The Strength of Renaissance Logic in Padua

It was part of Padua's excellence in Aristotelian philosophy that they had a long-standing strength in logic. This went back at least as far as Paul of Venice, who taught at Padua Siena and Peruja in the 1420s. A statute from Padua in 1496 makes Paul's writings set text in the curriculum alongside contributions by various medieval logicians. The presence here of works by Oxford calculators like William Hatesbury and Roger Swine's head is particularly striking. Their habit of applying logical and mathematical analysis to problems of natural philosophy such as dynamics of motion was a natural fit for the arts faculty at Padua.