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]
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