Of pashas, popes, and indivisibles

Abstract

The studies of Bonaventura Cavalieri's indivisibles by Giusti, Andersen, Mancosu and others provide a comprehensive picture of Cavalieri's mathematics, as well as of the mathematical objections to it as formulated by Paul Guldin and other critics. Issues that have been studied in less detail concern the theological underpinnings of the contemporary debate over indivisibles, its historical roots, the geopolitical situation at the time, and its relation to the ultimate suppression of Cavalieri's religious order. We analyze sources from the seventeenth through twenty-first centuries to investigate this relationship.

Keywords: Antonio Rocca; Bonaventura Cavalieri; Evangelista Torricelli; Galileo Galilei; Lateran; Paul Guldin; René Descartes; Stefano Degli Angeli; Trent; atomism; indivisibles; matter and form.