The Middle Ages represent a period of poor advancement in sciences, overall. Many novel ideas were discredited by the Catholic Church, and scientific experimentation and progress was rarely encouraged. However, despite this relatively dark time for science, there were some intellectuals without whose contributions the scientific advancements of the Renaissance would have been impossible.
Roger Bacon (1214—1294), also known as “Doctor Mirabilis” (astounding teacher), was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who was the earliest advocate of the empirical approach. Bacon re-emphasized the importance of the scientific method and promoted its use in the modern science. He described the scientific method as a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and independent verification. He wrote Opus Majus, a treatise on the sciences, in which he included discussions on grammar, logic, mathematics, physics, optics, astronomy, and philosophy.
Although originally prohibited to continue work on his scientific experiments and philosophy, Bacon was urged by Pope Clement IV to continue to publish and share his extremely important work. He was one of the most influential intellects of his age, and his work was crucial for incorporation of the modern scientific method in the western world. Interestingly, Bacon also anticipated inventions such as microscopes, telescopes, and flying machines.
In the 15th century, scientific development was advanced by certain crucial events and people, such as the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (1400—1468). The printing press revolutionized the production of books. Most importantly, it allowed for the rapid development and transmission of scientific, artistic, and religious works.
One of the artists and scientists whose work benefitted greatly from Gutenberg’s invention was Leonardo da Vinci (1452—1519). Not only was he a well-known artist, but also he made significant contributions to engineering and science. He often wrote about his understanding of geology and paleontology, too. Like many paleontologists and biologists, Leonardo was a great anatomist. He completed many scientific illustrations and some geologic mapping of northern Italy. He also handwrote many manuscripts describing the sequence of depositional events of rock layers (later described by Steno as the “law of superposition”), rock formation, and erosional processes. However, he is less famous for his novel ideas in paleontology.
In Leonardo’s time, most scientists viewed the location of the marine fossils in the mountainous regions of northern Italy as a result of the great flood described in the Bible. Leonardo’s views were remarkably similar to the modern understanding of geology and the fossil record. He understood that fossil remains were once-living organisms that had to be buried before the mountains were raised, at a time when the same area was more similar to a sea coast environment.
Although Leonardo was a good astronomer, most revolutionary ideas on astronomy in the Middle Ages were developed by Nicolas Copernicus (1473—1543), considered to be the father of modern astronomy. As were many scientists in the Middle Ages, Copernicus was reluctant to publish his ideas and theories. Nevertheless, in 1530, he published De Revolutionibus, in which he explained that the earth rotates around its own axis once daily and rotates around the sun once a year, which was a completely novel concept for the Western scientific world. Interestingly, Copernicus was less afraid of the Catholic Church than of poorly verified observations. In the 1600s, Copernicus’s theory about the place of humans and the earth in the universe was embraced and promoted by an Italian scientist, Galileo.