Abstract
This chapter explores some of the most frequently printed and widely
circulated natural philosophical texts of the sixteenth century along
with their medieval predecessors. It focuses on each author’s conception
of water and his classification for why water did not flood the earth. This
chapter argues that most of these authors did ultimately classify the dry
land’s existence as a natural occurrence. However, it also shows that
their arguments for this naturalness were longer and more convoluted
than previous discussions, incorporating redefinitions of the proper
subject matter of natural philosophy to do so. These longer, more complex
discussions suggest that water was of more particular interest to sixteenthcentury
authors of natural philosophical texts than to previous ones.
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press