With unprecedented coverage of the profound changes in the nature and practice of science in sixteenth and secenteenth century Europe, this comprehensive reference work addresses the broad sweep of individuals, ideas and institutions that defined culture in this most influential age - when the modern perception of nature and the universe and our place in it is said to have emerged. This volume has been specifically designed to acquaint the reader with recent insights into the development of scientific ideas in their social and intellectual concepts. Also included are entries on contemporaneous subjects such as philosophy, religion, magic, technology and medicine which echoed the changes occuring.