butterfield in 
the Origins of Modern Science called the platonic geometric notion of the 
world that allowed mathematics to get in the description of phenomena (I'm 
quoting from memory).

Any history of Science must place in Brunelleschi and in the invention of 
Perspective the turning point from scholastic science to modern science.

Ken, unwisely and seldom with anachronism and imprecision, forget this 
genealogy that is token of the grandeur of the arts, of its supremacy in the 
human edifice from which we (Design scientists) descend.

 Klaus's arrogant ignorance about the Disegno Academies is a symptom of an 
unrooted community where I'm starting to feel like a zombie.

I found no mention in 1613 Galileo's letters (by and to) to the Academia of 
Disegno or even a mention to Disegno.

Take a look in: 
http://moro.imss.fi.it/lettura/LetturaWEB.dll?AZIONE=APRITESTO&TESTO=Ea3&VOL=10



The letters are not addressed to Doctor Galileo or Maestro, they are 
addressed to Magnifico Signore, Honorato etc. In 1610, we can find Cosimo's 
letter inviting him to be Philosopher at the court and the letter of glad 
acceptance. I only found a letter in Latin that, in text, referred to him as 
"doctissimo".



My interest in Galileo started because I found that he made a Lecture to the 
Florentine Academy of Letters (probably Ken fin also this one a modern 
science academy) about the Location, Size and Form of Dante's Inferno. This 
architecture of Hell is very interesting. That's why I stumbled with the 
information that he entered the academy of Disegno (which I had not found 
yet sure reference and apparently Ken did not also).



Cheers,



Eduardo







----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 12:27 PM
Subject: Galileo -- a footnote


> Dear Eduardo,
>
> Looking over my last note, I realize that I should have added a few short 
> points to answer your last two questions.
>
> The titles "master," doctor," and "professor" were interchangeable for 
> university professors.
>
> While the doctorate was an academic degree, the title doctor was also a 
> title of respect for learned teachers. The title and the degree both 
> derive from the Latin word "docere," - to teach. It is in this sense that 
> great theologians have been labeled doctors of the church, foremost among 
> them the "four doctors" who held no degrees at all: Gregory, Ambrose, 
> Jerome, and Augustine.
>
> A similar sense attends the title professor, one who professes.
>
> The title master could be applied to someone as a master of a field, 
> subject, or discipline, as a master of the younger members of the 
> university community, or as a master of the faculty. Guild masters used 
> the title master in this same sense.
>
> A university professor such as Galileo would have been addressed in all 
> three ways: Master, Professor, and Doctor.
>
> A guild master of the artisan craft guilds would have been addressed only 
> as Master. The other two titles belonged exclusively to the universities.
>
> The key issue is not whether Galileo earned a PhD. It is his own sense of 
> identity as a member and leader of the burgeoning European scientific 
> community.
>
> Nevertheless, the artisan craft guilds were far more influential and 
> prosperous than universities in this era. Princes and governors ruled the 
> towns and cities of Europe, supported by councils or groups of leading 
> citizens who also formed much of the tax base and dominated market 
> activities. The guild masters and mater merchants were responsible for 
> much of what would now be the various industries and fields of 
> manufacture. This included many of the activities that we now label 
> design. Guild masters were respected citizens and leading figures, while 
> scholars were often seen as impoverished nuisances who played a minor role 
> in civic life. Merchants valued the university community as a source of 
> customers, proprietors rented rooms to students, but they tolerated them 
> as a useful class primarily comprised of short-term guests rather 
> permanent citizens. When conflicts arose between town and gown, the town 
> powers generally won.
>
> The voluntary membership academies were different both to the guilds and 
> to universities, as well as to the schools that we call art and design 
> academies today. Most of what I know about academies involves the 
> academies of the natural sciences. I do not know enough about the 
> Florentine Accademia del Disegno to know whether Galileo's membership was 
> an exception.
>
> Many academies changed their membership policies over the years. From 1660 
> to the 1730s, for example, nearly any gentleman interested in the natural 
> sciences could join The Royal Society and criteria were vague enough to 
> include wealthy patrons as well as working scientists. From the 1730s, 
> election required a written nomination signed by current fellows. This 
> nomination states the reasons for proposing a new fellow.
>
> You know much more about the artistic academies than I do. I can't answer 
> the question on membership policies in the Accademia del Disegno in 
> Galileo's era.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> --
>
> Eduardo Corte-Real wrote:
>
> -snip-
>
> 3. Was he a Doctor?
>
> 4. Was he, by entering, an exception?
>
> -snip-
>
> -- 
>
> Prof. Ken Friedman
> Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
> Norwegian School of Management
> Oslo
>
> Center for Design Research
> Denmark's Design School
> Copenhagen
>
> +47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
> +47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat
>
> email: [log in to unmask]