Table Of ContentExperiment and Natural Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany
AUSTRALASIAN STUDIES
IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
VOLUME 21
General Editor:
S.GAUKROGER,University of Sydney
Editorial Advisory Board:
RACHEL ANKENY,University of Sydney
STEVEN FRENCH,University of Leeds
DAVID PAPINEAU,King’s College London
NICHOLAS RASMUSSEN,University of New South Wales
JOHN SCHUSTER,University of New South Wales
RICHARD YEO,Griffith University
EXPERIMENT AND
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
IN SEVENTEENTH-
CENTURY TUSCANY
The History of the Accademia del Cimento
LUCIANO BOSCHIERO
Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell’Accademia del Cimento,Frontispiece.
Used with permission of the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza,
Biblioteca Digitale
A C.I.P.Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library ofCongress.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
PART ONE:GALILEO AND BEYOND 11
Chapter One:350 Years of coming to grips with the experimental
activities of Galileo and his followers 13
Early understandings of Galileo’s and his students’experimentalism 13
Medici patronage of seventeenth-century natural philosophy 19
Survey of recent historiographies of the experimental life
in early modern Courts 24
Seventeenth-century mechanical natural philosophy,
physico-mathematics,and experiment 27
Galileo,natural philosophy,and experiment 33
Chapter Two:Vincenzio Viviani (1622–1703):Galileo’s last disciple 37
Viviani the student 37
Arcetri:1638–1641 39
Torricelli’s arrival in Arcetri 44
How Torricelli’s death brought Viviani’s career into the spotlight
of Tuscany’s intellectual community 49
The speed and propagation of sound 52
1659–1703 55
Conclusion 56
Chapter Three:Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679) 59
Borelli in Rome:his education under Castelli and his initiation
into the Galilean School 59
v
vi TABLEOFCONTENTS
1635–1656:politics,mathematics,and medicine in Borelli’s Sicily 61
Borelli and Viviani 69
Apollonius’lost books 71
Theoricae mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae 76
Borelli’s life beyond the Cimento:1667–1679 84
De motionibus naturalibus 87
Conclusion:De motu Animalium 89
Chapter Four:What it meant to be a Cimento academician 93
Carlo Rinaldini and Alessandro Marsili:defending scholasticism 94
The contributions of Antonio Uliva,Carlo Dati,
Candido del Buono,and Paolo del Buono 98
Francesco Redi and the experimental method 103
The Cimento’s secretaries and the last word on courtly
culture and experimental science 106
PART TWO:THE ACCADEMIA DEL CIMENTO:1657–1662 111
Chapter Five:Experiments concerning air pressure and the void
and a look at the Accademia’s internal workings 115
Torricelli’s interpretation of his barometric instrument 120
The academicians’mechanical understanding of the barometer:
what the Saggireveals 123
Finding evidence of the academicians’natural philosophical
interests in the Saggi 125
‘Experiments pertaining to the natural pressure of the air’:
Roberval and the Aristotelian response 127
‘Experiments pertaining to the natural pressure of the air’:
recreating the Puy-de-Dôme experiment 131
Controversy and conflict inside the Accademia del Cimento 133
Marsili’s defence of the plenum 137
Chapter Six:The artificial freezing process of liquids,
and the properties and effects of heat and cold 141
Sixteenth-century atomists:freezing and the vacuum 143
Gassendi,Galileo,atoms,and freezing 145
Artificial freezing 149
The force of expansion of freezing water 153
Leopoldo’s experiment measuring the freezing process of water 156
‘Experiments on a newly observed effect of heat and cold,relating to
changes in the internal capacity of metal and glass vessels’ 160
Heat and cold:quality versus substance 166
Rinaldini stands his ground 169
Borelli’s conclusions:the deprivation of heat 173
Conclusion 176
TABLEOFCONTENTS vii
PART THREE:THE ACCADEMIA DEL CIMENTO:1662–1667 179
Chapter Seven:The Cimento’s publication process and
presentational techniques:formulating a policy of self-censorship 181
Writing and editing the Saggi 184
Leopoldo’s religious concerns and the rest of the Saggi’sediting process 191
Chapter Eight:The Saturn problem and the path of comets:an analysis
of the academicians’theoretical and observational astronomy 195
The Saturn problem 196
Huygens versus Fabri and Divini:religion,reputations,and
natural philosophical commitments on the line 199
Leopoldo takes control 206
Model experimenting used to resolve the Saturn problem 208
Comets 216
The Accademia del Cimento and the comet of 1664 222
Borelli versus Adrien Auzout 225
Maintaining Leopoldo’s policy of self-censorship and concluding
the academicians’work in astronomy 228
Conclusion 233
Bibliography 241
Index 247
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Reproduction of diagram used by Galileo
in Two New Sciences,to describe the final velocity
reached by a body falling along an inclined plane 41
Figure 2: Borelli’s geometrical construction of an ellipse
within a scalene cone 82
Figure 3: Torricelli’s barometer;and Roberval’s barometer
inside a barometer 116
Figure 4: Galileo’s experiment testing the ‘force of the vacuum’ 118
Figure 5: Torricelli’s barometer testing the size of the vacuous
space and the effect on the mercury 121
Figure 6: Cimento’s experiment placing jar over the barometer
to test air pressure 129
Figure 7: Marsili’s experiment testing the vacuity of the space
in the Torricellian tube 139
Figure 8: Cimento’s experiment testing the expansion of freezing
water in a tightly sealed container 151
Figure 9: Cimento’s experiment demonstrating the rarefaction
of freezing water 152
Figure 10: Borelli’s experiment measuring the water’s force
of expansion during the freezing process 155
Figure 11: Leopoldo’s experiment describing the freezing process 157
Figure 12: Table compiled by the Cimento documenting
the freezing process 159
Figure 13: First experiment testing the effects of heat and cold 163
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Figure 14: Second experiment testing the effects of heat and cold 164
Figure 15: Third experiment testing the effects of heat and cold 171
Figure 16: Fourth experiment testing the effects of heat and cold 171
Figure 17: Galileo’s depiction,in The Assayer,of his observation
of Saturn 198
Figure 18: Huygens’diagram of Saturn’s trajectory around the Sun 200
Figure 19: Drawing of the satellites of Saturn according
to Fabri and Divini 202
Figure 20: Model constructed by the Accademia del Cimento
to test Huygens’ring hypothesis 209
Figure 21: A drawing of Fabri’s hypothesis with six satellites 213
Figure 22: Galileo’s drawing of the movement of comets
in a straight line 220
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most of the research required for the completion of this book was carried out
during my time as a doctorate student. For this reason I am indebted to the
support shown to me by my friends and colleagues at the University of New
South Wales, all of whom showed an interest in my work. In particular, I am
indebted to John Schuster and David Miller for their invaluable advice and
guidance over many years.
For showing support and providing comments at various stages of this project,
thanks are due to my wife, Michelle; my parents, Ana and Marino; Katherine
Neal;Stephen Gaukroger;Ivan Crozier;John Henry,Simon Schaffer,and several
of my postgraduate colleagues during my time at the University of New South
Wales and the University of Sydney. Thanks especially to Paolo Galluzzi who
offered me guidance when researching this topic in the Italian archives.Galluzzi’s
support, as well as the assistance of the staff at the Istituto e Museo di Storia
della Scienza in Florence (IMSS), and at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di
Firenze (BNCF), was invaluable for the preparation of this work. I would also
like to acknowledge IMSS Biblioteca Digitale and BNCF for their permission to
reproduce the images in this book.
The research presented in this book was also generously supported by research
grants from the Italian Foreign Ministry, and the Research Management
Committee for the Faculty of Arts at the University of New South Wales.
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