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M is for Marble

The marble-tiled floor of St. Marks in Venice. Photo by kajmeister.

It’s just rock. A geological anomaly of a particular type of creature squeezed in a certain way than pushed out of place by a few tectonic events. Voila! A sculptor’s paradise; an architect’s dream. Imagine the floor! They did…

What Is that Stuff?

Ever since Italians noticed that they had mountains full of this really pretty stone, they’ve been sending blocks of it over to wherever sculptors are drooling. Lots of sculpture is carved from granite, which is cheaper and does last, but not as smooth. Marble forms because limestone is getting heated to “really extreme temperatures” so that minerals within the rock get fused together. In a purty way!

More marble flooring in St. Mark’s. Photo by KK.

Why Is It There?

As Luca Lotelli and Sam Anderson explained in a fascinating NY Times piece, the Italian Apuan alps is the site of one of the oldest quarries of white marble in the world. Cosimo de Medici extracted stone here for marble that the Renaissance artists used.

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L is for Leonardo (and the Giant Horse of Francesco Sforza)

Da vinci’s sketches of the horse, from the Royal Collection Trust.

A 28-year-old offered his services to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, in 1480. The letter writer provided visions of weapons design and military engineering, tasks close in mind to a man whose province had repeatedly churned through turmoil in recent decades The duke’s brother had been assassinated in church and his young son assumed the title, under Uncle Ludovico’s watchful eye. Better armaments might help fend off the numerous challenges from the French, Burgundians, Guelphs (or Ghibellines? or both?), Ottomans–you name it, and there was a threat.

Plus, Ludovico wanted to erect a giant commemorative statue to his grandfather. The letter writer said he could paint a little and knew something about sculpting.

Sketchy Ideas

The letter, of course, came from Leonardo Da Vinci. Even though Da Vinci had been apprenticed in an artist’s studio for a dozen years and opened his own studio for a few more, he had not yet completed a major work. Wikipedia calls Da Vinci a polymath, meaning he knew how to do everything. At this point in his life, he hadn’t been able to do much of it yet. But he had a lot of ideas. And he had heard about the horse.

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K is for Kepler

German Kepler stamp, from astampaday.com

Johannes Kepler was a late Renaissance astronomer/astrologer whose work helped launch Newton and the Scientific Revolution. A devout Christian, Kepler searched for ways to prove the divine within nature and the cosmos, creating models that tried to reconcile the Trinity with the movements of the planets and astro-phenomena. While Kepler had his own religious skirmishes with authorities, he managed to avoid the accusations of heresy and tragedy that enfolded is contemporary Galileo. 

He also explained snowflakes.

Horoscope from imperial astrologer Kepler. Photo from wikipedia.

Astronomy and Astrology: the STEM Disciplines in 1597

Back in 1600, astronomy was one of the foremost of the sciences, along with astrology. Since astrologers had to calculate planetary conditions down to precise moments of birth using limited information, their work was intricate, even if we might scoff at its purpose today. Astronomy and astrology were, therefore, branches of mathematics, which were categorized under the liberal arts. Math was sometimes taught as part of theology. Physics, which hadn’t developed much beyond Archimedes jumping out of the bathtub, was categorized as a part of “natural philosophy.”

Kepler enjoyed math as a youth and ended up studying under Tycho Brahe in Poland, as well as being imperial mathematician to the Holy Roman Emperors Rudolf II, Matthias, and Ferdinand II. If you want to know what an H.R.E. is, see G is for Ghibellines.

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