The question of the periodization of early science is connoted with political concerns: whether Pierre Duhem's "discovery" of Medieval Science in the context of radical Catholicism in early twentieth century France; Herbert Butterfield’s cold war notion of the scientific Revolution as surpassing any social upheaval in its historical significance; or Hans Blumenberg's generalized notion of the history of science as the modern quest for legitimacy. The "earliness" is either the fruition of an even earlier scientific tradition, or as an Athena emerging from Jupiter’s head, signifying the dawn of a new epoch. Instead of reviewing these notions of early science through the monolithic threshold, this paper will posit the multiplicity of styles of thought embedded in specific mathematical practices as enabling a different historical assessment of early science on its own terms, neither as an enfeebled ripening nor as an anachronistic precursor. To probe the possibilities of this approach I will apply Walter Benjamin's notion of Baroque with (following Elkana) Bertolt Brecht’s notion of the epic to the history of optics from Kepler's 'Ad Vitellionem paralipomena' of 1604 to Descartes' 'La dioptrique' of 1637.
