Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has a 1634 edition of "Exotericarum exercitationum liber XV. De subtilitate, ad Hieronymum Cardanum" by Julius Caesar Scaliger

Added at 06:30 on 23 April 2024

Leighton Library has a 1634 edition of "Exotericarum exercitationum liber XV. De subtilitate, ad Hieronymum Cardanum" by Italian scholar and physician Julius Caesar Scaliger who was born #OnThisDay 1484. This was "Exoteric Exercises" on the book "De Subtilitate" by Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardan. This is described as a book approaching natural philosophy, displaying encyclopaedic knowledge and accurate observation. This had a long popularity and had an influence on natural historians, philosophers and scientists such as Lipsius, Francis Bacon, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Johannes Kepler. It has been said that Scaliger's objective in the book seemed to be to deny all that Cardan affirmed and to affirm all that Cardan denied!