Accademia del Cimento

The Accademia del Cimento ( = Academy of the experiment) was an academy for experimental physics and an early scientific society.

History and Organization

The Accademia was founded in 1657 by the Medici family and finances, from Cardinal Leopoldo de ' Medici, who was very interested in the sciences, and his brother, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici.

The motto of the Academy was Provando e Riprovando ( = through trials and re- trials) and objective was the study of nature through reproducible experiments. Here, we addressed not only with physics (including vacuum, barometer, hygrometer, thermometer, pendulum for time measurement ), but also to medicine and biology and chemistry. Most of the members were students or followers of Galileo Galilei, as the famous Vincenzo Viviani. The group met in the private chambers of Leopold in the Palazzo Pitti.

The members of the Academy studied the works of Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Robert Boyle and Pierre Gassendi and confirmed as the first identification of Saturn's rings by Christian Huygens ( she had already seen Galilei, but not recognized as rings ).

The Accademia had no formal constitution and was only loosely organized, there was no regular dates for their meetings.

The group was about ten years until 1667 and then broke up, among others, by leaving home of members and internal disputes, without ever being officially closed. Published by them negotiations with the description of their experiments, first as Saggi di naturali esperienze 1667 but published long after applied and recompiled, but were influential for the further development of the experimental method in the natural sciences and were even a laboratory manual of the 18th century referred to. Most experiments were from the early years of the company. In the following years the book has been revised several times. The Essays are the only remaining publication and were gently become by the by the trial of Galileo (1632 ) presented to the Medici Pope and Vatican to censorship. The caution of Leopoldo de ' Medici, it is probably attributable to the theory behind the experiments is hardly treated and astronomy missing.

Experiments

The first group of experiments in the Saggi affects air pressure measurement with mercury barometers, the second group vacuum experiments by Robert Boyle, the third artificial cooling and the fourth group cooling in nature. The fifth group studies the influence of heat and cold on various objects, the sixth compressibility of water, the seventh showed that, contrary to the view of Aristotle in the vacuum may cause a fire. In the eighth group and magnetism in the ninth Bernstein ( static electricity) is treated. In the tenth group it comes to color and in the eleventh to the speed of sound. In the twelfth group, the case law of Galileo are described, but without experiment.

The part in the group specially built instruments are preserved in the Museum of the History of Science ( Specola ) in Florence.

Members

Permanent members were:

  • Prince Leopoldo de ' Medici, brother of the Grand Duke of Tuscany
  • Ferdinando II de ' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
  • Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1679) - physicist and mathematician, a leading member of the Academy next Viviani.
  • Francesco Redi (1626-1698) - physician, 1666, the first physician of the Grand Duke. He undertook experiments, the proliferation of flies about maggots in meat showed ( in a book published in 1668, there was also a dispute with Kircher above). He continued in the study of parasites ( such as the brake).
  • Renaldini Carlo (1615-1698) - Nobleman of Ancona. Mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher, military engineer, from 1644 professor of philosophy at Pisa and from 1667 professor of philosophy at Padua, who lectures on Galileo stopped there first, but also Aristotelian ideas was arrested. He was one of the most active members and examined, among others, heat convection and made astronomical observations. He was in conflict with Borelli. Renaldini taught the Prince Cosimo III. ,
  • Vincenzo Viviani - famous physicist and mathematician and one of the most prominent members of the Academy, a pupil of Galileo, active in Florence as a senior engineer in hydraulic engineering.
  • Responsible Magalotti Lorenzo (1637-1712), Secretary of the Academy from 1660 and for the publication of the Saggi
  • Alessandro Marsili (1601-1670), from Siena, where he was a lecturer in logic. From 1638 professor of philosophy at Pisa, a position he probably owed ​​to the fact the Galilei praised him ( he met Galileo in Siena to the process). He was not much appreciated by the other members and was a follower of Aristotle. He proposed an experiment on the nature of the vacuum in the mercury barometer by Evangelista Torricelli before ( one was not sure whether it contained vapors, see emptiness in the void ).
  • Carlo Roberto Dati (1619-1676), a pupil of Galileo, secretary of the Accademia della Crusca, wrote of the Tuscan
  • Antonio Oliva (1624-1689), originally a clergyman, was imprisoned against the Spaniards in the castle of Reggio Calabria and 1652 for taking part in riots 1647/48 and lived in Florence. From 1663-1667 professor of theoretical medicine at Pisa. From 1667 in Rome, where he was convicted of membership of the Accademia dei Bianchi arrested and accused by the Inquisition. He then threw himself to escape the torture of a window. He dealt with hydraulics and Mathematics ( a commentary on the Book 5 of Euclid's Elements is preserved).
  • Candido del Buono (1618-1676), priest in Florence (Kaplan at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova), brother of Paolo. As this active in the Academy, inventor of several instruments (including a Arcicanna system called for improvement of telescopes )
  • Alessandro Segni (1625-1659), diplomat, to 1660 secretary of the Accademia to him Magalotti replaced. He did not make any contributions and was probably at the beginning of secretary because he was head of the Secretariat of Cardinal Leopold de Medici.

Corresponding members:

  • Giovanni Domenico Cassini
  • Honoré Fabri
  • Robert Hooke
  • Christian Huygens
  • Athanasius Kircher
  • Henry Oldenburg
  • Michelangelo Ricci
  • Nicolas Steno, a Danish bishop and scientist
  • Paolo del Buono (1625-1656), brother of Candido, as these students the mathematician Famiano Michelini (1604-1665) in Florence, received his doctorate in 1649 in Pisa. From 1655 director of the imperial mint and in this capacity he visited mines in the Carpathian Mountains, working on mine drainage. He suggested many experiments before in the Academy.

For area also belonged:

  • Marcello Malpighi, anatomist and physiologist.

Publications

  • Saggi di naturali Esperienze fatte nell'Accademia del Cimento sotto la protezione Serenissimo del Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritto dal segretario Lorenzo Magalotti, printed in 1667 at Cecchi in Florence and in Naples in 1714 Raillard.
La Specola Theologian of the Pontifical Household
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