Paradiso Due to common propaganda the Medieval era is perceived by many to be an intellectual dark age, however scholars agree that many advancements and discoveries in the realm of science were made. The Historic record reveals that, “The society and culture of the High Middle Ages was complex, dynamic, and innovative…throughout the cultural sphere an unprecedented intellectual ferment developed” (World Book). Advancement in science through history has given humanity more clear view and new perspectives on how the world works. Dante, the author of Paradiso, was born in the mid thirteenth century during the High and Late Middle Ages that exploded into the Renaissance. Although Paradiso is viewed as a religious work, much advancement in medieval …show more content…
Jointly as science takes a new light, so does the development of the scientific method. One of the fathers of the modern scientific method, Robert Grosseteste, was a scholastic during this time. Grosseteste was inspired by the works from antiquity and wrote commentaries emphasizing on mathematic in an effort to understand the nature of the universe. The foundation of his work was grounded on Aristotle’s principles of dual path reasoning. Grosseteste believed that one could make observation of the world around them, and make deductions about natural universal laws, and then back from natural universal law to common observations. To verify the claims that could be made he devised experiments and determined if each principle in fact corresponded to reality. This is the same experimental method that was “condoned by Aristotle in Metaphysics 1:1” (Commentary on Divine Comedy 612). Studying the works of Aristotle and Grosseteste Dante was well familiar with the scientific processes, and devised an experiment to explain a higher truth. As Dante and Beatrice head into the first heaven, the moon, Dante questions why the moon appears to have dark spots. Beatrice asks for Dante’s explanation, “solar rays shed gloom because in certain parts, at these set points, the light, returning, breaks from further back” (Paradiso Canto 2 lines 91-93). Beatrice retorts, “Now if you’ll try an experiment – from which the rivers of your knowledge always flow – from that objection you will free yourself,” Beatrice goes on to explain the experiment which proves that light will have the same brightness even at different distances, only the size of the ray will change (Paradiso Canto 2 lines 94-97). As Beatrice exclaimed, Dante holds that the scientific method is the best means of coming to knowledge, even if he considered his