View source for Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica

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[[File:Frontispiece of the first edition of “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece of the first edition of “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”]]
[[File:Dedication page of “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”.jpg|thumb|Dedication page of “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”]]
[[File:A. Kircher, Magnes sive de arte magnetica op Wellcome L0031533.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece to Book III from the first edition of ''Magnes sive de arte magnetica'']]
'''''Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica''''' ("''The Lodestone, or the Magnetic Art''") is a 1641 work by the [[Jesuit]] scholar [[Athanasius Kircher]].<ref name="Findlen2004"/>{{rp|192}} It was dedicated to [[Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Ferdinand III]] and printed in Rome by Hermann Scheuss.<ref name="Magnes">{{cite web |last1=Kircher |first1=Athanasius |title=Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_nK1DAAAAcAAJ/page/n11/mode/2up |publisher=University of Lausanne |accessdate=25 May 2020}}</ref> It developed the ideas set out in his earlier ''[[Ars Magnesia]]'' and argued that the universe is governed by universal physical forces of attraction and repulsion. These were, as described in the motto in the book's first illustration, 'hidden nodes' of connection. The force that drew things together in the physical world was, he argued, the same force that drew people's souls towards God.<ref name="GalChen-Morris2012"/><ref name="Udias"/><ref name="Godwin2015">{{cite book|author=Joscelyn Godwin|title=Athanasius Kircher's Theatre of the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Sm7oQEACAAJ|accessdate=8 May 2020|date=February 2015|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=978-0-500-29174-0}}</ref>{{rp|15}} The work is divided into three books: 1.''De natura et facultatibus magnetis'' (Of the nature and properties of magnets), 2.''Magnes applicatus'' (Applications of magnets), 3.''Mundus sive catena magnetica'' (The world or the magnetic chain).<ref name="Udias"/><ref name="GalChen-Morris2012"/> It is noted for the first use of the term 'electromagnetism'.<ref name="GubbinsHerrero-Bervera2007">{{cite book|author1=David Gubbins|author2=Emilio Herrero-Bervera|title=Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O-wA0ocxAiIC&pg=PA463|date=19 July 2007|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-1-4020-4423-6|pages=463}}</ref>

==The Earth’s magnetic field==
The question of the [[Earth's magnetic field]] and, in particular, [[magnetic declination]] was addressed in Book 2 of ''Magnes''.  It was one of great interest in Kircher's time, because it was thought that an understanding of it would help resolve the [[History of longitude#Problem of longitude|problem of longitude]].<ref name="Findlen2004"/>{{rp|241–242}} The Jesuit order had scholars working in many different parts of the world and was thus able to collect observations on declination.  Kircher collected forty-three of these and combined them with observations from a network of other scholars including [[Mersenne]] to produce three tables and two lists with a total of 518 values.<ref name="Findlen2004"/>{{rp|21}}  He proposed that a magnetic map of the Earth could be made with this data, although he did not attempt to do this himself.<ref name="Udias"/>

==Magnetism and Copernican theory==
[[File:Diagram of the earth’s magnetic declination from “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”.jpg|thumb|Diagram of the Earth's magnetic declination from “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”]]
''Magnes'' contained the first response by a Jesuit to the arguments of some [[heliocentrism|heliocentrists]] who held that magnetism proved the [[Copernican heliocentrism|Copernican model]] of the universe.<ref name="Capecchi2017"/> Kircher was aware that he was the first scholar to mount a critical assault on the heliocentric theory that the Church had condemned as heretical. He did not agree with Galileo and some other scientists of the time that the Earth rotated, so  [[William Gilbert (physician)|William Gilbert]]'s view that the Earth's magnetic poles had something to do with that rotation was one he did not support.<ref name="GalChen-Morris2012">{{cite book|author1=Ofer Gal|author2=Raz Chen-Morris|title=Science in the Age of Baroque|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ujDxezMEMgkC&pg=PA52|date=28 November 2012|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-94-007-4807-1|pages=52–}}</ref>  In Kircher's view, the Earth's poles were not the axis of planetary rotation, but the axis around which the stars rotated in the heavenly spheres. Indeed, he argued in ''Magnes'' that the Earth stands still because its two magnetic poles are attracted by two celestial reverse poles.<ref name="Buonanno2014">{{cite book|author=Roberto Buonanno|title=The Stars of Galileo Galilei and the Universal Knowledge of Athanasius Kircher|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o6-8BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA9|accessdate=30 May 2020|date=31 January 2014|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-3-319-00300-9|page=10}}</ref><ref name="Capecchi2017">{{cite book|author=Danilo Capecchi|title=The Path to Post-Galilean Epistemology: Reinterpreting the Birth of Modern Science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OJwrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA410|date=8 July 2017|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-58310-5|pages=410–}}</ref> Kircher also rejected [[Kepler]]'s view that the Sun created a magnetic force that caused the planets to rotate around it.<ref name="Udias"/> He argued that the experimental proofs of magnetism were not sufficient to resolve the question of whether the Earth or the Sun was at the centre of the universe, and did not believe that the behaviour of magnets at a small scale on Earth was a useful guide to how the cosmos worked.<ref name="Capecchi2017"/><ref name="HankinsSilverman2014">{{cite book|author1=Thomas L. Hankins|author2=Robert J. Silverman|title=Instruments and the Imagination|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bUoABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA22|accessdate=4 June 2020|date=14 July 2014|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-6411-9|page=22}}</ref>

To disprove the idea put forward by Gilbert that the entire Earth was a magnet, Kircher attempted to calculate the force it would exert and the weight it could move if it were so. He concluded that if the Earth were a magnet and the Moon [[ferrous]], the Earth's magnetic force would cause the Moon to crash into it.  He likewise argued that if the Earth were a magnet then all the iron on its surface, even in mountains, would be pulled into itself and could not remain where anyone could find it.<ref name="Baldwin">{{cite journal |last1=Baldwin |first1=Martha R. |title=Magnetism and the Anti-Copernican Polemic |journal=Journal for the History of Astronomy |date=1985 |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=155–174 |doi=10.1177/002182868501600301 |bibcode=1985JHA....16..155B |s2cid=120410705 |url=http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1985JHA....16..155B&db_key=AST&page_ind=4&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES |accessdate=4 June 2020}}</ref>{{rp|159}} Kepler had argued that the Sun was like a magnet, holding the planets in their orbits around it.  Kircher found this unsatisfactory: how could a single, consistent magnetic force emanating from the Sun explain the different motions of the planets, with their varying speeds and trajectories? How could a force powerful enough to move the planets leave the fixed stars beyond them unmoved? In any case, he argued, it was contrary to the observable behaviour of magnets to suggest that a motionless magnet could draw magnetised bodies around it in orbit.<ref name="Baldwin"/>{{rp|161}}

==Magnetic communication==
[[File:Illustration of a magnetic cryptography machine from “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”.jpg|thumb|Illustration of a magnetic cryptography machine from “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”]]
Kircher noted that once objects had been magnetised, they continued to have a relationship with each other even when they were at a distance. He therefore proposed a “machina cryptologica”; this consisted of a number of bottles at some distance from each other, with the letters of the alphabet inscribed around the middle of each bottle. Each also had a lubricated and magnetised stopper bearing a pointer. When the stopper on one bottle is rotated so that the pointer indicates a particular letter of the alphabet, the stopper on the other bottles rotates in the same way.  Thus by turning the stopper in one place, someone could send a message to a person observing the bottle at the other end of the machine.<ref name="LeeuwBergstra2007">{{cite book|author1=Karl Maria Michael de Leeuw|author2=Jan Bergstra|title=The History of Information Security: A Comprehensive Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQBrsonDp6cC&pg=PA314|date=28 August 2007|publisher=Elsevier|isbn=978-0-08-055058-9|pages=314–}}</ref><ref name="Findlen2004">{{cite book|author=Paula Findlen|title=Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man who Knew Everything|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C0iGO0Hr95UC|year=2004|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-94015-3}}</ref>{{rp|265–6}}

==Magnetism and health==
[[File:Athanasius Kircher, Magnes sive de arte magn Wellcome L0028710.jpg|thumb|Illustration from ''Magnes'' about tarantism]]
While ''Magnes'' is noted today primarily for its arguments against Copernicanism, the work addressed a wide variety of different phenomena, including some that have no relationship to the modern scientific understanding of magnetism. There was a scholarly debate in Kircher's time as to whether 'magnetic' powers (i.e. powers of attraction) could be used to heal wounds. [[Robert Fludd]] held that if the weapon used to cause a wound was placed against it, the wound would disappear.<ref name="Boitano2002">{{cite book|author=John F. Boitano|title=Polemics of Libertine Conversion in Pascal's "Pensées"|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EMcVei3lJgsC&pg=PA104|accessdate=5 June 2020|year=2002|publisher=Gunter Narr Verlag|isbn=978-3-8233-5551-9|page=104}}</ref> Kircher argued that there was no magnetic cure - indeed such a cure would be the work of the devil.<ref name="Debus2013">{{cite book|author=Allen G. Debus|title=The Chemical Philosophy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TjLDAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA290|accessdate=3 June 2020|date=21 March 2013|publisher=Courier Corporation|isbn=978-0-486-15021-5|page=290}}</ref><ref name="Waddell2016"/>{{rp|47–48}} While he dismissed the notion of a magnetic cure for wounds, he devoted a chapter of ''Magnes'' to [[tarantism]] as a cure for a spider bite - an example, he believed, of magnetic forces of attraction inherent in music.<ref name="Daboo2010">{{cite book|author=Jerri Daboo|title=Ritual, Rapture and Remorse: A Study of Tarantism and Pizzica in Salento|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kB49XOwiIloC&pg=PA122|accessdate=4 June 2020|year=2010|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-03911-092-6|page=122}}</ref><ref name="Brewer2016">{{cite book|author=Charles E. Brewer|title=The Instrumental Music of Schmeltzer, Biber, Muffat and their Contemporaries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nhSoDQAAQBAJ&pg=PR22|accessdate=4 June 2020|date=5 December 2016|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-351-88759-5|page=22}}</ref>

==Illustrations==
[[File:Final illustration in “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”.jpg|thumb|Final illustration in “ Magnes sive de arte magnetica”]]
Kircher's first work on magnetism, ''Ars Magnesia'', had contained only modest woodcut illustrations. In contrast ''Magnes'' was illustrated not only with more than 150 woodcuts but with 32 full-page engraved plates.<ref name="heidi"/> It was the first of Kircher's works to combine woodcuts with copperplate engravings.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|50}} These illustrations were both technically challenging to create and expensive to produce. Two of the illustrations were of machines with moving parts, and readers could cut the parts out and use to create working models of the machinery themselves.<ref name="Waddell2016"/> On reading the first edition soon after it was published, [[Evangelista Torricelli]] wrote to his teacher [[Galileo]] that it was a pleasure to read and "enriched with a wealth of beautiful engravings."<ref name="Findlen2004"/>{{rp|22}}

The frontispiece of the first edition is by Claudio Dagli.  It depicts the double-headed imperial eagle of the [[Hapsburg dynasty]]. It hangs by a magnetised chain from the imperial crown that supports an orb and a cross.  Both the crown and the cross are struck through with magnetised arrows pointing towards a heavenly source, but not directly at the all-seeing eye of god directly above - perhaps a reference to magnetic declination.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}} In one of its claws the eagle holds the crowns of Austria, Hungry and Bohemia, held together by magnetism, while in the other it holds the sceptres of the three realms, similarly linked by magnetic force. Arrows from the bird's outstretched wings project imperial power to the lands below.<ref name="Benz1989">{{cite book|author=Ernst Benz|title=The Theology of Electricity: On the Encounter and Explanation of Theology and Science in the 17th and 18th Centuries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6tBJAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA7|accessdate=6 June 2020|date=1 January 1989|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|isbn=978-0-915138-92-0|page=7}}</ref> A lodestone on the eagle's breast carries the dedication to Emperor Ferdinand III and a banner above the eagle's head carries the Latin motto ''Regna Quis Adiunxit Regnis Nova Sceptra Coronis'' ("He has added kingdoms to kingdoms and new sceptres to crowns"). A second banner curling around its feet carries the Latin pun ''Et Boreae Et Austri-Acus'' (""Needle of the north and south - 'austriacus' also meaning 'Austrian').<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}} In the third edition the dedication to Ferdinand III is replaced on the breast of the eagle by his portrait.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}}

In the first edition there is also a second frontispiece to Book III, designed by Giovanni Battista Rinalducci and executed by Giovanni Battista Ficavazza.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|51}}  This is intended as a graphic illustration of the interconnectedness of scientific disciplines.  Fourteen of these are depicted, with theology at the top, accompanied by philosophy, physics, poetry, rhetoric, cosmography, mechanics, perspective, music, natural magic, medicine, astronomy, arithmetic and geography, linked by a golden chain. At the centre of the ring they create sits an emblem of the ''Mundus Archetypus'' ('world of archetypes'), containing the all-seeing eye of God, and immediately around it stand representations of ''Mundus Sidereus'' ('the world of stars'), ''Mundus Sublunaris'' ('the sublunar world') and ''Microcosmus'' ('the microcosm').<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}}<ref name="VaiCaldwell2006">{{cite book|author1=Gian Battista Vai|author2=W. G. E. Caldwell|title=The Origins of Geology in Italy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rmrGS9s-KewC&pg=PA74|accessdate=5 June 2020|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Geological Society of America|isbn=978-0-8137-2411-9|page=74}}</ref> Weaving between these emblems was a banner bearing the motto 'omnia nodis arcanis connexa quiescunt' ('all things are at rest, connected by secret knots').<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}}<ref name="Partini2004">{{cite book|author=Anna Maria Partini|title=Athanasius Kircher E L'alchimia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cBzbL1jsMrMC&pg=PA31|accessdate=5 June 2020|year=2004|publisher=Edizioni Mediterranee|isbn=978-88-272-1725-2|page=31}}</ref><ref name="KV">{{cite book |last1=Vermeir |first1=Koen |title=Athanasius Kircher's Magical Instruments: An Essay on Science, Religion and Applied Metaphysics (1602-1680) |date=2007 |publisher=Elsevier |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47734431.pdf |accessdate=5 June 2020}}</ref> This plate was omitted in the second edition but was remade in folio size for the third edition.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|23}}

The final illustration in the book is of the [[egg of Columbus]] standing on its point on a slate and bearing the motto ''Et nos haec poteramus'' ("and we have been able to do likewise") - in other words, in producing this work, Kircher had, like Columbus, been able to do something thought to be impossible.<ref name="Benz1989"/>

==Later editions==
The second edition was published in 1643, only two years after the first, showing the work's success. It was completely reset, reducing it from around 900 to 800 pages, with every illustration redrawn.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|50}} Including a number of corrections, it was published in Cologne by Kalckhoven.<ref name="Udias">{{cite journal |last1=Udías |first1=Agustín |title=Athanasius Kircher and Terrestrial Magnetism: The Magnetic Map |journal=Journal of Jesuit Studies |date=29 January 2020 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=166–184 |doi=10.1163/22141332-00702002 |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jjs/7/2/article-p166_166.xml?language=en |accessdate=26 May 2020|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Kaspar Schott]] edited the revised third edition of the book (1654), finding and correcting a great many errors in Kircher's original text.<ref name="Godwin2015"/>{{rp|19}} It was the first edition in [[folio]] format, published in Rome by Blasius Deuersin and Zanobius Masottus.<ref name="heidi">{{cite web |title=05 JUNBOOK OF THE WEEK — ATHANASII KIRCHERI SOCIETATIS IESU MAGNES; SIVE, DE ARTE MAGNETICA |url=https://newsletter.lib.utah.edu/book-week-athanasii-kircheri-societatis-iesu-magnes-sive-de-arte-magnetica/ |website=lib.utah.edu |date=5 June 2017 |publisher=J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah |accessdate=6 June 2020}}</ref><ref name="Worldcat">{{cite book |title=Athanasii Kircheri ... Magnes, sive De arte magnetica. Opus tripartitum. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82510655 |publisher=Worldcat.org |oclc=82510655 |accessdate=6 June 2020}}</ref>

==Magnetism in other works==
Kircher was not the first scholar to write about magnetism. In 1600, [[William Gilbert (physician)|William Gilbert]] published ''De Magnete'' ('On the Magnet'), the first modern treatise on magnetism and in 1635, [[Henry Gellibrand]] first discovered that magnetic declination changes with time.  Among Jesuit scholars, [[Leonardo Garzoni]] wrote ''Trattati della Calamita'' ('Treatise on the Lodestone') (around 1580) which described the double polarity of magnets. [[Niccolò Cabeo]] used Garzoni's manuscript as the basis for his own ''Philosophia Magnetica''. Kircher cited Gilbert, Garzoni and Cabeo in ''Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica''. Magnetism was an important theme in Kircher's 1664 work ''Mundus Subterraneus'' as well as his 1667 book ''Magneticum Naturae Regnum.''<ref name="Udias"/> Many of the magnetic machines lavishly illustrated in the work were later built and displayed in Kircher's museum in Rome.<ref name="Waddell2016">{{cite book|author=Mark A. Waddell|title=Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V6S1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT161|date=9 March 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-11109-2|page=161}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_nK1DAAAAcAAJ Digital copy of ''Magnes sive de arte magnetica'']

[[Category:Magnetism]]
[[Category:Electromagnetism]]
[[Category:1641 in science]]
[[Category:1641 works]]
[[Category:Athanasius Kircher]]