Jump to content

User:MecVintro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Outline

Oliva Sabuco (1562-1629?) published in Madrid (1587) Nueva Filosofia de la Naturaleza del Hombre [New Philosophy of human Nature] [NF]. This oeuvre -in Castilian and Latin- explores the relationship between emotions and physical health, expounding how passions may impair health, and cause premature death. It urges physicians to diagnose and treat the whole person in unison: body, mind and soul. Pre-Descartes Sabuco dwells in dualism and psychosomatics in a pioneering way, and does not spare scathing remarks about how Aristotles and Galeno had often misled medicine. No other work by Sabuco is known. Skepticism about the fitness of a 16C Spanish young woman to tackle such topics has lingered to today. The scholarly analysis of [NF] may have been penalized by the folksy "Oliva, the smart maid" myth. Yet, recognition of the work has grown steadily in Spain from the first (1587) throughout the eigth (2010) Castilian/Spanish editions.
[NF] was known in France at the beginning of 17C, and recognized in England as seminal work shortly after. The impact of the Inquisition upon the editions of [NF] was not severe: key-thoughts have ostensibly flown uncoerced -if occasionally enigmatic- along them. Any analysis of [NF] should reckon with the cunning summoned when readying it for the post-publication expunging -apt to liabilties- by the Inquisition.
The first English translation (Vintro,Waithe,Zorita) of [NF] came out of U of Illinois Press in 2007 as New Philosophy of Human Nature. Other than the "ghost" portuguese edition of 1634, no other complete translation of Sabuco is known. A partial English translation by G Pomata has been recently (2010) added.
The early-19C acquisition -in England- of at least three volumes (1587,1622,and 1728 editions) of [NF] by what was to become the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library, proves how much the work was esteemed. It is fitting to remember that many erudites consider some aspects of Sabuco's work as precursor in Medicine and Philosophy.

Sabuco1stEditionFrontPage1587

since 1975

Migueul<>Oliva

1587-1975

Full Name
Born
Died
Era
Region
School(Med)
School(Phil)
Main Interests
Notable Ideas
Influenced by
Influence to
Signature

Miguel Sabuco Alvarez
1525 (?) Alcaraz, Spain
1614 (?) Alcaraz, Spain
Renaissance
Castile/Spain
Psychosomatics
Dualism
Holistic Diagnosis
Cartesian precursor
Pliny the Elder
Arguable
pending

The authorship of [NF] has been disputed since 1903 by those who consider Miguel Sabuco -her father- its true generator, and judge Oliva's submission apocryphal. The National Library of Spain -following Palau-i-Dulcet- lists (since ca 1975) [NF] under Miguel Sabuco-Author (formerly Oliva Sabuco). The US Library of Congress has obliged (1985), and is listing Miguel as author with a caveat for an eventual restitution to Oliva should new evidence warrant it.
The 1587 royal privilege for Oliva to publish [NF] has never been recanted. The polemics around the authorship have been, and still are, straying scholarly analysis of the oeuvre.

Full Name  :
Born  :
Died  :
Era  :
Region  :
School :(Med)
School :(Phil)
Main Interests  :
Notable Ideas  :
Influenced by  :
Influence to  :
Signature

Luisa Oliva Sabuco Nantes Barrera
1562 Alcaraz, Spain
1629(?) Alcaraz, Spain
Renaissance
Castile/Spain
Psychosomatics
Dualism
Holistic Diagnosis
Cartesian precursor
Pliny the Elder
Arguable
pending


Alcaraz

It is rare that great works of art or science come to be in isolation. For the Sabuco phenomenon to prosper, it needed a milieu where to partake of. Because today well preserved Alcaraz (pop,:< 2000; main income: tourism), is in a subdued status, it is hard to suspect its vitality up to 15C. Some have wondered whether the town was in 16C economically or intellectually assertive enough to beget such a precursor with an attitude for progress uncommon in busy, beset 1587 Spain.

HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

920

Ab-Derrahman-III builds the fort Hisn-Al-Karas: 300yrs under Toledo & Granada caliphas & kings

1213

Visigoth AlfonsoVII (Castile) takes Hisn-Al-Karas from the Moors: Alcaraz is born

1265

Sancho IV (Castile) and Jaume I (Aragon/Catalonia) negotiate here the partaking of Al-Andalus

1287

The Castilian king SanchoIV grants charter-privileges to the Council of Alcaraz.

1429

JuanII, king of Castile, bestows upon Alcaraz the title and the prerogatives of City

1530

Pedro Simón-Abril, illustrious humanist of Renaissance Spain, is born in Alcaraz

1587

Oliva Sabuco publishes [NF] by Philip-II's privilege

The city played a significant role during Spain's Golden Age. At the time, it featured estates appertaining to the clergy and the orders. Nobility, secular professions, and military rank had here their abodes too. The enclave (city and fortress) was a strategic outpost of troops on their way to expand the "Christian" frontier at the receding peninsular Moor border. By mid 16C, having the Moor expulsion (or conversion/assimilation) been completed, it ceased to be the military linchpin of yester, and became an occasional relief post for troops on their way to Continental or New World struggles. Alcaraz -at a mere 150 miles of the Middle-Ages-cosmopolitan Toledo (craddle of Jewish/Arabic culture in Europe from 12C through 15C)- still abides remnants of its ghetto. By Sabuco's time it was inhabited by less than a few dozen "conversos" -Jews officially, often forcefully, converted-, a testimony of the plundering-cum-exiling of the Jewish population by the Alhambra Decree. By 17C, the community stooped into a languishing from which it does not seem to be awakening fast. By mid 16C the town still was a shelter to an artistic, literary, clerical and academic elite that had outgrown the town. Visiting and residing judicial, military and clerical cadres had bred this gentility in the midst of a 95% rural population of farmers (llanos) far busier -unfortunate economy- with sheep and equine than with wheat. Among Sabuco's contemporaneous figures we find :

Andrés de Vandelvira, architect and sculptor, from a family that had given at least three siblings of national reputation.
Pedro Simon-Abril, rhetorician, grammarian and translator of Classics.
Sebastian Izquierdo, Jesuit philosopher.
G.Pareja y Quesada, attorney-at-law and humanist
J Heredia, physician.
Juan de Sotomayor y Peralta, poet of some renown.
Miguel de Sabuco y Alvarez, the "bachiller", apothecary (?) and uncertain Oliva's tutor, teacher, mentor, ghost-writer, or author of [NF].

The twin towers of Alcaraz have been its landmark since 1560. The one on the left, of the Santísima Trinidad[1544] church, faces the municipal (1555) del Tardón ("the late one")by deVandelvira


1587

[NF] was published roughly one century after the loss of the schools of Toledo, smothered by the Reconquista. No record of outsatnding local erudition in philosophical/medical subjects has been found in the secular and clerical archives and libraries in and around Alcaraz. The customary reference of Miguel as bachiller is derived from his alleged studies, learning or practice as pharmacist/apothecary at an unknown school and town. There are no records of any additional academic or scholastic endeavours by either Oliva or Miguel other than a claimed -and questioned- residence of Miguel in the university of Alcala de Henares to learn Canonical Law , hence Latin. With the exception of Simon-Abril, no other Sabuco's contemporaneous writer was of any relevance in the Philosophy of Medicine. Then, out of nowhere, an all inclusive opus on psychosomatic medicine and a mind/body dualism innovator sees the light in the Alcaraz of 1587. In attempting to unriddle this enigma, the overview below may prove useful.
In 1587 Philip II's Spain had reached the zenith as an empire saddled over New and Old World. Yet a malaise is angling: the irritation produced by the relentless Francis Drake's raids and besieges of peninsular and New World ports adds to the all-absorbing exertion in the pursuit of funds by the state, and its subsequent bankrupties. Spain is burdened by the Anglo-Spanish war that will result in the weather-fated Spanish Armada fiasco -for which exorbitant taxes had been levied- that ended in the pillorying of Grivelines, some believe the begining of the twilight of Spain's Golden Age. Not all the national stamina is sapped by those conflicts. Philip II cultivates literary endeavors (e.g.: granting Privilege to such esoteric calling as [NF}) while -for example- one of his most illustrious subjects, Lope de Vega -the summit of Spanish dramaturgy- is spreading enlightment of secular nature among Spaniards with his popular playrights -even if incarcereted for that this year.

Overview of Sabuco's contemporary (and quasi-contemporary) philosophers: in the search of context, influences and pursuances

CASTILE and ARAGON/CATALONIA

REST of EUROPE

1340-1440
1465-1523
1492-1546
1493-1540
1500-1567
1500-1590
1511-1553
1515-1582
1526-1559
1530-1592
1530-1595
1548-1617

1550-1623

Cresques
Hebreo
deVitoria
Vives
G.Pereira
J.Avila
Servet
Teresa de A
FoxMorcillo
H.SanJuan
SimonAbril
Suarez
Sanchez

Rationalist/Non-Aristotelian/Last Sephardim philosopher
Nature of love/Analysis & unison of human and divine loves
School Salamanca/Philosophy jurisprudence/International law
Exiled/Theory Education/Psyche analysis/Girls'Pedagogy
Secular Aristotelian/Galean medicine:principles & practice
Studies on interactions between psychology & physiology
Pulmonary circulation/Rounded polymath/Burnt as heretic
Mystic par-excellence/Illuminati/Reports visions & revelations
Dedicated to harmonize Aristotelian and Platonic schools
Theologian,Missionary,Preacher,"Alumbrado",Saint
1st pedagogue/Education reform/Humanist/Classic translator
Member of School of Salamanca/Dedicated Thomist
Study of knowledge:refutes notion of perfect knowledge

1401-1464
1473-1543
1466-1536
1483-1546
1533-1592
1548-1600
1561-1626
1564-1642
1596-1650
1588-1679
1623-1662
1632-1677
1646-1716

deCusa
Copernicus
Erasmus
Luther
Montaigne
Bruno
Bacon
Galileo
Descartes
Hobbes
Pascal
Spinoza

Leibniz

Cardinal/Pantheisti/Doubted geocentrism & orbit-circularity
Polymath/"de Revolutionibus" wrongs geocentrism/Heliocentrist
Prince Humanities/Fights Rome & Luther/Free-will prevails
Against LeoX&CharlesV/Gospel,faith & grace:new pillars
Stateman& writer/Gives essays academic category/Que sais-je?
Extends Copernicus' thought:sun one-of-stars/Pantheism
Statesman,Jurist,Philosopher/Bacon method=modern science
Philosopher/Inventor/Astronomer/Head 16C scientific revoltn
Rationalist& Mathematician/Cartesian coords/Analyt.-geometry
Materialist/"Leviathan"=social-contract/rights/power by consent/
Pro-Bacon physicist/Fluid-laws/calculators/projectiveGeomtry
Rationalist/Ethicist/Pantheist/Banned by Jews,Caths&Luthers

Rationalist/Polymath/Infinitesimal calc.& binary system

Biographies

Oliva Sabuco

Facsimile of the painting of Oliva Sabuco (ca 1587) that formerly presided at the Alcaraz Council Hall. The bona fide of the portrait is uncertain for it is not know what model the Valencian artist, D.Pardo, used in 1886, and we ignore the current whereabouts of the original. No genuine depictions of Oliva have been reported.

Attempts to come up with a rigorous biography of Luisa Oliva Sabuco (de Nantes Barrera) have met with scant success. Facts about her life are scarce: we do not know when was she born or where/if she went to school or received any formal education. The date of her alleged (1622) death, has been recently(1997) rported after 1629. Oliva is as much an enigmatic figure as her father. Only a few church banns, and a handful of civil records are available about her. We know not of other writings by Oliva (or by any other Sabuco). Her fame among Spain common and erudite folks since 16C cuts through social strata, and lingers for centuries. When she was unceremoniously dispossessed (1975) of the authorship of [NF] -with a smattering of evidence, and a stretch of scorn- hints of heavy-handed gender bias (common in Spain at the dawn of 20C) come into sight. With the evidence summoned, it would nowadays be laborious to defrock authorship from a woman in order to render it to her father even in the endeavor of authenticating an oeuvre such as [NF], that stands on its own, in need of no masculine endorsement.
The first biography of Oliva was that of Nicolás Antonio who cites her work in detail, wonders how a member of the "second sex" might have been up to such a subject but leads not in his tale to learn about her life. The one by Benito Feijóo is exceedingly laudatory, and renders a poor factual portrait of her. Sánchez Ruano also packs his with eulogies and panegyrics, and -albeit wisely elucidating [NF]- gives away not much about her bio. Octavio Cuartero, in the prologue of the 1888 edition of [NF], contributes meager, ideologically-tinted, and unenlightened biographical comments, including a venturesome spin of a pretended Oliva's escape from the Inquisition. Other biographical sources, Manuel Serrano-y-Sanz and Florentino Torner hardly qualify as academic attempts, and ride in the folksy smart-maid myth.
The most accomplished Oliva biography is that of José Marco Hidalgo (1900). This Alcaraz-native scholar, Registrar of the city, did dig up -literally- meaningful documents from clerical and secular Alcaraz and Albacete archives that dispute some biodata by previous biographers such as Antonio, Ruano, Roa and, later, Cuartero. Although Hidalgo throws some light on the daily life of late 16C Alcaraz, the biography appears -as he readily admits- dedicated "...to extol the great merits that Oliva Sabuco attained.". In this biography one does otherwise not learn a great deal about what her education consisted of, how strained the relations with her father were, who her mentors and tutors might have been, what turn her life took after the publication of [NF], and so on. In contrast, we are acutely made aware that -against the opinion of Ruano- she was of "pure Christian blood". Hidalgo found no indication that, as Cuartero had advanced, Oliva went fleeing Alcaraz when the Inquisition begun expurgating the 1588 and 1622 editions of [NF]. Although Hidalgo's biography evolves into an eulogy, garnering local and national praise for Oliva, it is the first to unveil evidence -versus some previous spirited imagination- into her bio,, and for this, he deserves respect. In a scathing irony though, three years later (1903), the same scholar wrote an article in the Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, Madrid disavowing all the preceding, contradicting his recent book and denying -albeit ambivalently- that Oliva had authored [NF], and adjudicating it to her father.
Since 1903, the nascent anti-Oliva/pro-Miguel Sabuco-authorship movement results in biographies of Miguel that similarly dispense with facts on the poor accounts of his life.

upbringing

adulthood

death

Luisa Oliva Sabuco de Nantes y Barrera was born to Francisca de Cosar and Miguel Sabuco y Alvarez, the fifth of eight siblings. We know not the her birthdate. Marco-e-Hidalgo claims (1903) to have seen her baptismal registry -now lost- of December 2, 1622. Oliva's schooling is entirely undocumented. She could have attended [1] Alcaraz Council's Primeras Letras school or,[2] received schooling with the nuns at the Dominican Convent, for it seems that a few young women students were accepted as seniors there (perhaps in-lieu-of [3]attending the Council's ephemeral Cátedra de Gramática) albeit there is no record that she was a pupil anywhere. The nuns of the Dominican Convent believe [2] plausible for they claim that the Order has maintained -since 15C- a library, and encouraged intellectual pursuit.Oliva might have been tutored by her father, an apothecary(?) with seemingly professional knowledge of Botany (and possibly of Latin), by her brother, a pharmacist, and by her godfather, the physician Heredia. Among other potential tutors, we should cite one or both of the de Sotomayor, one a cleric, the other an attorney and a poet, close to the family. Prominent in her education might have been Pedro Simón-Abril.

The marriage banns of Oliva Sabuco and Acacio de Buedo were posted on December, 1580. There was an apparent falling-out between Oliva and her widowed father at the time of his remarriage to Ana Navarro García, of Oliva's age. Her father sired another son, Miguel, from this second marriage. Miguel Sabuco states in his 1588 "last" Will and Testament that the couple, Oliva and Acacio, had sued him to collect the overdue dowry and arrived at a settlement of 52,500 maravedis. The qualifier "last" is suspect on account of a 1997 report claiming that Miguel was apparently still alive fouteen years after that testament. Oliva's dowry plus the 1585 settlement of her mother's estate, amounted to a tidy sum even if eroded by Buedo's quietus of a debt with his in-law Miguel Sabuco. Oliva and her husband apparently lived the remainder of their lives in Alcaraz. During the years following the publication of his wife's book, Acacio de Buedo was elected to the constabulary position of Caballero de la Sierra and later to Alcalde Mayor (second to the Corregidor. Municipal and church records of 1596, 1600,1612 and 1613 where the couple is asked to perform as godparents, witnesses and testimonials at several social events, point to a good standing of the Buedos in Alcaraz.

In the process toward the third edition of [NF] in Portugal, the editorial committee appointed Dr B, Alvarez on Oct.10, 1616 as scrutinizer of the book contents and its adherence to the author's claims. On Oct.13, 1616, Dr. Alvarez announces that the proofs had been duly expurgated. The following day Oliva Sabuco is granted permission to print the book as amended. She instructs deBasto of Lisbon on March 8,1617 to put out the edition, For undisclosed reasons the Levy was not assessed until Oct. 5,1622. There, in a three-page appendix, deBasto states that the author has died in the interim. Previously unknown records -ecclesiastical archives in Albacete- of 1589,1600 and 1629 seem to contradict deBasto's claim: Oliva and her husband, for example, witnessed the marriage of their daughter, Luisa de Buedo on August 26, 1629. Church documents of the time seem to indicate that deceased relatives were NOT usually recorded in the banns and registries: only those alive did. Hence, though we do not know the date of Oliva's death, these Banns provide some imdication e that she died after August 26, 1629.

Miguel Sabuco

Authorship

New Philosophy