Practicing and Patronizing Science in the Republic of Letters: Andreas Dudith’s Radiating Curiosity, Vanity, and Skepticism

Abstract Visible for months, the Great Comet of 1577 attracted worldwide attention, particularly among the scholars of Europe’s Respublica Litteraria , and reflections on it were not limited to the books of scientists like Brahe and Kepler; the Hungarian humanist bishop, politician, and nonprofessional astronomer Andreas Dudith (1533–1589) also published a Short Commentary , a fascinating example of the epistemological changes in scientific discourse and astronomical method that characterized the era. With his zealous advocacy of rational argumentation, insistence on the primacy of ‘the most direct causes’, and caustic criticism of superstition, Dudith was in a complex discussion with the Aristotelian tradition and the theological-astrological explanations of his day, thus helping clear the way for modern scientific thought. As his voluminous correspondence makes clear, he spent the final decades of his life trying to make a professional astronomer of himself, and though his friends in the Respublica helped guide his research, he never mastered the requisite mathematical methods, though remained a patron of science.