17th century Maltese scientist

I think that Malta was never so close to Europe, culturally, as in 1668-70. Those three years were particularly important for Europe: a leap forward on the continent's path to modernity.

The famous querelle des anciens et des modernes - by which we mean the great dispute between those who followed and defended the hallowed thinkers and writers of old and those who stood for change and opted for a modern approach in all branches of knowledge - then reached its acme.

After 1670 Europe moved rapidly from the Baroque age to the Enlightenment. The battle between traditionalists and innovators raged mostly in the sciences, in the wake of the scientific revolution ushered in by Galileo (1564-1642).

He had taken up the heliocentric theory proposed by the Polish priest Copernicus (1473-1543), adding further proof that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice-versa. He was stubbornly opposed by the traditionalists and by the Church on the grounds that the new theory affected the central role of humankind and, consequently, of the Incarnation.

Galileo had also developed and bequeathed to his followers the scientific method, based on mathematics rather than philosophy, guided by experience and experiment rather than the authority of past thinkers, Aristotle included.

In the 1660s the main issues which split scientists into opposite camps were the origin of living organisms and the formation of the universe. Biology, botany and geology were put on a scientific basis.

Malta was involved in this development, thanks to a Maltese scientist of French origin, Giovan Francesco Buonamico. His father, Francois Bonami, hailed from Nantes and had probably followed a French knight on his way to Malta, then got a job at the Order's hospital and married a Maltese woman in 1620.

Giovan Francesco was born in Valletta in 1639 and studied - like all members of the Maltese elite - at the Jesuit College, which had been set up in Valletta in 1592 on the lines of the Collegio Romano.

The curriculum of both colleges was humanistic, with a good grounding in mathematics and physics. At 18, Giovan Francesco went to study medicine in Aix-en-Provence. He proceeded with his studies in Paris and Worms (Germany).

Then he moved for two years to the University of Leyden, one of Europe's leading universities for the sciences. After obtaining a second degree in medicine, he took up further studies in Louvain, and then in Amsterdam.

He returned to Malta in 1666, after nine years of travels and study in the heart of Europe. He married Cleria Mensionat, from whom he had at least three children: Nicola, who became a priest, and Anna and Rosalia, who married a Flemish gentleman and an Italian count, Giuseppe Preziosi, respectively. He died in Valletta in 1680.

Thanks to his in-depth knowledge of science, literature and languages, Giovan Francesco made friends with the Order's hierarchy, and was appointed physician and adviser to Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner, who ruled from 1663 to 1680.

To him he dedicated a collection of poems in Latin, published in Lyons in 1672, and a sonnet which was the first ever to be written and spread in the local language.

From Malta he was in contact with several scientists. These included the Danish scientist (later Cardinal) Nicholas Steno (1638-86), who in the early 1660s was Buonamico's fellow student at Leyden University; Athanasius Kircher, the superstar of 17th century pseudo-scientific literature, who taught mathematics in the Maltese college in 1637-38, apparently to recover from a nervous breakdown; and Paolo Boccone, one of the founders of modern botany, who from Palermo visited Malta on several occasions.

He was also in contact with several medical academies (in Paris, Pisa, Florence, Rome), with the filosofi-scienziati of Naples and with members of the scuola galileiana of Florence.

In 1668 Boccone was in Malta and asked Buonamico to favour his Sicilian friend, Agostino Scilla, with some "tongue stones" (glossopietre, Natternzungen, lingue di serpente) for which Malta was famous. They were exported in large quantities from Malta to European pharmacies as an antidote against poisoning.

Giovan Francesco accompanied the "snake tongues" or glossopietre with a 100-page letter, actually a treatise on the properties of matter, which was published in Sicily only a century later, but which was presumably circulated in manuscript form. It gave rise to a 163-page book which was published in Naples in 1670 (and again, in Latin, in 1752).

Its title was: La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso, lettera responsive circa i corpi marini che petrificati si trovano in vari luoghi terrestri.

The author of this book sided definitely with those who opted for empirical research and experiment as the sole basis of their scientific beliefs. He held philosophy and theology in high esteem, he wrote, but not at the expense of what he could see with his own eyes or what was proved by scientific experiment.

Buonamico in his long essay maintained that 'tongue stones' were probably generated spontaneously in Maltese rocks. He based his theory on the atomistic philosophy expounded by Pierre Gassendi, who had taught philosophy at Aix-en-Provence and whose main work was issued posthumously in 1658, the year Giovan Francesco was a student at Aix.

The fossils resembling snake tongues were embedded in Maltese rocks as a result of an inexplicable combination of imperceptible atoms, such combinations accounting in fact for all material changes that take place in nature.

No one should definitely reject the age-old theory of the spontaneous generation of certain living organisms because we do not know how a large number of insects and animals are born, he maintained.

Scilla simply poked fun at the idea that the so-called snake tongues were formed spontaneously in Maltese rocks, or that they had any relation with St Paul's shipwreck on the island.

It was Steno who first proved that the tongue stones resembled sharks' teeth because they were nothing but sharks' teeth embedded in the rocks according to certain rules of geological stratigraphy, which he laid down for the first time.

This he did in his book De solido intra solidum, published in Florence in 1669. Steno lived in Florence at the time and conducted a number of experiments on behalf of Grand Duke Ferdinand II, in close collaboration with Francesco Redi. A huge shark was caught in Leghorn in 1666 and the Grand Duke ordered it to be sent to Steno for anatomical research.

The theory that insects and small vertebrates such as mice and frogs were born spontaneously out of inorganic matter seems funny to us today, but it was far from unbelievable to most people as late as the 19th century.

Aristotle, Galen and St Thomas Aquinas had upheld it. The Church supported it because in the Book of Judges it was written that bees hatched out of a dead lion. The scholars who came out of the Jesuit College in Rome in the 17th century made it a point to prove it with their own experiments and arguments.

It was Francesco Redi, the personal doctor of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (and author of the famous poem Bacco in Toscana), who first rejected it completely by describing his own experiments and poking fun at Kircher, Filippo Buonanni and other Jesuits. This he did in his Esperienze intorno alla generazione degli insetti, published in Florence in 1668.

And it was Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-99), professor of natural history at Pavia University, who first demonstrated by numerous experiments that every living organism owed its origin to another living organism: omne vivum ex vivo.

But, according to biologist Jean Rostand, even Louis Pasteur (1822-95) had to fight against persisting popular belief in the theory of spontaneous generation before he could extend Spallanzani's principle to microbes and bacteria, and prove that all infectious diseases are caused by germs.

Giovan Francesco Buonamico was very much like Francesco Redi: he shared his interest in both science and the humanities, and in the local language (Redi had started a dictionary of the dialect of his native Arezzo).

Both were physicians and poets in the employ of a powerful patron. Redi was an innovator, the product of a region enlightened by the Renaissance. Buonamico was a traditionalist, the product of a theocracy. But both contributed to the debate that raged in Europe in the 1660s, and hence to the progress of ideas in our continent.

Malta and the EU

Dr Alfred Sant is urging the government to postpone the European Union membership issue and concentrate on internal issues. The islands' pressing internal needs cannot but have top priority, he argues.

The government, on the other hand, thinks that the long-term problems of Malta and Gozo can best be addressed by EU membership, which guarantees the enforcement of modern laws and the attainment of considerable funds. Both approaches are defensible. They do not contradict each other.

That our politicians and civil service need to focus more efficiently on internal matters, and be seen to do so, is obvious. Issues like public health, public transport, traffic, pollution and the judicial system need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

People should not suffer or die because of a wrong set of priorities. The Maltese Islands can become much more attractive if a number of eyesores are removed. Dynamism should be the hallmark of those who lead the country. Malta and Gozo can become a veritable Switzerland in the Mediterranean if political forces pull in the same direction on essential matters, instead of indulging in a tug-of-war.

To halt Malta's application to join the EU at this stage is unthinkable. So much money, time and energy have gone into this, that it would be tragic and ludicrous if Malta were to opt out.

Political parties should agree to let the people decide freely on EU membership, possibly during the forthcoming general elections. Meanwhile, let us concentrate more efficiently on internal needs. But will our political leaders have the courage to put their heads together and address the pressing needs of these islands before it is too late?