ORESME
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ORESME
zealous Juan Munoz dc la Cueva, a Trinitarian, wrote
"Historical Xotes on the Cathedral Cliuroli of Orcnse"
(Madrid, 17:27). IVdro Quevcdo y Quintana (d. ISIS),
having been president of the Regency in ISIO, w;uj ex-
iled by the Corles of Cadiz; he founded the conciUar
seminary of Orense in 1S02.
The original cathedral \v;is dedicated to the Mother of God, and is still Icnown as Santa Maria la Madre. The Suevian king Chararic (see above) l)uilt ('joO) an- other, more sumptuous, church in honour of St. Mar- tin of Tours and made it the cathedral, as it is to this day. Both churches, having suffered severely from time and the invasions of Arabs and Northmen, have been repeatedly restored. The later cathedral is Ro- manesque, with features of Gothic transition: its old- est portions date from the thirteenth century, and its latest from the early si.xt cent li: t lie facade has been re- built in modern times. The liigli altar has a silver tab- ernacle, given by Bishop Miguel Ares, and statues of Our Lady and St. Martin. In two side altars are the relics of St. Euphemia and her companions in martyr- dom, Sts. Facundus and Primitivus. The plan of the church is a Latin cross, with three naves, the tower standing apart. The choir stalls are the work of Diego de Solis and Juan de Anges (late sixteenth centur}-). Of the cloisters only a small portion remains, a perfect gem of ogival work. The chtu-ch of St. Francis and the Trinitj' should also be mentioned; it was founded probably about the middle of the twelfth century as a hospice for pilgrims.
The famous men of the diocese include Padre Fei- }6o, a polygrapher who exploded many superstitions; Antonio de Remesar, the historian of Chiapa and Gua- temala; Gregorio Hernandez, the sculptor; Castellar Ferrer, the historian of Gahcia; St. Francis Blanco, a martyr of Japan.
Pelayo, Heterodoxos espaflotes, I (Madrid, 1879) ; Madoz. Dice. Oeogrdfictf-€stadfstico-hist6rico de Espafla (Madrid, 1848): Florez, Esp. Sagrada (Madrid, 1789); de la Fuente. Hist, eel. de Esp. (Barcelona, 1855)
Ram6n Ruiz Am.\do.
Oresme, Nicole, philosopher, economist, mathe- matician, andphysicist, one of the principal founders of modern science; b. in Normandy, in the Diocese of Bayeux; d. at Lisieux, 1 1 July, 1382. In 1348 he was a student of theology in Paris; in 13.56 grand master of the College de Navarre; in 1362, already master of theologv', canon of Rouen; dean of the chapter, 2S March, 1364. On 3 August, 1377, he became Bishop of Lisieux. There is a tradition that he was tutor to the daupliin, afterwards Charles V, but this is irrecon- cilable with the dates of Oresme's life. Charles seems to have had the highest esteem for his character and talents, often followed his counsel, and made him write many works in French for the purpose of developing a taste for learning in the kingdom. At Charles's in- stance, too, Oresme pronounced a discourse before the papal Court at Avignon, denouncing the ecclesiastical disorders of the time. Several of the French and Latin works attributed to him are apocrj-phal or doubtful. Of his authentic writings, a Christological treatise, "Decommunicationeidiomatum in Christo", was commonly used as early !W the fifteenth century by the theological Faculty of Paris.
But Oresme is best known as an economist, mathe- matician, and physicist. His economic views are con- tained in a Commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle, of which the French version is dated 1370; a commen- tary on the Politics and the Economics of Aristotle, French edition, 1371; and a "Treatise on Coins". These three works were written in both Latin and French; all three, especially the last, stamp their au- thor as the precursor of the science of political econ- omy, and reveal his mastery of the French language. The French C'^mmentarj' on the Ethics of Aristotle was printed in Paris in 1488; that on the Politics and the Economics, in 1489. The treatise on coins, "De
origine, natura, jure et niutationibu3 monetarum",
was printed in Paris early in the sixteenth century,
also at Lyons in 167.5, as an ajipcndix to the "De re
monetaria" of Marquardus Freherus, and is included
in the "Sacra bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum" of
Margaronus de la Bigne IX, (Paris, 1S.59), p. 159, and
in the "Acta pubhca monetaria" of David Thomas
de Hagelstein (Augsburg, 1642). The "Traicti6dc la
premiere invention des monnoies", in French, was
printed at Bruges in 1477.
His most important contributions to mathematics are contained in "Tractatus de figuratione potentia- rum et mensurarum difformitatum", still in manu- script. An abridgment of this work printed as "Tractatus de latitudinibus formarum" (1482, 1486, 1505, 1.515), has heretofore been the only source for the study of his mathematical ideas. In a quality, or accidental form, such as heat, the Scholastics dis- tinguished the inlcnsio (the degree of heat at each point) and the extensio (e.g., the length of the heated rod): these two terms were often replaced by latiludo and longitudo, and from the time of St. Thomas until far on in the fourteenth century, there was lively de- bate on the latitudo formce. For the sake of lucidity, Oresme conceived the idea of employing what we should now call rectangular co-ordinates: in modern terminology, a length proportionate to the longitudo was the abscissa at a given point, and a perpendicular at that point, proportionate to the latiludo, was the ordinate. He shows that a geometrical property of such a figure could be regarded as corresponding to a property of the form itself only when this property remains constant while the units measuring the longi- tudo and latiludo vary. Hence he defines latiludo uniformis as that which is represented by a line paral- lel to the longitude, and any other latitudo is difformis; the latiludo uniformiter difformis is represented by a right line inclined to the axis of the longitude. He proves that this definition is equivalent to an alge- braical relation in which the longitudes and latitudes of any three points would figure: i. e., he gives the equation of the right line, and thus forestalls Descartes in the invention of analytical geometry. This doc- trine he extends to figures of three dimensions.
Besides the longitude and latitude of a form, he considers the mensura, or quaniitas, of the form, pro- portional to the area of the figure representing it. He proves this theorem: A form unifonniler difformis has the same quantitj' as a form uniformis of the same longitude and having as latitude the mean between the two extreme limits of the first. He then shows that his method of figuring the latitude of forms is applicable to the movement of a point, on condition that the time is taken as longitude and the speed as latitude; quantity is, then, the space covered in a given time. In virtue of this transposition, the the- orem of the latitude unifonniler difformis became the law of the space traversed in case of uniformly varied motion: Oresme's demonstration is exactly the same as that which Galileo was to render celebrated in the seventeenth century. Moreover, this law was never forgotten during the interval between Oresme and Galileo: it was taught at Oxford by William Heytes- bury and his followers, then, at Paris and in Italy, by all the followers of that school. In the middle of the sixteenth century, long before Galileo, the Domin- ican Dominic Soto applied the law to the uniformly acclerated falling of heavy bodies and to the uniformly decreasing ascension of projectiles.
Oresme's physical teachings are set forth in two French works, the "Trait6 de la sphere", twice printed in Paris (first edition without date; second, 1508X and the "Traits du ciel et du monde", written in 1377 at the request of King Charles V, but never printed. In most of the essential problems of statics and dynam- ics, Oresme follows the opinions advocated in Pans by his predecessor, Jean Buridan de BSthune, and his
