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Article
What is straight cannot fall: Gothic architecture, scholasticism, and dynamics
History of Science
  • Steven A. Walton, Michigan Technological University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-10-2014
Abstract

It has long been shown that medieval builders primarily used geometrical constructions to design medieval architecture. The thought processes involved, however, have been considered to be remote from the natural philosophical speculations of the Scholastics, who, following Aristotle, had taken the basis of physics to be the study of dynamics, or change. However, investigations of the Expertises of Chartres, Florence, Milan, and other documents related to medieval building suggest that medieval architects, in speaking of their work, resort to recognizable dynamic arguments, structured similarly to the speculations of Scholastic philosophers. These dynamic explanations of structural behaviour persist at least into the 17th century, but thereafter lost out to the arguments based on statics made by modern scholars attempting to explain the endurance of these structures.

Publisher's Statement

© The Author(s) 2014. Publisher's version of record: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0073275314559329

Citation Information
Steven A. Walton. "What is straight cannot fall: Gothic architecture, scholasticism, and dynamics" History of Science Vol. 52 Iss. 4 (2014) p. 347 - 376
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/steven-walton/66/