At the source of Western science: The organization of experimentalism at the Accademia del Cimento (1657–1667)

Abstract

The Accademia del Cimento, founded by the Medici princes, Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his brother, Leopoldo, later Cardinal, had members and programmes of research very different from earlier academies in Italy. The Cimento foreshadowed later European academies and institutions specifically devoted to research and improvement of natural knowledge. It issued only one publication, the Saggi di naturali esperienze, and most of the observations and experimental results from its brief life remain unpublished. The Roman Accademia fisica-matematica, associated with Queen Christina of Sweden, continued to some extent its emphasis on experiment, while The Royal Society, with which it maintained links, placed even greater reliance on experiment and its validation through unvarnished publication. Comparisons between the Cimento and its contemporaries, The Royal Society and the French academy, illuminate the origin of scientific institutions in the early modern period.

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