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Michele Mercati

Michele Mercati Michele Mercati (8 April 1541 – 25 June 1593) was a physician who was superintendent of the Vatican Botanical Garden under Popes Pius V , Gregory XIII , Sixtus V...

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Michele Mercati

Michele Mercati (8 April 1541 – 25 June 1593) was a physician who was superintendent of the Vatican Botanical Garden under Popes Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, and Clement VIII. He was one of the first scholars to recognise prehistoricstone tools as human-made rather than natural or mythologically created thunderstones.

Biography

Mercati was born in San Miniato, Tuscany, the son of Pietro Mercati, physician to Popes Pius V and Gregory XIII. He was educated at the University of Pisa, where he took degrees in medicine and philosophy. He was interested in natural history, mineralogy, palaeontology, medicine, and botany, and produced a book on these subjects entitled the Metallotheca, which was not published until 1717.

Mercati collected curious objects - fossils, minerals and so on - as well as 'ceraunia' or 'thunderstones'. Mercati was particularly interested in Ceraunia cuneata, "wedge-shaped thunderstones," which seemed to him to be most like axes and arrowheads, which he now called ceraunia vulgaris, "folk thunderstones," distinguishing his view from the popular one.[1] Mercati examined the surfaces of the ceraunia and noted that the stones were of flint and that they had been chipped all over by another stone. By their shapes, Mercati deduced that the stones were intended to be hafted. He then showed the similarities between the 'ceraunia' and artifacts from the New World that explorers had identified as implements or weapons.[2]

Mercati posited that these stone tools must have been used when metal was unknown and cited Biblical passages to prove that in Biblical times stone was the first material used. He also revived the Three-age system of Lucretius, which described a succession of periods based on the use of stone (and wood), bronze and iron respectively.

Legacy

Debido a la tardanza en su publicación, las ideas de Mercati ya estaban siendo desarrolladas de forma independiente por otros anticuarios ; sin embargo, su escrito sirvió como un estímulo adicional. Fue elogiado poco después de su publicación por Antoine de Jussieu [ 3 ] y su importancia sigue siendo reconocida. David Clarke describió a Mercati como "el equivalente arqueológico de Cardano en matemáticas , Vesalio en anatomía , Galileo en ciencias físicas y Copérnico en astronomía " [ 4 ] . A veces se le describe como un polímata .

Referencias

  1. ↑ Goodrum, Matthew R. (2008). "Cuestionando las piedras de trueno y las puntas de flecha: El problema de reconocer e interpretar los artefactos de piedra en el siglo XVII". Early Science and Medicine . 13 (5): 494. doi : 10.1163/157338208X345759 .
  2. ↑ Goodrum, Matthew R. (2008). "Cuestionando las piedras de trueno y las puntas de flecha: El problema de reconocer e interpretar los artefactos de piedra en el siglo XVII". Early Science and Medicine . 13 (5): 495. doi : 10.1163/157338208X345759 .
  3. ↑ Murray, Tim (1 de enero de 2007). Hitos en arqueología: una enciclopedia cronológica . ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576071861.
  4. ↑ Clarke, David L. (1968). Arqueología analítica (1.ª ed.). Londres: Routledge. ISBN  0416854605.
  • Clarke, DL, 1978, Arqueología analítica (segunda edición), Londres: Methuen. ISBN 0-416-85460-5