Periodic Reporting for period 3 - TACITROOTS (The Accademia del Cimento in Florence: tracing the roots of the European scientific enterprise)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-11-30
The TACITROOTS project aims to provide a new understanding of the origins of the European scientific enterprise, by analyzing and contextualizing for the first time the entire corpus of published and unpublished sources concerning the earliest modern scientific academy in Europe: the Florentine Accademia del Cimento.
The Accademia del Cimento was the first scientific academy in Europe to put experimentation at the centre of its scientific activity and to be supported by a public power. It lasted only ten years (1657-1667), the same years that saw the establishment of societies of greater fame and longevity such as the Royal Society in London and the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. Well before and during the formative years of these academies, instruments, experiments, books, information, and people circulated to and from Florence. The Cimento is a short-lived institution, which never formalized through statutes and rules, but nonetheless acted as a blueprint in the institutional process of establishing scientific societies in Europe.
The members of the TACITROOTS team pursue their research along two main strands:
1) The first strand “The Cimento and its experiments” looks at the experimental nature of the studies carried out within the Accademia and is structured into four research areas (Each analyzing ca. 20-30% of the total experiments: Pneumatics, Thermology, Other physics experiments, Peripheral activities). This strand will account for the entirety of the documented activities of the Cimento for the very first time, because the only official work published by the Accademia (Saggi, 1667) collects only a minor part of the experiments carried out (only 12 groups of experiments vs. 49 manuscripts available today, mostly unpublished).
2) The second strand “The Cimento and intellectual history” follows the intellectual history of the Accademia in its historical, political, and cultural contexts. To that end, particular attention is devoted: (a) to the censorship (and especially self-censorship) mechanisms that characterized the life of the Cimento; (b) to its significant network of foreign correspondents; (c) to its contribution to the establishment of a scientific lexicon (e.g. with the collaboration to the third edition of the Vocabolario della Crusca); and (d) to the material nature of the work carried out in the Cimento, which was heavily reliant on the creation and use of scientific instruments.
The Accademia del Cimento was the first scientific academy in Europe to put experimentation at the centre of its scientific activity and to be supported by a public power. It lasted only ten years (1657-1667), the same years that saw the establishment of societies of greater fame and longevity such as the Royal Society in London and the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. Well before and during the formative years of these academies, instruments, experiments, books, information, and people circulated to and from Florence. The Cimento is a short-lived institution, which never formalized through statutes and rules, but nonetheless acted as a blueprint in the institutional process of establishing scientific societies in Europe.
The members of the TACITROOTS team pursue their research along two main strands:
1) The first strand “The Cimento and its experiments” looks at the experimental nature of the studies carried out within the Accademia and is structured into four research areas (Each analyzing ca. 20-30% of the total experiments: Pneumatics, Thermology, Other physics experiments, Peripheral activities). This strand will account for the entirety of the documented activities of the Cimento for the very first time, because the only official work published by the Accademia (Saggi, 1667) collects only a minor part of the experiments carried out (only 12 groups of experiments vs. 49 manuscripts available today, mostly unpublished).
2) The second strand “The Cimento and intellectual history” follows the intellectual history of the Accademia in its historical, political, and cultural contexts. To that end, particular attention is devoted: (a) to the censorship (and especially self-censorship) mechanisms that characterized the life of the Cimento; (b) to its significant network of foreign correspondents; (c) to its contribution to the establishment of a scientific lexicon (e.g. with the collaboration to the third edition of the Vocabolario della Crusca); and (d) to the material nature of the work carried out in the Cimento, which was heavily reliant on the creation and use of scientific instruments.
In order to better integrate the two main research strands of the project, the research team was formed by integrating scholars at different stages of their careers and with different, but complementary skills. The cross-disciplinary work has been helped by the regular meetings between all the team members as well as by the colloquium series TraCer which consisted of lectures and discussion sessions with internationally recognized researchers, providing a forum for exploring topics crucial to TACITROOTS Project and its members and fostering disciplinary, as well as interdisciplinary, dialogue. The recruitment process was slowed down due to the pandemic, as was the group's activity, which faced the closure of the archives and the impossibility of organizing meetings and in-person activities.
The extensive corpus of unpublished documents (ca. 15,000 papers), descriptions of experiments and thousands of epistolary exchanges between members of the Cimento and scholars throughout Europe is currently under investigation by the members of the group. The corpus includes:
• Diaries, scientific reports, handwritten notes documenting hundreds of experiments proposed and carried out inside the academy (sometimes sent abroad, sometimes designed on the basis of those reported by other European scholars).
• Thousands of epistolary exchanges between the Cimento’s members (Alfonso Borelli, Vincenzo Viviani, Carlo Rinaldini… but also Prince Leopoldo de Medici himself –the patron of the Accademia) and scholars through Europe (Honoré Fabri (1607-1688), Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Nicolas Steno (1638-1686), Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), Nicolaas Heinsius, Robert Hooke (1635-1702), Henri Oldenburg (1615-1677), Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712), Ismael Boulliau (1605-1694)…)
• About a hundred of surviving instruments, often sent or described to transalpine correspondents.
We are working in a deeply collective manner: documents are analyzed by group members, stored in the database, and shared with the entire team.
The extensive corpus of unpublished documents (ca. 15,000 papers), descriptions of experiments and thousands of epistolary exchanges between members of the Cimento and scholars throughout Europe is currently under investigation by the members of the group. The corpus includes:
• Diaries, scientific reports, handwritten notes documenting hundreds of experiments proposed and carried out inside the academy (sometimes sent abroad, sometimes designed on the basis of those reported by other European scholars).
• Thousands of epistolary exchanges between the Cimento’s members (Alfonso Borelli, Vincenzo Viviani, Carlo Rinaldini… but also Prince Leopoldo de Medici himself –the patron of the Accademia) and scholars through Europe (Honoré Fabri (1607-1688), Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Nicolas Steno (1638-1686), Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), Nicolaas Heinsius, Robert Hooke (1635-1702), Henri Oldenburg (1615-1677), Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712), Ismael Boulliau (1605-1694)…)
• About a hundred of surviving instruments, often sent or described to transalpine correspondents.
We are working in a deeply collective manner: documents are analyzed by group members, stored in the database, and shared with the entire team.
TACITROOTS will shed new light on the intellectual history of early modern Europe and produce a better understanding of the initial phases of the historical process that led to the almost concurrent rise, in different European areas, of State- or princely supported institutions based on collegial and experimental research. It will clarify the emergence of a shared scientific discourse, and its normalization, as well as the dynamics of competition, imitation and (self-)censorship from which these institutional and scientific endeavours originated. The TACITROOTS team will also strive to bring these results to the attention not only of the relevant scientific community but also to a wider audience as a resource in the public debate around the relationship between science and society, research funding and the scientific method.