angels, the sun, the justice, the head. The 4 elements (earth, water, air, fire) formed the ladder of the own, the highest-heavenly fire, God. The elements were the material for the whole universe. The air above the moon was considered as the 5 th element, called ether. The angels are arranged in a definitive order, 3 main orders are: highest is contemplative, consists of Seraphs, Chembs and Thrones. Second is more active- Dominations, Virtues, Powers. Third-the most active-Principalities, Archangels, Angels, they form the medium between the angelic hierarchy and man. Each order of angels had to regulate one of the spheres-primum mobile, the fixed stars and planets. Nature is a direct and involuntary tool of God. Elements: the Earth, centre of the universe (cold and dry), the Water (cold and moist), the air (hot and moist), the Fire (hot and dry). The elements were always mixed and in a war with each other. Man's
of the antichrist and of Muslims as libidinous and subhuman. In the medieval period, a few Arab philosophers like the poet AlMa'arri adopted a critical approach to Islam, and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides contrasted Islamic views of morality to Jewish views that he himself elaborated. Starting in the 9th century, Muslim conquests in the West began to be reversed. The Reconquista was launched against Muslim principalities in Iberia, and Muslim Italian possessions were lost to the Normans. From the 11th century onwards alliances of European Christian kingdoms mobilized to launch a series of wars known as the Crusades, bringing the Muslim world into conflict with Christendom. Initially successful in their goal of taking the Holy land, and establishing the Crusader states, Crusader gains in the Holy Land were later reversed by subsequent Muslim generals such as Saladin; who recaptured Jerusalem during
called in only when needed. Perhaps the most elaborate organization was Venice's. It fell under the immediate control of the Council of Ten, the powerful and mysterious body that ruled the republic largely through its efficient secret police. Venice owed her preeminence largely to Giovanni Soro, who was perhaps the West's first great cryptanalyst. Soro, appointed cipher secretary in 1506, enjoyed remarkable success in solving the ciphers of numerous principalities. His solution of a dispatch of Mark Anthony Coloana, chief of the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, requesting 20,000 ducats or the presence of the emperor with the army, gave an insight into Colonna's problems. So great was Soro's fame that other courts sharpened their ciphers, and as early as 1510 the papal curia was sending him ciphers that no one in Rome could solve. But Venice had no monopoly. In 1589, Henry of Navarre, who was destined to become the most
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