Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance

by Ada Palmer

After its rediscovery in 1417, Lucretius's Epicurean didactic poem De Rerum Natura threatened to supply radicals and atheists with the one weapon unbelief had lacked in the Middle Ages: good answers. Scholars could now challenge Christian patterns of thought by employing the theory of atomistic physics, a sophisticated system that explained natural phenomena without appeal to divine participation, and argued powerfully against the immortality of the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674725573
• ISBN13: 9780674725577
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 9.7"