The development of the theory of impetus in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries

The article examines the development of the theory of impetus in European science during the 15th and 16th centuries. Based on the works of Thomas Bradwardine, Pierre Tartaret, Nicholas of Cusa, Girolamo Piccolomini, Leonardo da Vinci, Giambattista Benedetti, and Galileo Galilei, the transformation of Buridan's concept of impetus is traced from a scholastic explanation of violent motion to the foundations of classical mechanics. It is shown that in the 15th century, the theory of impetus spread in European universities (Vienna, Krakow, Paris) and was perceived as part of Aristotelian physics; in the 16th century, Benedetti was the first to limit impetus to only linear motion, denying the possibility of circular impetus; Galileo, in his early works, uses the concept of impetus in its scholastic version, but in the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" makes a transition to an inertial understanding of motion. The research relies on historical-philosophical methods, comparative analysis of primary sources, and a critical overview of contemporary historiography (works by A. Meyer, M. Clagett, P. Duhem). For the first time in Russian-language literature, a systematic analysis of the development of the theory of impetus in the 15th and 16th centuries is conducted as an independent stage in the history of physics, rather than a simple "prefiguration" of the law of inertia. Unlike the works of P. Duhem, who tended to see Buridan's impetus as the first formulation of the principle of inertia, this article demonstrates that there exists a fundamental ontological difference between these concepts: impetus serves as a cause (in the Aristotelian sense), whereas inertia is a state of a body that does not require any cause. It is concluded that the theory of impetus represents a necessary link between Aristotelian physics and the mechanics of the New Age, preparing the conceptual conditions for the emergence of classical mechanics.