Abstract

Duhem discovered, more than one century ago, manuscripts of medieval authors (13th and 14th century), which introduced ideas and themes that forrun Galilean science, and called them 'Galileo's forrunners'. Those authors (Roger Bacon, William Ockham, Jean Buridan, Nicholas Oresme, the Mertonians, and so on) were all Franciscans or linked to the franciscan movement. Their approach to science was also sharply different from that emerged in the domenican movement (Albert the Great, Thomas of Aquin, and so on). That difference concerned both the scientific method and the relationship between science and religion. In the following centuries the Church chose the dominican approach. Today, in Pope Franciscus' "Laudato si'", we can find the trace of that ancient franciscan approach, today more fertile than yesterday