ject, it drew attention to the merits of expansionism and
the economic possibilities of America.
From the late 1570s Raleigh had been involved in var-
ious seafaring adventures, mainly against Spain, and in
1592 he was recalled from one and thrown into the Tower
because of his clandestine marriage to one of Elizabeth’s
maids of honor. His expedition to Guiana (1595) and key
role in the sacking of Cádiz (1596) more or less restored
him to favor, although Essex was now Elizabeth’s princi-
pal favorite. On the accession of JAMES I, with his policy of
peace with Spain, Raleigh’s numerous enemies ensured his
downfall; in 1603, at a sham trial, he was convicted of
treason. Given an 11th-hour reprieve from the scaffold, he
then spent 12 years in prison, where he made alchemical
experiments and wrote many letters and poems, as well as
his influential (but inappropriately titled) History of the
World (1614). In 1616 James released him to search for
gold along the Orinoco River. The expedition was a disas-
ter, and, contravening James’s explicit instructions,
Raleigh’s followers attacked a Spanish settlement. On his
return to England Raleigh was beheaded on the 1603
charge.
Further reading: Marc Aronson, Sir Walter Raleigh
and the Quest for El Dorado (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mif-
flin, 2000); Raleigh Travelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh (London:
Allen Lane, 2003 and New York: Henry Holt, 2004).
Rambaldoni, Vittorino de’ See VITTORINO DA FELTRE
Ramée, Pierre de la See RAMUS, PETRUS
Ramelli, Agostino (c. 1537–c. 1608) Italian engineer
Ramelli was born at Ponte Tresa, near Como, and is first
heard of as a military engineer in the service of Gian Gia-
como de’ Medici. He later moved to France where he
seems to have settled sometime in the 1570s. Ramelli is re-
membered today as the author of Le diverse et artificiose
machine (1588), a volume published with French and Ital-
ian texts on facing pages. The 195 full- or double-page il-
lustrations serve as a primary source for the state of
Renaissance technology. About a hundred depict pumps
and pumping machinery; the remainder show a variety of
devices, including windmills, tilt hammers, screw jacks,
water wheels, and revolving bookcases. Many of these,
though feasible designs, were likely to have been beyond
the capacity of the craftsmen of Ramelli’s day. See illustra-
tion overleaf.
Ramist controversy The long-running dispute over the
issues with which Petrus RAMUSchose to concern himself,
namely, the nature of logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. Ramus
rejected the Aristotelian tradition, opting instead to follow
CICEROas he had been presented by Rudolf AGRICOLA.
Whereas Aristotle had distinguished between logic, which
argued to a necessary conclusion, and dialectic, which
permitted only probable conclusions, Ramus insisted
there was only one ars disserendi (art of discourse), called
indifferently by him logic or rhetoric. At a less abstract
level he extolled the virtues of the practical over the theo-
retical, and the particular over the general. Thus, geome-
try was defined by him as “the art of measuring well,”
while ethics, he said, should be taught through biography
and history. This practical approach to philosophy was
echoed in the work of John DEE, William GILBERT, and
Francis BACON. It was also readily accepted throughout
much of Protestant Europe and found support in Puritan
New England. Such support was still being expressed long
after the death of Ramus in the writings of John Milton
and G. W. Leibniz, among others.
Opposition arose, however, in Catholic Europe.
Jacques Charpentier in France, and other so-called anti-
Ramists, insisted upon the distinction between logic and
dialectic and argued that “the standard and norm of logic”
lay elsewhere than in the popular speech studied by
the Ramists. A third group, the curiously named semi-
Ramists, or Philippo-Ramists, was identified by Franco
Burgersdyck in 1626; this group sought a compromise be-
tween the Ramists and the followers of Philipp MELANCH-
THON. Despite the intensity of the dispute, its historical
significance was limited by the emergence of the more
central concerns and potent method of René Descartes in
the 1630s and 1640s.
Further reading: James Veazie Skalnik, Ramus and Re-
form: Church and University at the End of the Renaissance
(Gonic, N.H.: Odyssey Press, 2002).Ramos de Pareja, Bartolomé (c. 1440–c. 1491) Spanish
music theorist
Ramos taught music at the university of Salamanca and
appears to have gone to Bologna in about 1472, where he
lectured in music. After 1484 he went to Rome and was
still there in 1491. Ramos wrote several theoretical works,
but only his Musica practica (1482) survives. In it he at-
tacked contemporary musical procedures, such as nota-
tion, classification of the modes, and, in particular, the
theories of the Roman philosopher Boethius on tuning.
Ramos argued that many of the theories of the past were
too complicated and impractical for performers. Although
he was widely criticized, his ideas were used by later the-
orists, including Henricus GLAREANUS and Gioseffo
ZARLINO.Ramus, Petrus (Pierre de la Ramée) (1515–1572)
French logician and humanist
Ramus was born near Soissons and educated at the uni-
versity of Paris. In 1536 he defended for his MA the thesis
that everything written by Aristotle is false. The claim was
made more publicly in his Aristotelicæ animadversiones
(1543) and resulted in a ban forbidding him from teach-
ing philosophy. The ban was lifted in 1547 by Henry II,RRaammuuss,, PPeettrruuss 4 40033