ABSTRACT
If, already in the Middle Ages, the university was a conservative institution controlled by clerics, what, then, was the cradle of modern science? There are many conjectures, none entirely satisfactory. To be sure, many institutions fostered, in one way or another, science. In the next three chapters, we will continue to follow the university’s relative extraneousness to innovation and to emerging science; we will also see how other institutions were more conducive to science, for they, too, left marks upon the present-day university.
