Rome and the Royal Society, 1660-1740

Rome and the Royal Society, 1660-1740Author(s): Alan CookSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 2004), pp. 3-19Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4142030 .

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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 58 (1), 3-19 (2004) doi 10.1098/rsnr.2004.0222

ROME AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 1660-1740

by

SIR ALAN COOK FRS

8 Wootton Way, Cambridge CB3 9LX, UK

SUMMARY

Most Fellows of The Royal Society in the late seventeenth century knew Rome through their classical education and would have been attracted to visit it for the remains of antiq- uity and for the new churches and palaces of the papal city. John Evelyn, in Rome 16 years before the foundation of the Society, John Ray, Edmond Halley and Robert Nelson, and Bishop Burnet and G.W. Leibniz, also met people who had links to the Accademia dei Lincei of Prince Federico Cesi, and to the later Accademia Fisica-mathematica associated with Queen Christina of Sweden. Besides astronomy, they were especially interested in cabinets of curiosities and in Vesuvius and other volcanic sites. They met English residents in Rome, especially those around the Venerable English College.

Keywords: Accademia dei Lincei; antiquities; Athanasius Kircher; comets; magnetism; volcanoes.

INTRODUCTION

Roman natural philosophy was not the liveliest in Italy in the early years of The Royal Society. The Accademia dei Lincei, to which Galileo had belonged and which had published his Assayer, had fallen into abeyance after the death of its founder, Prince Federico Cesi. The trial and sentence of house arrest upon Galileo had discouraged speculative natural enquiry in Rome. At the end of the seventeenth century and in the first decades of the eighteenth, natural philosophy was most actively pursued in Bologna and in Florence. Bologna was notable for astronomy, especially the works of Gian Domenico Cassini FRS, while in Florence Galileo's disciple Vicenzo Viviani FRS and the academicians of the Cimento pursued experimental studies. There were, correspondingly, several links between The Royal Society and natural philosophers in Bologna and Florence.'

In Rome there were neither anatomical nor physiological investigations. Padova, under the more independent governance of Venice, was the most notable centre of such studies, from which its anatomical theatre and its botanical garden still survive. Bologna also, although a papal city, had both an anatomical theatre and a notable collection of natural curiosities, medical and otherwise, of Aldrovandi.

Natural philosophy was, however, by no means defunct in Rome in the decades just before the foundation of The Royal Society. Professors of the Collegio Romano, the Jesuit university, still pursued astronomy, as their predecessors had in Galileo's day.

3 ? 2004 The Royal Society



4 Alan Cook

Jesuits made astronomical and magnetic observations in many places in the course of their worldwide missions. Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit polymath who taught mathematics at the Collegio Romano, used them in his two books on magnetism.2

The court of Queen Christina of Sweden, who lived continuously in Rome from 1664 until her death in 1689, was another centre of natural philosophy. The Queen extended her patronage to the Accademia Fisica-mathematica founded by the papal prelate Giovanni Giustini Ciampini3 in 1678. The astronomical activities of some of the academicians were known in England, and in 1713 one of the younger members, Francesco Bianchini, visited England and was elected into the Fellowship of The Royal Society. The brothers G. and M. Campani, both fellows of the academy, were widely known for their excellent optical instruments; in particular G.D. Cassini and Adrien Auzout were indebted to Giuseppe Campani for long-focal-length lenses that enabled them to make notable discoveries.4

Vesuvius was a great attraction for English visitors, and some went from Rome to Naples to see it and the active sites to the north of Naples. Although at that time Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely hidden, English visitors knew Pliny's account of the great eruption that buried them. Natural philosophers had no narrow concerns in those days, and some English visitors to Rome took a great interest in the archaeological discoveries that were then being made, of both classical and palaeochristian remains.

There were more or less permanant English residents in Rome who were all or almost all Roman Catholics, and many of them seem to have been associated with the Venerable English College. The English visitor to Rome would find himself or herself among com- patriots, and often, protestant and Catholic alike, would be welcome at the College. The flight of James II and the assumption of the throne by William III and Mary II in 1689, the same year as the death of Queen Christina, seem to have weakened relations between England and Rome. The outbreak of the Nine Years War between France and William and his allies made it more difficult to travel across Europe to Rome. The English community in Rome now included many adherents of the exiled Stuarts, despite the reserve with which successive popes regarded James II and his successors. Thus, there seems to have been a break in contacts between The Royal Society and Rome at the end of the seventeenth century, but later, and especially perhaps after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, correspondence and visits resumed. For almost 20 years up to his death in 1739, Sir Thomas Dereham FRS, baronet of West Dereham in Norfolk, resided in Italy from 1718, first in Florence, then in Rome, and maintained a considerable correspondence with The Royal Society, exchanging news of Italian natural philosophy and translating English works into Italian.5

VISITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS

Accounts of travels to Italy by Fellows of The Royal Society, especially before 1689, pro- vide much of the information about Roman science and relations with the Society. John

Evelyn (figure 1) spent about a year in Italy, principally in Venice and Rome, during the Civil Wars before the foundation of The Royal Society. He was in Rome from 4 November 1644 to 25 January 1645 and again, after visiting Naples and Vesuvius, from 13 February to 18 May 1645. His account is in his Diary.6



Rome and The Royal Society, 1660-1740 5

Figure 1. John Evelyn. Copyright C The Royal Society.

John Ray FRS, together with Philip Skippon FRS, Francis Willughby FRS and Nathaniel Bacon, made an extensive tour of Europe from April 1663. They were in Rome from September 1664 to January 1665. Ray was collecting plants not known in England, and he attached a considerable list to his published account of their tour.7 Skippon also left an account, published many years later, that gives more details of the sights they saw and the people they met than does Ray's.8 They went further than any other traveller to

Italy, not only to Naples and Sicily but also to Malta; like Evelyn they visited Vesuvius.



6 Alan Cook

Octaviari Pullein was in Rome in 1680 and gave his impressions of scientific activities in a letter to Robert Hooke FRS.9

Edmond Halley FRS and his friend Robert Nelson FRS spent about two months in Rome in the autumn of 1681, but almost nothing is known of what they did there, nor of whom they met. They did not see Kircher, who had died in December 1680. Halley left at the end of 1681, but Nelson, who met his future wife in Rome, stayed longer.10

Gilbert Burnet FRS, later Bishop of Salisbury, was in Italy in 1686. He wrote his account of his visit in letters to Robert Boyle FRS published in 1687." He met several natural philosophers and others. He also went to Vesuvius. He told Boyle that he found that his friendship with him opened all doors and that Boyle's works were as well known and as esteemed in Italy as in England. He, like Ray, visited Queen Christina. He also saw the new building for the Vatican Library.

G.W. Leibniz FRS was in Rome in April 1689 and again from May to November 1689.12 He had been sent to Italy by the Duke of Brunswick to look for evidence of con- nections between the House of Hanover and the House of Este. He therefore went to Modena, and then on to Rome with the intention of seeing manuscripts in the collection of Queen Christina. The Queen, however, was near death when he arrived in Rome, and shortly after her death her close friend Cardinal Azzolino also died. So Leibniz never met the Queen, nor saw her manuscripts, but he did meet many natural philosophers and other scholars. He also went to Naples and Vesuvius.

Natural philosophy was a minor concern of most travellers, for all that they were Fellows of The Royal Society. They were all far more interested in the remains of the imperial past, familiar to them from their classical education, and in the great churches and splendid palaces that dominated the papal city. The Pantheon was a particular attraction, as it still is, and so were aqueducts, imperial and papal, and the obelisks that had been brought from Egypt. Roman music impressed some of the travellers, who particularly mentioned the performances in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (the Chiesa Nova) and the vocal and instrumental music at the court of Queen Christina. Nonetheless the visitors did meet notable natural philosophers in Rome and in some instances their visits led to further contacts between London and Rome. Their accounts supplement our knowledge of natural philosophy in Rome in the latter half of the seventeenth century.

Visitors who left accounts of their travels were not the only links between Roman and English science. Almost as soon as The Royal Society was founded, the first secretary, Henry Oldenburg, sought correspondents in Italy. In 1684 Flamsteed had a brief correspondence with Ciampini and Bianchini. The most extensive correspondence, however, came later, when Sir Thomas Dereham was living in Italy.

THE 'PAPER MUSEUM' OF CASSIANO DAL Pozzo

Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657) was a member of the household of Cardinal Barberini. He was a notable patron of artists, especially of Nicholas Poussin, who painted the series of the Seven Sacraments and the Mystic Marriage of St Catharine for him. Cassiano had been a fellow of the Academia dei Lincei. As such he had a considerable part in the pub-




Figure 2. The title page of Francisco Hernandez's Thesaurus Mexicana. (From the archives of The Royal Society.)

lication of the Thesaurus Mexicana of Francisco Hernandez'3 (figure 2). Hernandez had

spent some years in Mexico at the end of the sixteenth century and had brought back to

Spain an extensive account of animals and plants of that country. His manuscript was

destroyed in a fire in the Escorial, but not before a copy had been made that came into the hands of Prince Cesi, who resolved to publish it. He did not do so before he died, but his colleagues eventually brought it out in 1651 with additions and annotations. Fabio Colonna added an account of the botanical studies of Cesi, who had been the first to use a microscope (provided by Galileo) to study the structures of plants. John Ray reproduced that account effectively word for word in his Historia Plantarum (figure 3). Did he acquire or see a copy of the Mexican work when he was in Rome?

Cesi's biological studies were original and wide-ranging. Besides his work with the

microscope he developed a system of classification of plants, also added to the Thesaurus Mexicana and reproduced by Ray, and he studied the fossils of trees found on his estates at Acquasparta.14 He published none of his biological works before his early death in

1630, but the additions and notes to the Thesaurus Mexicana give some idea of their

scope and insight. The other source of evidence for Cesi's work is the Museo Carteggio ('Paper Museum') of Cassiano dal Pozzo.

Cassiano devoted a great part of his time and energies and resources to collecting objects that would represent the whole range of human artistic and philosophic achieve- ment. He employed a number of young artists to draw and engrave his collection. The



8 Alan Cook

Figure 3. The title page of John Ray's Historia Plantarum. (From the archives of The Royal Society.)

outcome was his Paper Museum. To that he apparently added the library of Prince Cesi and his collection of instruments, all purchased from Cesi's widow. Among them there

may have been included the drawings that Cesi had had made of his microscopical studies. Cassiano's collections passed into the hands of his brother when he died and later

through various vicissitudes became dispersed. Parts are now to be found in the Royal Library at Windsor, in the Institut de France and in the Medical Library of the University of Montpellier, as well as in sundry private collections.5

Evelyn visited Cassiano on 21 November 1644 and records some of the things he was shown. He mentioned drawings as notable; as a draughtsman himself he was perhaps especially interested in them. Cassiano had died by the time that Ray and his companions were in Rome, but the great collection he had assembled was preserved by his brother, the Cavaliero dal Pozzo, and Skippon left a detailed account of what they saw in the dal Pozzo palace in the via dei Chiavari on 5 January 1665.16 They saw four folios of pictures of plants well done and many pictures of birds on loose sheets. They also saw a pic- ture of a dead dolphin, the same no doubt that is often reproduced in accounts of the

Paper Museum. It may be that Ray already knew the Thesaurus Mexicana before he left on his tour, for there are copies in England. Certainly he knew it well by the time he wrote the Historia Planatarum and it is reasonable to suppose that his visit to the dal Pozzo




Figure 4. The title page of John Evelyn's Sylva. (From the archives of The Royal Society.)

palace would have reinforced any previous idea that he may have had of the importance of Cesi as a predecessor.

About a year before Ray and Skippon left for their excursion, two separate specimens of fossil wood were presented at meetings of The Royal Society, and Evelyn in Sylva (figure 4) and Hooke in Micrographia included accounts of them. They both state that Cassiano sent the specimens to Sir George Ent FRS; almost certainly they came from the

deposits of Aquasparta.'7

ATHANASIUS KIRCHER

Athanasius Kircher was renowned as a polymath, learned in Egyptology, in Chinese stud-

ies, in volcanoes, in astronomy and magnetism, and much else besides.18 He first taught in the Jesuit house in Ingoldstadt where Viscount Brouncker, the first President of The

Royal Society, was one of his students. He was later sent to the Jesuit house in Avignon where he set up a solar observatory in its tower.19 That tower remained in use as an obser-

vatory long after Kircher had left Avignon. It was there most likely that Halley observed an eclipse with Pere Gallet, the provost of St Symphorien, on 29 August 1681 on his way to Italy.20 Kircher was recalled to Austria but difficulties of travel prevented his going, and instead he arrived in Rome and remained at the Collegio Romano until his death in 1680. The cabinet or museum of curiosities that he formed there was famous and any visitor with an interest in natural philosophy in the broadest sense would call to see it.



10 Alan Cook

John Evelyn visited Kircher's museum twice. On 8 November 1644 Kircher himself showed Evelyn and his companion the refectory, dispensary, laboratory and gardens of the Collegio Romano, and in his own study his collections of optical instruments, magnetic experiments, perpetual motion machines and many other models. Evelyn returned on 23 November and heard Kircher expound a part of Euclid. Evelyn also mentions (20 November 1644) Kircher's interpretations of the hieroglyphs on the obelisk in front of the basilica of St John Lateran.21

Skippon and Ray visited Kircher on 19 December 1664. He showed them his gallery with medals, Chinese items, mechanical devices, clepsydras and many magnetic experiments.22

Kircher wrote two books on magnetism (Ars Magnesia of 1631 and Magnes of 1649), in both of which he presented tables of the variation of the magnetic field of the Earth, that is, of the deviation of the horizontal component from the meridian.23 He obtained the material from observations made by Jesuit missionaries in their extensive travels. He also discussed possible maps of the variation, but it does not seem that he constructed any, although he did refer to one supposed to have been drawn up by a Jesuit, Cristofro Borri.24 Robert Boyle and others in England knew his works on magnetism and astronomy. When, some 60 years after the publication of Kircher's books, Halley published his printed chart of the variation over the Atlantic Ocean, he claimed that it was completely new. Halley had arrived in Rome when Kircher had been dead for almost a year, and so could have had only second-hand knowledge of his magnetic studies. Four of Kircher's books were among those sold at his death, but neither of the magnetic ones. It seems that he knew something of Kircher's investigation of the force between magnets by means of a balance, and also of Kircher's model of the Earth's field.25

QUEEN CHRISTINA AND THE ACCADEMIA FISICA-MATHEMATICA

Queen Christina of Sweden was, apart from successive popes, the most prominent resident in Rome from 1664 until her death in 1689. She had abjured the Lutheran confes- sion and converted to Roman Catholicism some years before she took up her final residence in Rome in 1664 in the Palazzo Riario on the via della Lungara in Trastevere. The Palazzo Riario, with the Queen's apartments, is now part of the Palazzo Corsini and the seat of the present Accademia dei Lincei. The Queen possessed an outstanding collection of pictures, statues, medals and books and manuscripts, and was a great patron of music-Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli and Stradella all enjoyed her support. Her interest in natural philosophy, especially astronomy and alchemy, was serious.26 In December 1664 she had G.D. Cassini observe the great comet of that year from the garden of her

palace, herself taking part in the observations and discussing the nature and path of the comet with Cassini and her close friend, Cardinal Azzolino, as Cassini has recounted.27 She subsequently, at Cassini's suggestion, encouraged observations of the satellites of Jupiter, probably also from her garden, although the observatory that she planned was, it seems, never built.28 The priests Cellio and Ponthius first saw the great comet of November 1680 while observing the satellites of Jupiter, perhaps also from the Queen's garden. They probably made their later observations from the palace of the Oratory of




St Philip Neri at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella; those, although rough, were some of the first made as the comet approached the Sun.29 Cassini received particulars of them while Halley was with him in Paris in February 1681, Flamsteed had them from Halley, and he and Newton discussed them in correspondence. Newton included them in his discussion of the orbit of the comet in the first edition of the Principia.

Cellio and Ponthius were members of the Accademia Fisica-mathematica. Academies of various sorts were common in Rome and elsewhere. They were groups of people (almost always men) who met for discussions of literary or artistic topics. Meetings usu- ally began or ended with music. Queen Christina had founded an Accademia Reale, the music for which was often provided by composers whom she patronized, such as Stradella. Evelyn attended a meeting of another academy, the Umoristi, on 17 February 1645, and Ray, in Naples, attended a meeting of virtuosi, the Accademia Investiganti, a philosophic academy, at which he saw an experiment on the capillary rise of water in a narrow tube,30 a topic then of considerable interest in The Royal Society. The Accademia Fisica-mathematica was devoted specifically to physical studies. Mgr G.G. Ciampini, the founder and president, had wide interests in natural philosophy and briefly corresponded with Flamsteed.31 He had a considerable library in which there were English books, among them 17 of the works of Robert Boyle.32 The academicians were few; they enjoyed the patronage of Queen Christina but they do not seem to have had any funds from her. Hooke, in 1680, asked Ottaviari Pullein, then in Rome, for news of Roman science. Pullein told him that, although the members of the academy were lively and enthusiastic, they lacked the support of any prince.33 As the title indicates and the record of their first year shows, they devoted their studies to physical and mathematical matters. The manuscript register of the first year, 1678, drawn up by Girolamo Toschi, hand- somely bound and fulsomely dedicated to Christina, is now in the Vatican Library, but Toschi left Rome shortly afterwards to return to Reggio as archdeacon, and no similar report of later meetings has been found.34 The academicians were mostly in Rome, but there were some from elsewhere, Pere Gallet of Avignon and Adrien Auzout FRS of Paris for example.

Francesco Eschinardi carried on the correspondence of the Academy. A Jesuit, he had been educated at the Collegio Romano and had taught there. At the time of the formation of the Academy and for some years afterwards, he was a professor at the Venerable English College, although apparently he also taught in the Collegio Romano. Halley must have met him in Rome, because he took a letter of his back to Paris for Cassini when he returned there in January 1682.35 Eschinardi sent Cassini in Paris accounts of the comet of 1680/81, and he published a report of the observations.36 Cellio was called the professor of astronomy in the academy and he seems to have been principally responsible for the observations of the comet of 1680/81. Ponthius was at one time secretary of the academy but later left Rome for a bishopric. Another astronomical member was the Abbot Stella. Francesco Bianchini (FRS 1713), a Veronese and pupil of Montanari in Padova, was elected to the academy after he came to Rome.

Ray and Skippon visited Queen Christina in her palace on 28 December 1664. The Queen was in her chamber 'hung with immodest pictures of women', and playing with a little dog, and talking with Cardinal Azzolino and with other visitors. Instrumental and



12 Alan Cook

vocal music was played for two hours. The Queen, Skippon wrote, was crook-backed and her hair was dressed; Skippon also described her dress.37 Christina's renowned collection of pictures was dispersed after her death and some eventually came to England, to the National Gallery, the National Gallery of Scotland and private collections. Two of the 'immodest pictures of women', one of them by Titian, are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Ray and Skippon were in Rome before the foundation of the Accademia Fisica-mathematica, but they did meet G. Campani and saw a clock of his that could be read at night by a light behind the dial. They also met M. Ricci of the Collegio Romano. Skippon records that on 10 December 1664 they saw the great comet, the one observed by Cassini and Queen Christina.38

Besides Eschinardi, Halley no doubt met other academicians, Ciampini especially, and as a visitor already of some renown he would probably have been welcome at the court of Queen Christina. Of such probable associations no record has come to light.

Burnet certainly appreciated his visit to the court of Christina. After commenting on the Roman appetite for news, he wrote:

At the Queen of Sweden's all that relateth to Germany and the North is to be found; and that Princess, that must ever reign among all who have a true taste, either of Wit or of Learning, hath still in her drawing Rooms the best Court of the Strangers; and her Civility, together with the vast variety with which she fumisheth her conversation, maketh her to be the chief of all the living Rarities that one sees in Rome: I will not use her own word to myself which was, That she now grew to be one of the Antiquities of Rome.39

Burnet met several members of the Accademia Fisica-mathematica, among them Bellori who was a scholar of Greek and Egyptian antiquities, Fabretti who studied classical architecture, Fabri who taught philosophy, mathematics and ecclesiatical history at the Collegio Romano, and the Abbot Nazzari who was a philosopher and mathematician and conducted the Giornale di Letterati in which matters of natural philosophy were published. Nazzari corresponded with The Royal Society from time to time.40 Fabretti and Nazzari were with Burnet when the Prince Borghese took him to Frascati. Fabretti and Nazzari also told him of two nuns who changed sex, an account confirmed by Cardinal Howard.

Because the Queen was dying when Leibniz arrived in Rome, he saw neither her nor Cardinal Azzolino. He did, however, often attend meetings of the Accademia Fisica- mathematica and had frequent discussions with Ciampini and other members of the academy. He gave a full list of the members of the Academy, with some particulars of their lives and activities; his account of Ciampini, whom he seems to have come to know well, is extensive. Leibniz made the first presentation of his dynamics to the Academy.41

In addition to visits by Fellows of The Royal Society, the Society learnt of some of the activities of the academy by correspondence. The few letters that Flamsteed and Ciampini exchanged on astronomical matters in 1684 may perhaps have followed from Halley's visit. Bianchini, who wrote to Flamsteed at the behest of Ciampini, gave some particulars of instruments and of activities in the academy. He mentioned the Roman sextant of six feet radius with telescopic sights. When Cellio and Ponthius first detected the comet of 1680/81, Ciampini ordered a sextant with telescopes to be made for the




observations, but it was not ready by the time the comet had disappeared. Bianchini's description would fit that instrument. Bianchini also wrote of the activities and publications of Eschinardi, and of observations by the Abbot Stella.42 Leibniz carried on a considerable correspondence with Bianchini from 1690 to 1713; many of the letters are in the Vallicelliana Library in Rome.43

Sir Thomas Dereham conducted the most extensive Italian correspondence with The Royal Society from about 1720 to 1739. His uncle, the first baronet, who was the British Resident in Florence, brought him up there. From about 1718 he translated some of the publications of The Royal Society and its Fellows into Italian and sent the Society many letters with accounts of Italian science. A group of letters from an agent in London to him in Florence, running from 1721 to 1723, has been preserved in the Vatican library.44 On a visit to England in 1720 he was elected to the Fellowship of The Royal Society. He was then living in Florence, but about 1730 he moved to Rome, where he died in 1739. Sir Thomas was a Roman Catholic and a Jacobite and he was a generous benefactor to the Venerable English College and to other Roman Catholic institutions. His tomb and a monument by the architect Fuga are in the English College.

THE VENERABLE ENGLISH COLLEGE

The forerunner of the Venerable English College was a hostel for English pilgrims founded in the fourteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was run by Jesuits, and trained priests for the Jesuit missions in England in the penal times. Forty students of those years are honoured as martyrs. It seems to have been a centre for English residents in Rome, and welcomed visitors from England. Even protestants, Milton and Evelyn for example, enjoyed the hospitality of the College. Evelyn was invited to the great feast of St Thomas Becket on 29 December 1644, at which cardinals were present and the alumni played a comedy. He visited it again on 18 February 1645, and dined again on Easter Monday, 1 May 1645, with another play.45 Then and at the time of Halley's visit to Rome, the College was something like a college of Cambridge or Oxford. Students lived in the College but attended the lectures of the Collegio Romano. There were about six professors in the College, the rector and others who were spiritual directors and academic tutors, much as in Cambridge or Oxford colleges. They were all Jesuits and with one exception were of English families. The one exception in the 1680s was Halley's acquaintance, Francesco Eschinardi, who was for many years listed in the Jesuit calendar for the Roman Province as a professor at the Venerable English College. Other references indicate that he taught at the Collegio Romano at the same time.46

The fact that Halley met Eschinardi suggests that he visited the Venerable English College. A further circumstance reinforces that idea. The Cardinal Protector of the

College in those years was Cardinal Philip Howard, the Cardinal of Norfolk. Philip Howard (1629-94) was the grandson of Evelyn's friend the Earl of Arundel, who was distressed by Philip's conversion to Roman Catholicism.47 His family attempted without success to prevent his entering the Dominican order. In England he was Almoner to Queen Henrietta and was highly regarded at Court. He was forced to leave England in the years of Titus Oates and devoted himself to the care of an English Dominican foun-



14 Alan Cook

dation in the Low Countries. On being created a cardinal he moved to Rome and had various curial positions, among them Protector of the Venerable English College from 1681 in succession to Cardinal Barberini. He is buried in his titular church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. He, it seems, effected the conversion of Robert Nelson's wife, the widow Theophila Lucy, to the Roman Catholic Church, although she also corresponded with Bossuet. Theophila was already living in Rome with her small son when Nelson and Halley arrived and it was there that Nelson first met her. That suggests that Halley as well as Nelson visited the English College, and that Halley would have encountered Eschinardi both through his astronomical interests and at the English College. Neither Halley nor Nelson is recorded as having visited the English College in the Pilgrims Book of the College, but there are almost no entries for that year, probably because Howard was then having the College rebuilt and also having a palace built for himself on the adja- cent site of the former notorious Savella prison.

Whether Halley met Howard or not, Burnet did. He wrote that he had the same sweet gentle temper for which he was known in England and that he remained a humble friar amid the dignity of the purple. Burnet says that he himself met with the highest civility among all sorts of people, especially the English and Scottish Jesuits (who 'knew him no friend to their order'). He visited the Venerable English College and commented on the pictures of martyrs, some of whom he regarded as traitors.48

VESUVIUS

The curious in England well knew Vesuvius and other Italian volcanoes such as Stromboli and Etna by repute, as they did the active sites in the Campi Flegri to the north of Naples, among them Solfatara, Pozzuoli and Lake Averno. Thus, many English travellers to Rome made the journey to Naples to see those places. In December 1631, after almost 16 centuries of sporadic activity at a low level, and after minor earthquakes such as those that had preceded the eruption of AD 79, Vesuvius erupted. The eruption, though by no means as violent as that of AD 79, did much destruction and has been followed by a period of higher activity continuing up to the present.

Evelyn and his companions went to Vesuvius on 7 February 1645, 14 years after the eruption of 1631. He saw the destruction of the vineyards that had grown up on the very fertile soil of the sides of the mountain and that had produced notable wine. He described the barren landscape of lava, ash and cinders up which they made a very difficult climb to the summit. There they spent some hours gazing in to the crater, still very active with steam, smoke and occasional showers of stones and Evelyn made a number of etchings, including a view into the crater. Vesuvius was much quieter in 1664 when Ray and Skippon went there, and Ray was interested in the plants that grew near the summit. Burnet in 1684 heard of earthquakes that had occurred just about a month before and found the volcano active but with a rich agriculture on its slopes.49

Many Romans had built villas in the region to the north of Naples and they and the works of the naval base at Baiae are well known from classical references. The whole

region shows volcanic activity. The Solfatara in the Campi Flegri are on the floor of a former crater. Today, as in the seventeenth century, steam and flammable vapours emerge




from crevasses, and pools of hot sulphurous mud lie on the surface, while movements of the ground are now monitored from satellite. The vapours had long been thought cura- tive. Pozzuoli by the sea shore is subject to bradyseisms, vertical movements of the surface of some metres, which are revealed by marks of marine animals at various levels on structures such as the so-called Temple of Serapis, actually a market building. Lake Avernus is supposed to reek of fumes that kill birds flying over it, and in the same region there is the Grotta del Cane, or Charon's cave, so-called because travellers such as Evelyn would have dogs driven into it to see them die of the fumes. The remains of the city of Cumae, and the Sybil's Cave are nearby. Evelyn spent some time on 8 February 1645 in that region viewing both the volcanic activity and the many classical sites with which he would have been familiar from Roman literature, some of it mythical. Skippon noted the time taken for various creatures to die in the Grotta del Cane and saw brimstone refined for sale in the Solfatara. Some travellers saw a new hill at the Campi Flegri of about 100 feet, while Burnet noted the changes of sea level (land level actually) at Pozzuoli. Leibniz went to Naples when he found that Queen Christina was dead, and visited Vesuvius, Pozzuoli and the Soltafara, as well as the Grotta del Cane on 8 and 9 May 1689.50

Ray and Skippon, visiting Sicily, saw the Aeolian Islands from afar, among them the volcanoes Stromboli and Volcano, Stromboli aflame at night.51

ANTIQUITIES AND OTHER SIGHTS

Roman remains, real or not, and other antiquities in Britain, pre-Roman or Saxon, excited the interest of a number of Fellows of The Royal Society in the seventeenth century. It is no surprise that English visitors to Rome and Naples should devote much time and atten- tion to what could still be seen of the places and buildings from which the emperors gov- erned the Roman world, and where they and wealthy citizens had their luxurious villas. Visitors were also keen to see the very early Christian churches. Recent buildings impressed them, the relatively new churches of the Counter-Reformation, and the great palaces of cardinals and noble families to which some of them might be invited.52 What they saw in Rome is not so different from that we see today. The Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Baths of Diocletian, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol, the Theatre of Marcellus, they were the outstanding sights. The Forum and the Palatine Hill, tidied up today, were decayed then. Mediaeval buildings obscured the imperial fora and the market of Trajan. Some buildings now hidden might have been more visible. An eyewitness of the burning of Giordano Bruno in 1600 in the Campo de' Fiori, says that it was in front of the Theatre of Pompey, of which only the vaults are now to be seen inside later constructions. A great difference between then and now is that Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas of the Bay of Naples have been uncovered, as have certain villas in Rome itself, so that we see now, as Evelyn and his younger contempo- raries could not, the accomplished and elegant paintings of the early imperial period.

After the burst of construction in sixteenth-century Rome, not much has changed in the centre of the city, with the exception of a few new roads that have been cut through it. The great churches were as we see them now, as were many palaces; indeed, some such as the



16 Alan Cook

Farnese were more accessible to visitors than they are today. It is needless to report what Evelyn and others visited, for it would read much as a modem summary guidebook.

Almost the only thing that it is known that Halley did in Rome was to measure the Roman and Greek feet engraved on a stone tablet on the Capitol. Later, back in England, he used his value of the Roman foot to convert the distances in the Antonine itineraries into English measure and so to identify, for the first time correctly, various Roman sites in Britain.53

Museums and cabinets of curiosities were assembled by many virtuosi in the seventeenth century and were visited by the curious. That of Athanasius Kircher was the most notable of those in Rome, but it was not the only one. Evelyn saw collections of a Signor Angeloni, of Cavaliero (Cassiuno) dal Pozzo that included a library, and of Cavaliero Gualdo. Ray and Skippon, in addition to Kircher's museum, saw the collections of dal Pozzo, of Cavaliero Corvino, of Leonardo Agostino and of Pietro Billori. Leibniz visited the museum of Billori, who was librarian to Queeen Christina.54 There were also collections in Naples; Evelyn saw that of Ferdinando Imperati.55

Evelyn apparently had a very thorough visit to the Vatican and left a description of the Library, and commented that the books were shut up in presses of wainscot. He mentioned a few of the rarer manuscripts that were shown.56 Skippon and Ray also saw the Library, as did Burnet, who discussed ecclesiastical matters with the librarian, Schelstraat. Burnet was impressed by the size of the library, which he estimated was then about half full; he supposed that all the books to be published would never fill it, not a sound prediction. Burnet also deplored the use of fresco by Raphael and others for the great schemes of decoration of the Vatican, for he thought they would not last as well as oil painting, another prediction that would be falsified.57

Another important library in Rome was that of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in their palace next to the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, where Evelyn often went to hear music.

THE ENGLISH IN ROME

The Venerable English College was for centuries the centre of an English community in Rome, which comprised permanent residents, pilgrims, and visitors staying for longer or shorter times. The accounts of Fellows of The Royal Society afford glimpses of that community in the years that they went to Rome. Evelyn seems to have had a particularly wide acquaintance among residents. He speaks of Fathers Courtney and Stafford of the English College as being well known to him. He knew a Benedictine monk and other priests, and two physicians, Dr Matthew Bacon and Dr James Alban Gibbs. Gibbs had a post at a hospital for the poor and orphans that Evelyn refers to as Christ's Hospital but which seems to be the same as the present Ospedale di Santo Spirito. Skippon also met Gibbs and mentioned him as teaching at La Sapienza, the Papal university.58

Evelyn mentions members of noble English families then visiting Rome, and at the time that Halley was in Rome there is a record of the Duke of Norfolk, the nephew of Cardinal Howard, attending mathematical lectures at La Sapienza.59 Skippon records the names of 33 English visitors then in Rome, including Gibbs, and Compton (the future




bishop of London and one of the bishops sent to the Tower of London by James II). Another was a Townly, possibly a relative of the astronomer of the north of England-the Towneleys were a Catholic family.60

CONCLUSION

Natural Philosophy in Rome, indeed in Europe, may be thought to have begun with the foundation of the Accademia dei Lincei by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603. Not long afterwards, Galileo made his first remarkable discoveries with the telescope and was elected to the Lincei in 1611. Galileo also constructed a primitive microscope and presented one to Cesi. He and Stelluti used it to study bees and other insects and fossil wood. Cesi also made an attempt to classify a great store of botanical material from Mexico. Cesi was in some respects the forerunner of microscopists such as Leeuwenhoek, Hooke and Nathaniel Grew, and of Ray as a systematizer. Ray quoted the works of Cesi in his Historia Plantarum. The early death of Cesi, and the condemnation of Galileo that soon followed, restricted natural philosophy in Rome, but some enquiries that did not seem to have theological implications could be pursued. Athanasius Kircher pursued observa- tional astronomy from his years in Avignon, and his two important books on magnetism that showed he was well aware of the discoveries of William Gilbert and Henry Gellibrand in England. When Queen Christina of Sweden moved to Rome she was able to encourage a modest revival of scientific activity, especially through her acquaintance with G.D. Cassini and the formation of the Accademia Fysica-mathematica. Roman science nevertheless declined from the distinction it had when Galileo was developing physics and Prince Cesi was showing the way for the new biology. Even so, there was much to reward the English scientific visitor to Rome in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, despite the fact that most notable natural philosophy in Italy was elsewhere, in Bologna, Venice and Florence.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

A grant from the Parliamentary Grant-in-aid to The Royal Society contributed to my trav- elling expenses.

REFERENCES

1 For Federico Cesi, see Dictionary ofscientific biography, vol. 3, pp. 179-180 (Charles Scribner's

Sons, New York, 1971); M. Cavazza, 'The Institute of Science of Bologna and the Royal Society in the eighteenth century', Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 56, 3-25 (2002); Marco Beretta, 'At the source of Western Science: the organization of experimentalism at the Accademia del Cimento', Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 54, 131-151 (2000).

2 Kircher, A., Ars Magnesia (Wiirtzburg, 1631) and Magnes sive de arte magnesia (Roma, 1649). 3 Giovanni Giustini Ciampini (1635-1698)-see Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 25,

136-142 (Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 1981). 4 Giuseppe Campani (1635-1715)-see Dictionary of scientific biography, vol. 3, p. 23 (Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York, 1971).



18 Alan Cook

5 For the Dereham baronetage and Sir Thomas's family, see Complete baronetage (ed. 'G.E.C.'), vol. III, p. 207 (William Pollard & Co., Exeter, 1903).

6 The diary of John Evelyn (ed. J.S. de Beer), vol. 2 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1955). References to the Diary in subsequent notes are in the form E followed by page numbers.

7 Ray, John 1673, Observations topographical physiological and moral... (London) (499 pages), and Catalogus Stirpium (115 pages). References to these works in subsequent notes are in the form R followed by page numbers.

8 Skippon, Philip, 'An account of a journey through part of the Low Countries, Germany, Italy and France', in A collection of voyages and travels (A. and J. Churchill, London, 1732), pp. 361-736 and index. References to this work in subsequent notes are in the form S followed by page numbers.

9 Pullein to Hooke, Royal Society, Letter Book Copy, vol. 8, May 1680, pp. 165-169; also 28 May, pp. 170-175 and 5 November, pp. 202-201.

10 See Alan Cook, Edmond Halley, charting the heavens and the seas (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998), pp. 120-124.

11 Burnet, Gilbert, Some letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in travel-

ling through Switzerland, Italy ... in the years 1685 and 1686, written by G. Burnet DD to the Honble R B., 2nd edn (Rotterdam, 1687) (335 pages). References to this work in subsequent notes are in the form B followed by page numbers.

12 Robinet, Andre, 'G.W. Leibniz', Iter Italicam (Mars 1689-Mars 1690). La dynamique de la Republique des Lettres. Nombreux textes ine'dites. Studi xc (Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere, 'La Colombaria', Firenze, 1988). References to this work in subsequent notes are in the form L followed by page numbers.

13 Hernandez, Francisco et al., Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus seu plantarium, ani- malium, mineralium Mexicanoram Historia (Roma, 1651).

14 For recent accounts of the biological studies of Federico Cesi, see the following contributions to

Convegno celebrativo del IV centenario della nascita di Federico Cesi (Acquasparta, 7-9 otto- bre 1985) Atti dei Convegni Lincei 78 (Academia dei Lincei, Roma, 1986); Pignatti, S. and Mazzolin, G., 'Federico Cesi Botanico', pp. 212-223; Baccetti, B., 'I1 posto di Federico Cesi nella storia dell zoologia', pp. 225-229; Piazza, Enrica S., 'Teoria e sperimentazione nell'Apiario di Federico Cesi', pp. 231-249; De Angelis, G. and Lanzara, Paola, 'La Syntaxis Plantaria di Federico Cesi nei codici di Parigi: la nascita della microscopia vegetale', pp. 251-276 and tables I-IV.

15 See Haskell, F. and McBumey, Henrietta, 'The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo', Visual Resources 14, 1-17 (1998).

16. E, 277; S, 679-680. 17 (Fossil wood) Birch, T., History of The Royal Society, vol. I, 1663 May 20, p. 244; May 27, pp.

247 and 248; June 17, pp. 260-262; 1663 December 23, p. 347; December 30, p. 350; 1664

January 20, p. 370. Evelyn, John, Sylva (London, 1664), pp. 95-97. Hooke, Robert, Micrographia (London, 1665), pp. 105-107.

18 Athanasius Kircher (1602-80)-see Dictionary of scientific biography, vol. 7, pp. 374-378

(Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973). 19 Kircher, A., Primitiae Gnomonicae Catoptricae (Avignon, 1635). The observatory is in the Tour

de la Motte of the former Jesuit house in Avignon. 20 Cook, loc. cit. (note 10), p. 119. 21 E, 230, 282-283, 270. 22 S, 672-673. 23 See note 2. 24 Kircher, A., Magnes (1641) (note 2), pp. 502, 503; also Cook, Alan, 'Edmond Halley and the

magnetic field of the Earth', Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 55, 473-490 (2001). 25 Cook, loc. cit. (note 10), pp.282, 283. 26 Of the many works on Christina and her life in Rome, see in relation to this paper Akerman,




Susanna, Queen Christina of Sweden and her circle, the transformation of a seventeenth century philosophical libertine (Brill, Leiden, 1991).

27 Cassini, Anna, Gio Domenico Cassini, Uno scienziato del Seicento (Perinaldo, 1994), pp. 110-112, quoting letter of Cassini (1664) in the Biblioteca nazionale, Firenze, Galileiano 272, c.40.

28 Archivio di Stata di Roma, Archivi Cartari-Febeii, Busta 66, p. 177v. 29 The Roman observations of the comet of 1680 were published in several places, for example,

Giornale di Letterati (Tinassi, Roma, 1681), pp. 29-31, 45; Newton refers to them in vol. 3 of the Principia.

30 E, 364; S, 607. 31 For Ciampini's correspondence with Flamsteed, see The correspondence of John Flamsteed (ed.

E.G. Forbes, L. Murdin and Frances Willmoth), vol. 2 (Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, 1997), letters 526, 529, 539.

32 Indexes of Ciampini's library: Vatican Library, MS Vat.Lat. 12628-12630. 33 See note 9. 34 Registro delle Azzioni Academichefatte nell'Academia dell'esperienze Naturali Filosofiche e

Matematiche. La Parte Prima d'elle tenute nell anno 1678 Adunata et ordinate dal Segretario G. T Archidiacono di Reggio. Vatican Library. MS Ottoboni Lat. 3051; L, 47.

35 See 'Eschinardi, Francesco (1623-1703)', Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 43, pp. 273 and 274 (Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 1993); for Eschinardi's posts, see Jesuit Archives (ARSI) Roma 88, 94. For Halley's acquaintance with Eschinardi, see Cook loc. cit.

(note 10), p. 122. 36 Eschinardi, F., Discorsofatto nell'Accademiafisicomatematica, il 5 genn. 1681 sopra la Cometa

novamente apparsa (Roma, 1681). 37 S, 676. 38 S, 669; see note 22. 39 B, 236. 40 B, 230, 231; Nazzari's correspondence with the Royal Society is Early Letters at EL. n. 41 L, 42 et seq., 49. 42 Bianchini to Flamsteed, The Correspondence of John Flamsteed (loc. cit., note 31) vol. 2, letter

539. 43 L, 56; Biblioteca Vallicelliana, MS Bianchini, U 16. 44 Letters of Dereham are in the Royal Society, Letter Book Copy, vol. 18 onwards; see also

Cavazza; loc. cit. (note 1); letters to Dereham from London, 1721-23, in Vatican Library, Borg. Lat. 880, ff. 250-296.

45 E, 291, 365, 388. 46 Eschinardi in Venerable English College, see note 30; Bianchini to Flamsteed, see note 37;

Robert Stafford, Rector 1641-1645, E, 365. 47 E, 479. 48 B, 231, 244. 49 E, 332-351; for Evelyn's etchings, E, 335, nn. 3,4; R, 275; S, 594; B, 212,213. 50 E, 336-342; R, 271-275; S, 598; L, 24,25. 51 R, 278. 52 B, 230,231; Evelyn invitations on Easter Monday, E, 388,389; attendance at a Consistory, E, 391. 53 Cook, loc. cit. (note 10), pp. 201, 202. 54 See note 16 for Evelyn; for Ray and Skippon, S, 678, 681, 682; for Leibniz, L, 52. 55 For Evelyn in Naples, E, 330. 56 E, 290-302. 57 B, 223, 226. 58 E, 311, 312. 59 Archivio di Stata di Roma, Archivi Cartari-Febeii, Busta 66, f. 347. 60 S, 650.



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Rome and the Royal Society, 1660-1740