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Philomena of Dacia, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Philomena of Dacia, Peter, or Peter Nightingale, fl. 1291–1303, Danish astronomer and mathematician. He taught at the Univ. of Bologna (1291–92) and in Paris, and was a canon of Roskilde Cathedral...

Leo Africanus

(Encyclopedia)Leo Africanus ăfrĭkāˈnəs [key], c.1465–1550, Moorish traveler in Africa and the Middle East. His Arabic name was Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad. Captured by pirates, he was sent as a slave to Pope Leo X...

Le Clerc, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Le Clerc, Jean lə klĕrˈ [key], Latin Johannes Clericus, 1657–1736, Swiss Arminian theologian and biblical scholar. He preached in France and in London, then, drawn to the teachings of the Dutch ...

Laski, John

(Encyclopedia)Laski, John yän lăsˈkē [key], Latin Johannes Alasco, 1499–1560, Polish Protestant reformer. A learned priest, he went in 1523 to Basel, where he was a close friend of Erasmus. After returning to...

Breitenfeld

(Encyclopedia)Breitenfeld brīˈtənfĕltˌ [key], village, Saxony, S central E Germany. It gave its name to two battles of the Thirty Years War. Gustavus Adolphus (Gustavus II) of Sweden there defeated the imperia...

Roscelin

(Encyclopedia)Roscelin rŏsˈəlĭn [key], c.1045–c.1120, French scholastic philosopher, also called Roscellinus, Johannes Roscellinus, and Jean Roscelin. Roscelin was one of the first thinkers of the Middle Ages...

Copernican system

(Encyclopedia)Copernican system, first modern European theory of planetary motion that was heliocentric, i.e., that placed the sun motionless at the center of the solar system with all the planets, including the ea...

Cassian, John

(Encyclopedia)Cassian, John kăshˈən [key] (Johannes Cassianus), 360–435, an Eastern Christian monk and theologian who brought Eastern spirituality to the West. Cassian toured the ascetic monastic settlements o...

Regiomontanus

(Encyclopedia)Regiomontanus rēˌjēōmŏnˌtāˈnəs [key] [Lat.,=belonging to the royal mountain, i.e., to Königsberg], 1436–76, German astronomer and mathematician, b. Königsberg. His original name was Johan...

planetary science

(Encyclopedia)planetary science or planetology, study of planets and planetary systems as a whole. Planetary science applies the theories and methods of traditional disciplines such as astronomy, geology, physics, ...