Classical Reception and Newtonian Force

The known contents of Isaac Newton’s private library include a book seldom noticed by biographers or historians of science: a 1662 edition of the Eloquentia bipartita of the Jesuit scholar Famiano Strada. Contents include two lectures, originally given in Rome early in the century, that offer a fictitious account of a contest a century before, in which the leading humanists of the day had squared off against one another, each dressed up like his favorite ancient poet. These curious lectures reveal a forgotten link between the workings of poetic influence in the classical tradition and Newton’s paradigm-shattering theories of mechanics.