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Thanks. Lots of post antiquity significant scientific advancements seem to have happened in HRE. My personal bet is that it has something to do with many lords

by vlehto 11y ago

Thanks. Lots of post antiquity significant scientific advancements seem to have happened in HRE. My personal bet is that it has something to do with many lords with conflicting interests(Pope, King of spain(?), emperor and the duke). This left some people unattended and free to experiment all kinds of weird stuff. Also the Genoa and Venice seem to have played a big role. I think this relates to how they based their economies on naval power, but had strategically very bad positions. So they had to stay ahead in technology. (Byzantine empire on the other hand controlled the most important choke point in European trade at the moment. So they had no such need to innovate.)

da1 11y ago
> Also the Genoa and Venice seem to have played a big role. I think this relates to how they based their economies on naval power, but had strategically very bad positions. So they had to stay ahead in technology. If that were the case "Italy" would have taken the place of "Spain" and Portugal at that time regarding seatrade and clearly they didn't neither then nor in the future being almost irrelevant.
- vlehto 11y ago
  "Italy" as in Genoa and Venice we're big players in Mediterranean sea trade from 1100 to about 1600. During that time they developed banking, private companies, big amount of technology and took part in developing scientific method. Power shifts, Spanish empire got upper hand in Atlantic trade. But they could capitalize on already superior technology of Europe against their colonial vassals. So no such pressure for innovation.
  - da1 11y ago
    True but Galileo's developments took place after the decline had clearly started. That was my point.