ROGER ARIE W*

GALILEO’S LUNAR OBSERVATIONS IN THE

CONTEXT OF MEDIEVAL LUNAR THEORY

1. Lunar Theory as a Historical Issue

VERY OFTEN one’s understanding of a historical issue can be enhanced by

looking at the historical context for the issue. This is even more likely when
the issue has ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, and it is viewed habitually from the viewpoint
of the winner. As a result of our habit, we frequently think the losers irrational
and make little sense of their position. Such an issue is the theory of the moon
discussed by Galileo in the Starry Messenger and in the Two Chief World
Systems. It is a theory for which Galileo received and still receives much credit.
Perhaps he receives too much credit for it - moderns are usually myopic with
respect to it; we are so confident that Galileo got the issue right that we do
not question his philosophizing about it. Yet this theory would benefit by being
placed in the context of medieval lunar theories and by making sense of it as
seventeenth century science attempting to refute Scholastic science - that is,
by taking seriously the response of Scholastics to Galileo’s theory of the moon
and lunar light, not as scientific intransigency or irrationality, but as the
reasonable response from the point of view of the theory under attack. This
is a difficult task because Galileo’s telescopic observations of the moon are
extremely convincing, his results seems right and his arguments valid and the
hypotheses of his Scholastic opponents seem ad hoc. The case is stated eloquently
by Stillman Drake:

The arguments brought forth against [Galileo’s] new discoveries were so silly that
it is hard for the modern mind to take them seriously. Galileo did not bother to reply
to them in print, though he often answered many of them in his personal
correspondence with his friends, often quite amusingly.. . One of his opponents who
admitted that the surface of the moon looked quite rugged, maintained that it was
actually quite smooth and spherical as Aristotle had said, reconciling the two ideas
by saying that the moon was covered with a smooth and transparent material through
which it could be discerned.. . One after another, all attempts to cleanse the heavens
of new celestial bodies came to grief. Philosophers had come up against a set of facts

*Department of Philosophy, Center for Programs in the Humanities, Program in Humanities,

Science and Technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA 24061, U.S.A.

Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 213-226, 1984. 0039-3681/84 %3.00+ 0.00
Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd.
214 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

which their theories were unable to explain. The more persistent and determined
adversaries of Galileo had to give up arguing and to resort to threats.*

We have here all the classical elements of scientific intransigency: silly arguments
against discoveries; theories against facts; natural philosophers against scientists.
But what were Galileo’s discoveries, his facts? Did Galileo discover mountains
on the moon? We assume that he did so because we know that there are
mountains on the moon. But what Galileo discovered, using his telescope, was
that spots on the lunar surface change shape over time; he then concluded that
his phenomenon is best explained as the shadows cast by mountains on the moon
if the light of the sun is reflected off the moon. The telescope’s contribution
to the argument is not as substantial as one might have thought. The telescope
does not, after all, reveal the profile of a mountain; it merely gives some new
details concerning the shape of the spots on the lunar disk; moreover, the
telescope also seems to confirm the perfect convexity of the lunar disk. A slightly
impoverished form of the same argument could have been given after naked
eye observations of the spots on the lunar surface (the man on the moon). And
since these spots had been observed before Galileo’s time, one might have
wondered why that was not used previously to conclude that there are mountains
on the moon.
In fact, there were others who, long before Galileo’s time, concluded as Galileo
did - a fact that he himself intimates by referring to ‘the Pythagorean opinion
that the moon is another earth.’ 2 If we read Plutarch’s On the Face that can
be seen on the Lunar Disk, we can learn that Plutarch considered the moon
a body comparable to ours because he thought that the spot on the lunar disk
denoted a heterogeneity in the structure of the moon, an incompatibility with
the geometric purity of celestial essence as defined by Aristotelian cosmology.3
Before Plutarch - and even before Aristotle - Heraclides, Plato (Socrates
in the Phaedo) and others considered the moon to be another earth. But this
whole tradition was suppressed in the middle ages by Averroes’ theory of the
moon (an elaboration on Aristotle’s theory), which became the standard

‘Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo(New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957) pp.
73 - 74. In his Galileo at Work (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978) Drake gives an
example of a letter in which Galileo responds to his critics: ‘Getting back to our main purpose,
if we still want to let anyone imagine whatever he pleases, and someone says that the moon is
spherically surrounded by transparent invisible crystal, then I shall willingly grant this - provided
that this crystal has on its outer surface a great number of enormous mountains, thirty times as
high as terrestrial ones, which, being of diaphanous substance, cannot be seen by us; and thus I
can picture another moon ten times as mountainous as [I said] in the first place’,pp. 168, 169.
We shall show that this clever response is not a proper one to the problem; actually, as Drake indicates,
the response does not take the problem seriously.
%alileo, The Starry Messenger, in Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, p. 34.
Yt is not clear whether Galileo had read Plutarch’s monograph, which was widely available at
the time; Kepler knew the work and referred to it as an ancient authority advocating Galileo’s position
- Kepler, Dbsertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo, in Le Opere di Galileo Galilei III, part 1, Firenze, 1968,
pp. 112- 114, published the same year as Galileo’s The Starry Messenger.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 215

Scholastic theory of the moon (it was, of course, also elaborated upon). The
theory, and Aristotle’s antecedent theory, seems to be generally misunderstood
by so many that it would be useful to detail it. This may seem like a digression,
but it is not; as will be shown, Averroes’ theory is the context against which
Galileo’s lunar observations may be judged.

2. Averroes’ Theory of the Moon as an Elaboration of

Aristotle’s Theory of the Moon

We can begin discussion of medieval lunar theory by citing what is thought

to be a misinterpretation of Artistotle’s theory by Copernicus in On the
Revolutions, together with recent misinterpretations of that theory and its
medieval elaborations (particularly Averroes’) by contemporary historians. In
On the Revolutions I, 10, Copernicus states that ‘the moon has the closest kinship
with the earth, as Aristotle states in his De animalibus.‘4 This statement is
innocent enough by itself; but recently its significance has been an issue in
Copernican interpretation between Edward Rosen and Noel Swerdlow.5 They
agree that Copernicus’ reference should have been to Averroes and not to
Aristotle, because what Copernicus attributes to Aristotle is Averroes’ position,
and is thus a misrepresentation of Aristotle’s position.6 However, they are
mistaken about what Averroes means to attribute to Aristotle, and each in his
own way misunderstands Averroes’ theory of the moon.
dNicholas Copernicus, Complete Works, 11 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978),
p. 22.
5Noel Swcrdlow, ‘Translating Copernicus,’ Isis, 72 (1981), 73 - 82; Edward Rosen, Noel Swerdlow,
‘Translating Copernicus’, Isis, 72 (1981), 629 - 630.
6This is essentially Birkenmajer’s comment in Nicholas Copernicus, Opera Omniu, II (Warsaw:
Academia Scientiarum Poloniae, 1975), pp. 383 - 384. The opposition between Rosen and Swerdlow
begins with Swerdlow’s critique of a Rosen note about the kinship between the earth and moon
in Copernican cosmology. Swerdlow objects that Rosen is reading too much into Copernicus’
statement of the earth and moon as cognates when he writes that ‘Copernicus’ emphasis on the
close kinship between the earth and moon became a distinguishing feature of his cosmology as
contrasted with Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s For the Greeks the moon was a celestial body, whereas
the earth was not. With Copernicus, the earth became a celestial body, closely akin to the moon.
This kinship provided a great follower of Copernicus, Kepler, with the foundation cf his theory
of mutual gravitational attraction between the earth and moon. The generalization of this attraction
by that other great Copemican, Newton, gave physical astronomy one of its basic principles, universal
gravitation.’ (Rosen, in Copernicus, Complete Works, II, p. 399). Rosen’s note is clearly inflated
and rhetorical; but on the whole it is correct: Aristotle and his followers generally regarded the
moon to be a celestial body and usually distinguished it sharply from sublunar substances; Copernicus’
reference to Aristotle seems mistaken, if it is to be interpreted with respect to a theory of lunar
substance, but Copernicus’ remark linking the earth and moon in one respect might have led others
to link the earth and moon in other respects. However, Swerdlow is surely right in his main point
of contention against Rosen, namely in the respect to which Copernicus links the earth and moon
and then attributes this linkage to Aristotle. Essentially, Swerdlow is accusing Rosen of not paying
enough attention to the context of Copernicus’ statement and generalizing the kinship beyond the
limited kinship considered by Copernicus: ‘taken in this context, Copernicus means either that the
moon is very close or that the moon really does revolve around the earth, while the earth and planets
move around the sun’. (Swerdlow, p. 82.)
216 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

The debate between Rosen and Swerdlow spills into the proper domain of
this section - the medieval theory of the moon - when Rosen asserts that
“Copernicus repeated this misstatement by the greatest Muslim commentator
[Averroes] on Aristotle [that Aristotle says that the moon’s nature is more closely
akin to the nature of the earth than the nature of the other heavenly bodies]
without being aware that Aristotle’s Generation of Animals IV, 10, regards the
moon as not akin to the earth, but as a ‘second and lesser sun”‘.’ Swerdlow
echoes some of this by stating that ‘A. Birkenmajer has shown that the reference
to Aristotle is in fact [taken] from Averroes, who says that because the moon
is a dark body shining by reflected sunlight, according to Aristotle’s De
animalibus the moon is more like the earth than other stars.‘8 The one statement
that Rosen and Swerdlow agree upon is one that ought not be assented to;
apparently, according to Rosen and Swerdlow, Averroes so misunderstood
Aristotle, with respect to this issue, that he thought Aristotle likened the moon
to the earth, while Aristotle was actually likening it to the sun. However, it
is difficult to believe that Averroes could so misunderstand Aristotle (I take
it as a general working principle that whatever reading Averroes gives to Aristotle
has some claim to initial plausibility). So let us see what Averroes and Aristotle
actually asserted about the moon. The relevant Averroes passages are, as
Birkenmajer points out, Averroes’ On the Substance of the Orb, ch. 2 and his
commentary on the De Caelo I, comm. 16, and II, comm. 32,42, and 49.9 The
most relevant Aristotle passage is from the Generation of Animals III, 11 and
not as Rosen suggested, IV, 10.
In the Generation of Animals IV, 10, Aristotle does assert that ‘The moon
is a first principle because of her connection with the sun and her participation
in his light, being as it were a second and smaller sun, and therefore contributes
to all generation and corruption.“0 It is clear from the context that the respect
in which the moon is a second and smaller sun is that the moon is one of the
primary causes affecting life on earth - generation and corruption. This does
not prejudge the issue of kinship between the moon and the earth in other
respects and it especially does not prejudge the issue about any substantial
kinship between the moon and earth or moon and sun. In fact, Aristotle clearly
states, in this passage, that the moon participates in the light of the sun; it would
be possible for Aristotle to add that the moon’s reflection of sunlight renders
the moon into a cognate of the earth, which, of course, he does not add. It

‘Rosen, in Copernicus, Complete Works, II, p. 360.

‘Swerdlow, p. 63 1.
gBirkenmajer in Copernicus, Opera Omnia, pp. 383 - 384; see also Pierre Duhem, Le Sysf&me
du Monde, IX (Paris: Hermann, 1958), p. 410. Duhem has been much criticized, and sometimes
unfairly so, but with respect to Averroes’ theory of the moon, Duhem gets it generally right, while
others get it wrong. I am obviously considerably indebted to Duhem in this paper.
“‘Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, V (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1912), 777b 24-31.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 217

is clear that this passage could not have determined Averroes’ interpretation
about the kinship between the natures of the earth and moon.
However, in the Generation of Animals III, 11, Aristotle makes the interesting
assertion that ‘such a kind of animal [fire inhabitants such as the salamander]
must be sought for in the moon, for this [the moon] appears to participate in
the element removed in the third degree from the earth [that is, fire]‘.” Here
we have a ‘participation’ of the substance of the moon with a sublunar substance.
This could be considered a departure from the rigid Aristotelian opposition
between sublunar substances and the celestial substance. Of course, the passage
does not liken the substance of the moon to terrestrial substance, but it does
go a long way, likening some heavenly incorruptible substance to a substance
capable of generation and corruption. However, another interpretation can be
given: one can attribute similar qualities to the sublunar substances and the
celestial substance, although they remain separate and opposed.‘* In this way,
Aristotle is not so much misunderstood by Averroes, as being generalized upon
by Averroes; Averroes multiplies Aristotle’s talk of relation between sublunar
substances and the lunar substance. According to Averroes, then, Aristotle likens
the lunar substance to fire insofar as it is luminescent, and it could be inferred
that he would also liken it to earth insofar as it is obscure. i.e. not luminescent:

Aristotle stated in the De animalibus that the nature of the moon has a relation with
the terrestrial nature, because it is not luminescent. Everything that is luminescent
by itself has a nature related to the nature of fire; as for the parts of the moon that
are translucent, that do not glow by themselves and do not have the power to light,
they possess a nature that has a relation with the nature of water and air.13

Averroes does not think that there is a real substantial kinship between the
natures of the earth and moon, nor does he think that the qualities one attributes
to them are the same qualities. He merely wishes to introduce the relation as
an analogy; he indicates this by saying that one can use the words dense, rare,
opaque, translucent, obscure and luminescent with respect to the lunar substance,

“Aristotle, 761 b 21-24. Peck’s translation, which is a more literal translation, also confirms
the point: ‘This fourth tribe must be looked for in the moon, since the moon, as it appears, has
a share in the fourth degree of remove’ (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1963), p. 353. This reading
of Aristotle is not unknown in the middle ages; for instance, one can find references to it in a passage
of the Zntroductoire d’Astronotnie of the astrologer of Baudoin de Courtenay, circa 1270
(Bibliotheque Nationale, fonds francais, ms. no. 1353, fol. 29, col. a): ‘Aristotle said that the body
of the moon was of the nature of fire, but however, it has much the nature of water and earth.’
“Henry Mendell rightly indicated to me that in order for the interpretation to succeed, one would
have to show that the Generation of Animals is one of the texts that advance an aether theory
(since not all Aristotle texts seem to do so); this can easily be shown. Cf. II, ch. 3, 736 b 33 to
737 a 1 and Peck’s Appendix B, paragraph 13. These passages, in which Aristotle talks of a substance
analogous to the element belonging to the stars, seem also to corroborate Averroes’ interpretation.
‘3Averroes, In libros Aristoteh De Caelo commentarii, lib. II, summa II, quaesitum III, comm.
32. Given the interpretation we are developing, it is even possible that Copernicus did not misinterpret
Aristotle. But in all likelihood, Copernicus was simply repeating a traditional phrase.
218 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

but only equivocally, with similar meaning, and not the same meaning as when
we use them with respect to sublunar substances.14 That the language is equivocal
(or analogical) can be demonstrated by Averroes’ willingness to extend it to
the other celestial spheres:

Insofar as they are bodies, the celestial spheres have in common with the elements
the properties which consist in being translucent, luminescent, and obscure; that is
why Aristotle stated in the De animalibus that the nature of the moon is similar to
the nature of the earth because of its obscurity. In the same fashion, the luminescent
portion of the celestial spheres is similar to the nature of fire.15

It is clear that Averroes does not think that the talk of relations is inconsistent
with the real substantial opposition Aristotle places between the incorruptible
bodies and the bodies capable of generation and corruption. Averroes does not
think that his extension of Aristotle’s theory (if it is an extension at all, and
not thought to be implied in Aristotle’s statement) is not in keeping with
Peripatetic theory. He uses his analogy to explain lunar light and the spot on
the lunar disk. This explanation was so successful that it became the predominant
lunar theory for the middle ages. One could argue that its success was due to
a real sympathy with Peripatetic theory. Take this passage:

Here is what is most rightly said about this subject: the spot is a portion of the surface
of the moon that does not receive the light of the sun in the same way that other
portions do. That is not something that celestial bodies are prohibited from doing;
in fact, in the same way that we discover something luminescent, we can also discover
something obscure in those bodies. Such is the moon; thus Aristotle stated in the
De animalibus that the nature of the moon is similar to the nature of the earth. By
that he understands that the moon derives its luminescent characteristic from others,
like earth from fire. That is not so for the other stars, as is evident. Since the various
parts of the celestial body are distinguished with respect to whether they are translucent
or not, or luminescent, it is not impossible that the various parts of the moon receive
the light of the sun differently.16

But how do these parts receive the light of the sun? In what way does the sun

“Averroes, De substantia orb& ch. 2. That is also how Averroes was understood; see, for instance,
Robertus Anglicus’ Commentary on the Sphere of Sacrobosco (Lynn Thorndike, The Sphere of
Sacrobosco and its Commentators (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949) p. 246): ‘But
should anyone raise an objection and say I am wrong to posit rarity and density in the heavens,
I answer that this is not impossible according to Averroes in the book On the Substance of the
Orb who holds that rarity and density may be posited in the heavens as here below, though perhaps
equivocally or by more or less, as is there stated.’ Density and rarity become the code words for
the Averroist explanation of why the moon does not transmit the light of the sun evenly (see also
John of Jandun’s Commentary on the Substance of the Orb, ch. 2 and other works cited in these
notes).
‘5Averroes, De Caelo, lib. II, summa III, cap. I, comm. 42.
16Averroes, De Cue/o, lib. II, summa III, cap. II, comm. 49.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 219

enable the moon to light up? Averroes explains:

It has been demonstrated that if the moon acquires the power of lighting up from
the sun, it is not by reflection. That has been proven by Avenatha [Abraham ben
Ezra] in an interesting treatise. If it illuminates, it is by becoming a luminous body
itself. The sun renders it luminescent first and then the light emanates from it in the
same way that it emanates from the other stars; that is, an infinite multitude of rays
are issued from each point of the moon. If its power of illumination issued from
reflection, it would illuminate some determined places on earth depending upon its
circumstances; reflection is produced only for some determined angles.”

The above theory of lunar substance and lunar light fits perfectly with
Peripatetic theory insofar as it rejects the theory of lunar light as reflection.
Lunar light does not behave as the light reflected by a mirror because it diffuses
throughout and does not give a simple image of the sun. To admit a theory
of lunar light as reflection would therefore be to admit that the lunar surface
was rough, an admission that would go against Peripatetic theory. Therefore,
another theory of lunar light must be put forward, one that would not postulate
the roughness of the moon. This is the theory Averroes comes up with, a theory
of lunar transmission of light, much like fluorescence. The theory fits within
the Peripatetic framework of a division between an incorruptible celestial
substance and sublunar substances that are capable of generation and corruption,
while accounting for the fact that differences can be observed in the celestial
substance - the planets and the fixed stars can be observed while the rest of
their orbs cannot; parts of the moon are darker than other parts.
Returning to Swerdlow’s assertion, we can see that it is mistaken. Averroes
could not assert that the moon is a dark body shining by reflected light and
conclude from this that the moon is more like the earth than the sun. In fact,
Averroes does not think that the moon reflects the light of the sun; he does
not think that the moon is therefore more like the earth than the sun because
of that. Further, even if we modified Swerdlow’s statement so that it read that
the moon is a dark body shining by the transmission of sunlight, etc., it would
still be false. As Averroes makes perfectly plain, the moon is like the earth insofar
as it does not transmit light, insofar as it has dark spots.

“Averroes, ibid.; one ought to note an interesting variation of Averroes’ theory. Some medievals
held that the stars also did not have their own light, but transmitted the sun’s light in the same
manner as the moon. See for instance Aegidius Romanus’ Opus Hexaemeron, pars II, cap. X, or
Albertus Magnus’ Libri de Caelo et Mundo, lib. II, tract. III, cap. VI. This supposition (which
actually predates Averroes’ theory since it was held by Avicenna) engenders some lively debates
about the possibility of phases for stars such as Venus and Mercury. Here again Galileo’s position
seems over-stated; the fact of phases for Venus causes no more difficulty for medievals than does
the fact of phases for the moon. What needs to be shown is that Venus displays ail the phases
that the moon displays in order that the argument be able to conclude for the revolution of Venus
around the sun. And once these things are shown and concluded, it is not clear what their effect
on Ptolemy and Aristotle’s theories should be.
220 Studies in History and Phiiosophy of Science

3. The Theory of the Moon during the Late Middle Ages

and during Galileo’s Time

As we have already indicated, Averroes’ theory is repeated almost verbatim

by nearly every medieval writer on the moon after Averroes. It receives a full
exposition during the fourteenth century in the commentaries on book II of
Aristotles’s De Caelo. One can find such expositions in the works of the greatest
natural philosophers of the fourteenth century. For example, a full development
of Averroes’ theory can be found in John Buridan’s Questions on the De Caelo,
Nicole Oresme’s Livre du Ciel et du Monde and Albertus de Saxonia’s
Quaestiones de Caelo et Mundo.18 The discussions of these three authors are
extremely similar (with Buridan’s and Oresme’s predating Albertus de
Saxonia’s). In the SystPme du Monde, Pierre Duhem states that only Albertus
de Saxonia’s work was widely available in the fifteenth and sixteenth century
- it had many editions in those centuries while Buridan and Oresme’s
commentaries on the De Caelo remained in manuscript form; Duhem also states
that it was Albertus de Saxonia’s work that initiated Leonardo da Vinci’s
thinking about the problem of the moon. I9 These are sufficient reasons to cite
Albertus de Saxonia’s commentary instead of Buridan’s or Oresme’s. (In modern
times, an edition of Buridan’s Questions on the De Caelo and an edition and
translation of Oresme’s Livre du Ciel et du Monde are available, while Albertus
de Saxonia’s Quaestiones de Caelo et Mundo is less accessible.)
Question XX of Albertus’ Quaestiones de Caelo et Mundo deals with the
problem of whether the stars receive their light from the sun or have their own
light and Question XXII deals with whether the spot on the moon is caused
by the diversity of parts of the moon or some other extrinsic cause.“’ Question
XX also deals with lunar light; in it Albertus sketches a doctrine of lunar light
as reflection of sunlight and then states:

But this opinion is inadmissible; doubtless a smooth and polished body would reflect
rays toward the eye, but this reflection does not issue from every part of the smooth
body. The mirror is an obvious example. When my face is in front of a mirror, every
part of the mirror reflects a ray to my face; but it is not true that any part of the
mirror transmits to my eyes any ray whatsoever. One part transmits one ray and

18John Buridan, Questions on the De Cuelo, lib. II, quest. XIX, available in edited version as
Iohannis Buridani Quamtiones super libri quattuor de caelo et mundo, ed. E. A. Moody (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1942), pp. 214- 217. Nicole Oresme, Livre
du Ciel et du Monde, liv. II, ch. XVI, available in edited andtranslated version, ed. A. D. Menut
and A. J. Denomv. trans. A. D. Menut (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968),
pp. 455 - 459. AIbkrtus de Saxonia Quaestiones de Caelo et Mundo, lib. II, quaest. XX and XXII
(Rome, 1516); in other editions, these questions are numbered XXII and XXIIII.
19Duhem, Le Systtime du Monde, IX, pp. 424, 430.
Z”Quaest. XX: Utrum omnia astra a sole habeant lumen suum a Sole; Quaest. XXII: Utrum macula
illa quae apparet in Luna causetur ex diversitate partium Lunae vel ab aliquo extrinseco.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 221

another part another ray. In fact, in order for a part of the mirror to transmit a certain
ray, it must be that this ray from my face falling on the mirror and the ray attaining
my eye form equal angles of incidence and reflection on the surface of the mirror.. . .
Then if the moon reflected the light of the sun toward us in the said manner, that
is, like a mirror, doubtless the whole surface of the moon would offer us a weak
light; and we would not perceive an intense light except in some small portion such
that the angle of incidence would be equal to the angle of reflection to our eyes.
But one might object to this reasoning. If the light of the sun strikes a wall, the wall
seems lit on all its surface, and not at a point corresponding to an angle of reflection
equal to an angle of incidence. This objection is worthless; the moon is not like a
wall. Because of the roughness of its surface, a number of parts of the wall can reflect
rays to our eyes; hence, a large extent of the wall appears lit to us. But if the wall
were perfectly smooth like a mirror, or like the body of the moon, the solar rays
would not light up all its surface when striking it....
One must therefore utter another opinion. That is why I state that the light of the
sun is incorporated in the moon. The moon is a translucent and transparent body,
at least on its surface, and perhaps in its totality, even though the size of the moon’s
body does not allow the light of the sun to cross its whole length, so that this light
cannot be as intense on the side of the moon that does not face the sun as on the
side of the moon that does. Thus the light of the moon we see is not simply the light
of the sun reflected off the body of the moon, but the light of the sun that the moon
soaked up and that became incorporated with it.
One can also express oneself as follows: the moon is not luminescent actually; it cannot
itself affect a transparent medium. However, by its natural disposition, it has a
proximate potential for luminosity; and this potential is brought to actual luminosity
by the incidence of the solar light on the moon.*’

Albertus deals with the lunar spot in Question XXII; after arguing initially
that the spot does not issue from the diversity of parts of the moon (that the
moon is a simple body), and that its cause is not extrinsic to the moon (that
the spot is not caused by vapors on the moon, and that it is not the representation
of mountains on the earth), he asserts that:

The Commentator [Averroes] issues a third opinion, which I believe to be true. The
spot issues from the diversity of the parts of the moon, these parts being more or
less rare or more or less dense than one another. The parts in which the spot is seen
are the rarest, which renders them least capable of glowing. The parts next to them
are the densest, and because of it, they glow most.. . . The moon is simple in substance,
in fact, but that would not prevent it from exhibiting differences in density and rarity
between its various partszl

Obviously, the more intricate and developed medieval scientific theories of

the fourteenth century (such as Gregory of Rimini’s doctrine on the

“Albertus de Saxonia, De Cuelo, fol. CXIV, col. d to fol. CXV, col. b.

“Albertus de Saxonia, De Caelo, fol. CXVI, col. b, c and d.
222 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

categorematic infinite or Nicholas Bonet’s atomic theory of time) do not survive

the fifteenth century into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But that is
not generally the case for theories whose principal text is one of the classics
of the thirteenth century - i.e. one of Thomas Aquinas’ published works or
a translation of one of Averroes’ commentaries. And it is not the case for
Averroes’ theory of lunar substance and light. This theory can be found in the
standard scientific texts cf the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the topic is
typically appended to a discussion of lunar and solar eclipses in the commentaries
on the Sphere of Sacroboscoz3 (or again as part of the commentaries of
Aristotle’s De Caelo ,,).
An exemplary discussion of this topic occurs in the portion of Eustachius
a Sancto Paulo’s Summa Philosophiae Quadripartita devoted to the De Caelo.
This work was published in 1609 and had numerous editions throughout the
first half of the seventeenth century. It bears great similarities to other late
Scholastic scientific treatises, such as the lecture of the Conimbricences (the
Jesuits of the University of Coimbra) and the works of other Jesuits who taught
at the Collegio Roman0 toward the end of the sixteenth century and the
beginning of the seventeenth century (Franciscus Toletus, for example).”
In 1609, just before the publication of Galileo’s Starry Messenger, Eustachius
summarizes the whole medieval theory of the moon and lunar light by stating
that the moon does not have its own light - it borrows its light from the sun
- and that the denser parts of the moon receive the light of the sun differently;
as a result, we can see a spot on the moon. 26This is clearly Averroes’ theory.
And since the theory predates Galileo’s publication of the Starry Messenger,
it cannot be asserted that the theory is an ad hoc modification of Aristotle’s
theory whose whole purpose is to save Aristotle’s theory from Galileo’s
discoveries. Moreover, this is also the theory that Christopher Clavius, the great
%nfortunately, neither Clavius’ important Commentury on the Sphere, nor Galileo’s The Sphere
do much more than state perfunctorily that the moon receives its light from the sun.
24For example, the Commenfurii in qua&or Iibros de Cue/o (Coimbra, 1592), lib. 2, cap. 7, quaest.
4.
25Toletus may be the most interesting figure, since Wallace indicates that Galileo might have
used him as a source (together with Clavius and other Collegio Roman0 Professors’ works and
lectures) for his early lectures on the heavens - see William Wallace, Galileo’s Early Notebooks:
The Physical Questions (Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1977). Moreover,
Descartes tells us that the textbooks by which he was taught at La Fleche included the works of
Toletus and the Conimbricences: (see Descartes’ Letter to Mersenne, 30 September 1640, in Oeuvres
de Descartes, III ed. by C. Adam and P. Tannery, 11 volumes (Paris: Cerf, 1897 - 1910, reprinted
with new appendices, Paris: Vrin, 1964), pp. 183 - 193). However, Toletus did not write a commentary
on the De Cuelo (though he did write an interesting commentary on the Physics). Therefore, 1
am citing Eustachius’ Summa since, according to Descartes, Eustachius’ book, which includes a
section on the heavens, is the best book of its kind, namely, a late Scholastic treatise that represents
the basic unity of the Scholastic viewpoint during the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of
the seventeenth century (see the Letter to Mersenne, 11 November 1640, in Adam and Tannery,
III, pp. 231-236).
‘6Eustachio a Sancto, Paula Summa Philosophiue Quudripurtitu (Cambridge, 1648), Pars III:
Physica, Pars II: De Corpore Naturali Inanimato, Tract. I: De Mundo et Caelo, Disp. 2: De Caelo,
Quaest. VIII: An astra lumen a sole mutuentur, p. 188.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 223

Jesuit mathematician of the century, refused to renounce, even though he

accepted Galileo’s other telescopic observations*’ (it would be difficult to accuse
Clavius of scientific intransigency or irrationality, given that he accepted
Galileo’s telescopic discovery of the moons of Jupiter).
The conclusion one ought to draw is that since the medieval theory of the
moon is not that light is reflected off the surface of the moon, but that the
moon receives sunlight in proportion to its density, Galileo’s observation of
mountains on the moon, which assumes that sunlight is reflected off the moon,
cannot succeed in destroying the medieval lunar theory; it can only be an
independent account of the moon and lunar light based on radically different
premises. Galileo concludes that the moon is like the earth by claiming to see
spots on the lunar surface as the shadows that mountains would cause, if the
light of the moon were reflected off the surface of the moon. But since the light
of the moon diffuses throughout, since one does not see a simple image of the
sun reflected off the moon, to assume that the light of the moon is received
by reflection would be to assume that the surface of the moon is rough - to
assume the moon is like the earth. From the perspective of medieval lunar theory,
Galileo’s reasoning is oddly circular. Moreover, seen from the same perspective,
the ‘ad hoc’ attempts to salvage the Aristotelian theory are not ad hoc. Even
the claim that the moon is a smooth body with mountains at its core can be
found centuries before Galileo’s time: one of the manuscripts containing the
Treatise on Astrology of Bernard of Verdun carries the marginal note that the
moon is a perfectly transparent spherical body containing an obscure body within
it; the latter appears as a dark spot through the former.”

4. Did Galileo know the Medieval Theory of the Moon?

There is no doubt that Galileo knew Averroes’ theory of the moon (the
question probably should be whether Galileo understood fully Averroes’ theory).
In fact, in his Tractatus De Caelo, one of his early works (which is sometimes
classified as juvenilia), Galileo cites extensively Averroes’ Commentary on the
De Caelo and Treatise on the Substance of the Orb;29 he even cites chapter 2
of the Substance of the Orb and John of Jandun’s Commentary on the Substance
of the Orb. 3oMoreover, the issues discussed by Galileo in his Tractatus include
the primary questions on our topic - Are the heavens one of the simple bodies
or composed of them? Are the heavens incorruptible? Are the heavens composed
of matter and form? - and Galileo answers these questions in the same fashion
“See Drake, Galileo at Work, p. 165, or even the Nuntius Sidereus Collegii Romani, in Le Opere
di Galileo Galilei III, part. 1, pp. 294- 295.
‘BBernard of Verdun, Tractatus super Astrologiam, Bibliothtque Nationale, fonds latins, ms.
no. 7333, fol. 19, col. c.
%ee William Wallace, Galileo’s Early Notebooks, p. 103.
3o Ibid., pp. 106 105.
224 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

as would a Scholastic. It is difficult to believe that he could read Averroes’ works

concerning celestial bodies, or have them reported to him, then defend the
primary arguments of these works, but not be exposed to their important
corollary arguments. And of course, this evidence concerns the period before
the telescopic experiments described in the Starry Messenger.
After the publication of the Starry Messenger, Galileo must have been
reminded about Scholastic celestial theory many times. In 1613 he published
three letters on sunspots that he had written in 1612. In the first letter, Galileo
refers to his opponents who would say that Venus ‘is of a substance that may
be penetrated by the sun’s rays, so that it may be lighted not only at its surface,
but also throughout its depth’.31 But more interestingly, in some materials he
deleted from the published monograph, he complains about Scholastics who
speculate with respect to the nature of celestial phenomena, ‘which can supply
us only with general knowledge - if they can supply us with any knowledge
at all - which is hardly worth attending to, such as when I ask what is the
substance of the moon, and someone replies that it is a denser portion of
heaven’.32 And finally, in 1632, Galileo, with the publication of the Two Chief
World Systems returns to the issue and discusses his theory of the moon
‘completely’, giving detailed proof of such propositions as ‘the moon has a rough
surface’ and such corollary propositions as ‘plane mirrors throw reflections on
a single place, but spherical mirrors on all places’, ‘if the moon were a spherical
mirror, it would be invisible’, ‘the moon, if smooth and polished, would be
invisible’, and ‘a rougher surface gives more reflection of light than one less
rough’.33 The proofs of the main proposition and corollary propositions depend
upon the impossibility of explaining the visual lunar phenomena if one assumes
both that the lunar surface reflects sunlight to us and that it is smooth and
polished. But this is not something that a Scholastic would argue against, since
it had been discussed and accepted by Scholastics from Averroes to John of
Jandun, to John Buridan, to Albertus de Saxonia and so forth. Medievals would
agree that one cannot account for the phenomena if one assumes both that the
lunar light is reflected off the surface of the moon and that the moon is smooth
and polished. The difference is that instead of concluding that the surface of
the moon is not smooth and polished, as Galileo concludes, Scholastics would
conclude that the surface of the moon does not reflect sunlight. The argument
can clearly go either way; the problem is v,hy one should conclude one way
rather than the other.
The only time that Galileo seems to address the question forthrightly is when
he argues that ‘the observed unevenness of the moon cannot be imitated by

“Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, p. 94.

32Galileo, Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, V, p. 106, critical apparatus to line 3.
33Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, trans. Stillman Drake (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1970), pp. 70- 80.
Galileo’s Lunar Observations in the Context of Medieval Lunar Theory 225

means of greater and lesser opaqueness and clearness’.34 He simply has Salviati,
one of his interlocutors, assert that “out of the countless different appearances
that are revealed night after night during one lunation, you could not imitate
a single one by arbitrarily fashioning a smooth ball out of more and less opaque
and transparent pieces.. . . Of all these things I say to you again, you cannot
represent one for me with your ‘opaque’ and ‘transparent”‘.35 But he has
Sagredo, another interlocutor, respond that one of these appearances can be
imitated, but that one ‘should waste no time on this particular, because anyone
who has the patience to make observations of one or two lunations and is not
satisfied with this very sensible truth could well be adjudged to have lost his
wits; and on such people, why spend time and words in vain?‘36 Perhaps this
statement was Galileo’s way of indicating that his argument was not complete.
From Galileo’s point of view, he could have been trying to explain lunar and
celestial phenomena ‘geometrically’ without having to appeal to any particular
theory of lunar or celestial substance. Indeed, that is what apparently he is trying
to accomplish with respect to sunspots in the Letters on Sunspots. But, if that
is what he is trying to accomplish, he cannot be said to have succeeded. The
unexamined presuppositions of his arguments have effectively precluded any
theory of lunar and celestial substance that does not call for light to be reflected
off the surface of the celestial body. That is already to specify a range of theories
of celestial substance for reasons that need examining. One must conclude that,
whether Galileo’s failure to examine fully the reasons for the lunar effects was
intentional or unintentional, the fact that he did not examine these reasons is
unquestionable.

5. Conclusion

By placing Galileo’s lunar observations in the context of medieval lunar

theory, we can make sense of the viewpoint of the seventeenth century Scholastics
(Clavius, for example) who rejected Galileo’s conclusion that there are mountains
on the moon. We do not have to think of these natural philosophers as irrational
for rejecting Galileo’s conclusion. After all, their theory of lunar light - which
they inherited through Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle - fits nicely with
their theory of lunar substance and more generally, with their theory of celestial
substance - which they inherited from Aristotle; and these theories of lunar
light and substance seemed to account for Galileo’s observations of spots on
the lunar disk.
By themselves, Galileo’s lunar observations are therefore not sufficient to
refute Scholastic science, or to demolish the foundations of Aristotelian

” Ibid., p. 86.
” Ibid., pp. 86-87.
36Ibid., p. 87.
226 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

cosmology by destroying the distinction between the sublunar and celestial

substances, as it is often claimed. In fact, it may even seem odd for anyone
to have thought that observations such as Galileo’s lunar observations would
straightforwardly require one to reject a deeply entrenched theory such as the
Scholastic theory of the moon; to do so would, I think, be ‘obvious’ only to
historians of a considerably whiggish frame of mind. In order for us to think
that Galileo’s lunar observations require one to give up the Scholastic lunar
theory, either we would have to accept Galileo’s ‘geometrical method’ and its
implicit presuppositions, or we would have to credit Galileo with a modern
theory of lunar substance. The former, as most modern historians and
philosophers of science would probably agree, is no longer held to be an
appropriate historical response in such contexts; and the latter begs the
question.37 Of course, Galileo (and we) could have accepted a modern theory
of celestial substance for independent reasons, and he (and we) could have
concluded then that there are mountains on the moon, against the Scholastics;
but that would not have been to conclude that Scholastic science is defective
on the basis of Galileo’s lunar observations.
There are, of course, many questions left unanswered by this study. One can
wonder what this study can tell us about the significance of Galileo’s
methodology for seventeenth century science and for the philosophy of science
generally. The materials of the study are compatible with conclusions, both
numerous and diverse, that may be drawn concerning philosophical issues.
Certainly there are ample materials in such a study to please a Duhem who argues
that there are no crucial experiments, or a Feyerabend who argues that allegiance
to new ideas (such as Galileo’s attempts to generate allegiance to Copernican
ideas) has to be brought about by means other than argument, that it has ‘to
be brought about by irrational means such as propaganda, emotion, ad hoc
hypotheses, and appeals to prejudices of all kinds’.38

Acknowledgements - I wish to thank Larry Laudan, Joe Pitt, Henry Mendell, and other members
of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Department of Philosophy and Center for
the Study of Science in Society for their numerous helpful suggestions on the various drafts of
this article.

370f course, none of this presupposes that the Scholastics’ arguments were better than Galileo’s
arguments, or even that they were good arguments. It is clear that Galileo’s analysis of reflection
is much superior to Albertus de Saxonia’s analysis.
3BPaul Feyerabend, Against Method (London: Verso Editions, 1978), p. 154. The materials of
this study are also consistent with recent re-evaluations of the significance of Galileo’s methodology
for the philosophy of science generally. CJ for example, Larry Laudan, ‘A Revisionist Note on
the Methodological Significance of Galilean Mechanics’, Science and Hypothesis, pp. 20- 26; in
Science and Hypothesis Laudan argues that the philosophically exciting sciences for the seventeenth
century were not those parasitic on the Copemican - Galilean revolution in astronomy and mechanics,
but those associated with theories of matter (that is, microphenomena) and the hypothetical character
of theoretical knowledge. So Galileo’s espousal of a ‘geometrical method’ and his consequent failure
to link his explanations to theories of matter allow him to disregard the philosophically significant
questions concerning microphenomena.