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The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence 1657 by students of Galileo, Evangelista Torricelli and Vincenzo Viviani. The foundation of Academy was funded by Prince Leopoldo and Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici. Giovanni Borelli and Nicolaus Steno were also members. The tenets of the society included1:
- Experimentation (about everything, in this early period of science)
- Avoidance of speculation
- Creation of laboratory instruments
- Standards of measurement
- A publication Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'Academia del cimento Florence started 1666, later translated into Latin in 1731. It became the standard laboratory manual in the 1700s.
While there was no formal procedure for joining the society, Francesco Redi, Lorenzo Magalotti (the Secretary), Vincenzo Viviani, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Carlo Renaldini, and others regularly attended its meetings. These were usually held in the Palazzo Pitti. Members performed numerous experiments, mainly in the fields of thermometry, barometry, and pneumatics, using purpose-built instruments; the academy's motto, "Provando e riprovando" is intentionally ambiguous and can be translated either as "trying and trying again" or "experimenting and confirming".
The academy was discontinued after ten years.
External links
- Notes on the history of Accademia del Cimento from the Scholarly Societies Project, University of Waterloo Libraries -- includes information about the Academy's publications.
Notes
Note 1: pp. 17-18, Leonard C. Bruno 1989, The Landmarks of Science. First editions from the collections of the Library of Congress. ISBN 0-8160-2137-6
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