Caspar Ságner (1721-1781), born in Neumarkt, Silesia (now Środa Śląska, Poland), was a teacher of mathematics and experimental physics in Prague and in Madrid, and his work "Institutiones Philosophicae" (Prague, 1755-58, 4 vols) was very influential and adopted as the basic text for the teaching of natural philosophy in the important College Alberoni of Piacenza. Ságner’s text, belonging to the last phase of Jesuit treatises before the Order was suppressed, demonstrated a remarkable effort to bring the subject up to date with the insertion of Newton’s laws of motion and Kepler’s planetary laws. Sagner’s work was improved by Alberonian teachers who included the remarkable discoveries in the field of heat and electric phenomena, and a new Italian edition came out in Piacenza in 1767-68. Finally, a third edition revised by Petr Chládek, which included the Piacenza additions, was published in Prague in the years 1772- 1774. The present paper will analyse the contents of Ságner’s text, the improvement brought about by the Italian edition, and the role of Jesuit scholars in Prague even after the suppression of the Order in 1773.
The Jesuit Caspar Ságner and his influence on natural philosophy teaching in Italy
BORGATO, Maria Teresa;PEPE, Luigi
2012
Abstract
Caspar Ságner (1721-1781), born in Neumarkt, Silesia (now Środa Śląska, Poland), was a teacher of mathematics and experimental physics in Prague and in Madrid, and his work "Institutiones Philosophicae" (Prague, 1755-58, 4 vols) was very influential and adopted as the basic text for the teaching of natural philosophy in the important College Alberoni of Piacenza. Ságner’s text, belonging to the last phase of Jesuit treatises before the Order was suppressed, demonstrated a remarkable effort to bring the subject up to date with the insertion of Newton’s laws of motion and Kepler’s planetary laws. Sagner’s work was improved by Alberonian teachers who included the remarkable discoveries in the field of heat and electric phenomena, and a new Italian edition came out in Piacenza in 1767-68. Finally, a third edition revised by Petr Chládek, which included the Piacenza additions, was published in Prague in the years 1772- 1774. The present paper will analyse the contents of Ságner’s text, the improvement brought about by the Italian edition, and the role of Jesuit scholars in Prague even after the suppression of the Order in 1773.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
