0 INTRODUCTION

4. RHETORIC AND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE IN THE EModE PERIOD
The works by Eisenstein (1983) and more recently Barton (1994) list the
advantages of the printing press in the development of science. First, printing supported
cultural diffusion since it made it possible to increase the number of copies of a particular
text, favouring the access of scientists to scientific texts. Thus, scientists could read and
compare many different texts, favouring the interchange of ideas. There was no way of
making “public and universal” new observations if they were recorded only in
manuscripts. Furthermore, scientists could spend more time solving their scientific
queries and making experiments as they no longer had to spend their time in timeconsuming
activities such as recording their data on manuscripts. Even the learned
community able to understand Latin could profit from printing since the publication of
their scientific texts could make it possible for other learned peers to check their work
and, in this way, obtain feedback from other qualified scholars.
Finally, another advantage of printing was that it was not as selective as scribal
tradition, so it was able to report advances in many fields of knowledge (Barton 1994:
124). Printing might be selective, however, in that it could spread and reinforce existing
ideas by repeating them in published texts.
In short, it seems that the printing press fostered communication among scientists.
It allowed them to have access to a great variety of texts, making it possible for scientists
to keep along the lines of previous research on a specific topic. Furthermore, the large
amount of copies of a particular text allowed many scientists to read it and give valuable
feedback to the author. All these aspects contributed enormously to scientific progress.
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