Across the Alps: London and Bologna in the Eighteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Alan CookSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 1-2Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/532118 .

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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 56 (1), 1-2 (2002)

ACROSS THE ALPS: LONDON AND BOLOGNA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the first century of the Society's existence a number of important developments were taking place in Italy, especially in astronomy and biology. The names and achievements of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and Malpighi, for instance, are well known; their discoveries were regularly reported in the Philosophical Transactions. Dr Cavazza in her article in this issue explores the many connections between the Society and the Academy of Arts and Science and the Institute of Science of Bologna in the eighteenth century. The number of English Fellows of the Society who were also Fellows of the Bolognese Academy and of Italian Fellows of the Academy who were also Fellows of the Society is notable, and, as might be expected, some are well known in the history of the Society. Cassini and Malpighi were not members of the Academy because it had not been founded in their day. Nor was Laura Bassi a Fellow of the Society, for as a woman she was ineligible, as was Emilie du Chatelet, although she was elected to the Bolognese Academy shortly before her death. The openness of Bolognese society is notable for those days.

Two Fellows of the Society who are mentioned by Dr Cavazza, although not members of the Bolognese Academy, deserve to be better known. Francesco Bianchini was a Roman prelate who was also a distinguished astronomer and antiquarian; his work was well known to Newton. He was a member of the Accademia Fisica-mathematica of Rome, the academy founded by Msgr G.-G. Ciampini and supported by Queen Christina of Sweden. It is said that he made observations of stellar aberrations before Bradley. When he was sent on a diplomatic mission by the Pope, he took the opportunity to visit England where he met Newton and Flamsteed and many others. His full account in manuscript, Iter in Britannicum, is in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome. He saw much the same pictures in Hampton Court as we do today, and he was very impressed by St Paul's, just then completed, and included a print of it in his manuscript. Some of his remarks illuminate the fraught relations between Newton and Flamsteed and deserve to be better known in this country. He attended three meetings of the Society while in London and was elected to the Fellowship.

Dr Cavazza also mentions Sir Thomas Dereham, ER.S., who was resident in Italy in the first decades of the eighteenth century and who kept the Society up to date with Italian science. He came of a Roman Catholic family from Dereham in Norfolk. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1720 and died in Rome in 1739. He left a considerable legacy to Roman Catholic institutions in Rome and there is a memorial to him in the Venerable English College in Rome. His family and religious affiliations are recorded in the Sackler archive, but there is no entry for him in the Dictionary of national biography.

The Institute of Science in Bologna in the Palazzo Poggi is currently being refurbished to display the collections of Aldrovandi and those set up by Count Ferdinando Marsili, FR.S., when he established the Institute. Together with the great meridian in the basilica of San Petronio laid out and exploited by G.D. Cassini,

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©) 2002 The Royal Society

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2 Editorial

the Palazzo Poggi constitutes an important repository for the history of science not only in Bologna, but also more widely in Europe. As the Michelin Guide might say, 'worth a detour'.

Sir Alan Cook

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