Natural Philosophical Contention Inside the Accademia del Cimento: the Properties and Effects of Heat and Cold

Abstract

Although historians have often believed that the Accademia del Cimento (1657–67) was as an exemplar of early modern experimental science, study of its unpublished letters and manuscripts reveals a different story. Instead of devoting themselves to the practice of an experimental method, the Cimento academicians seemed dedicated only to constructing experiments that could be interpreted in favour of their natural philosophical aims and interests. For example, their experiments pertaining to the properties and effects of heat and cold show an institution split between the Aristotelian beliefs of two of its members, and the mechanistic commitments of others in the group, including the patron, Prince Leopoldo de'Medici.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to those who have commented on the arguments presented in this paper and to those who have assisted me in my research on the Accademia del Cimento. They include John Schuster, David Miller, Katherine Neal, Paolo Galluzzi and the staff at the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence, as well as the library staff from the rare books and manuscripts section of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Thanks are also due to the referees from Annals of Science who kindly nominated this paper as the winner of the Annals of Science Prize for 2002 and who have made valuable contributions to the final version of the paper.

Notes

¹For a cultural history of the Cimento's establishment see J. Tribby, ‘Dante's Restaurant: the cultural work of experiment in early modern Tuscany’, The Consumption of Culture. 1600–1800, edited by A. Bermingham and J. Brewer (London, 1991), 319–36; M. Biagioli, ‘Scientific revolution, social bricolage, and etiquette’, The Scientific Revolution in National Context, edited by Roy Porter and Mikalus Teich (New York, 1992), 11–54; P. Findlen, ‘Controlling the experiment: rhetoric, court patronage and the experimental method of Francesco Redi’, History of Science, 31 (1993), 35–64.

²All references to the Saggi are from its publication in Giorgio Abetti and Pietro Pagnini (editors), Le Opere dei Discepoli di Galileo Galilei. Edizione Nazionale. I. L'Accademia del Cimento. Parte Prima (Florence, 1942). The unpublished Cimento diary can be found amongst the Galilean manuscripts held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF) in the folio labelled Gal. 262.

³For a historical analysis of the term ‘physico‐mathematics’, see Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500–1700 (Princeton, New Jesey, 2001).

⁴Paolo Galluzzi, ‘L'Accademia del Cimento: ‘gusti’ del principe, filosofia e ideologia dell'esperimento’, Quaderni Storici, 48 (1981), 788–844.

⁵Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, Illinois, 1995); John A. Schuster and Alan B. H. Taylor, ‘Blind trust: the gentlemanly origins of experimental science’, Social Studies of Science, 27 (1997), 1–34; John Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (London, 1997); Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England (Chicago, Illinois, 1994).

⁶W. E. Knowles Middleton, The Experimenters: a Study of the Accademia del Cimento (Baltimore, Maryland, 1971), 270–1.

⁷Stillman Drake, Cause, Experiment and Science: a Galilean Dialogue Incorporating a New English Translation of Galileo's ‘Bodies That Stay Atop Water or Move in It’ (Chicago, Illinois, 1981), xvi–xvii.

⁸Charles B. Schmitt, ‘Experimental evidence for and against a void: the sixteenth‐century arguments’, Isis, 58 (1967), 352–6 (357).

⁹Neil C. Van Deusen, Telesio: the First of the Moderns (New York, 1932), 10–13; J. Henry, ‘Patrizi's concept of space and its later influence’, Annals of Science, 36 (1979), 549–75 (563).

¹⁰It should be noted that, although they were neo‐Platonists and atomists, Telesio and Patrizi still referred to the effects of heat and cold in qualitative terms. That is, although heat and cold are corpuscles, they still act as qualities that bodies possess and react to.

¹¹Lorenzo Magalotti, Saggi di Naturali Esperienze Fatte nell'Accademia del Cimento Sotto la Protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana (Florence, 1667), 162; all translations of passages from the Saggi are by W.E. Knowles Middleton, The Experimenters: a Study of the Accademia del Cimento (Baltimore, Maryland, 1971), 168.

¹²Henry (note 9), 567.

¹³Margaret J. Osler, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy (Cambridge, 1994), 191–5.

¹⁴Barry Brundell, Pierre Gassendi: From Aristotelianism to a New Natural Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1987), 52.

¹⁵Despite Gassendi's mechanistic aims, he too could not avoid referring to the effects of atoms in qualitative terms, much like Telesio and Patrizi (see note 10). Gassendi was concerned that, while so‐called primary qualities identified in corpuscles can be given mechanical interpretations, they are also unavoidably responsible for how they effect our senses. Heat and cold are perceived by humans, meaning that they are also qualities being carried by the corpuscles. This is why Gassendi's atomism was still quite qualitative; while attempting to refute Aristotelian elemental qualitites, he simply established in its place atomistic qualities and, in the case of the freezing process of water, even agreed with scholastics about the condensing power of cold. M. Grilli and F. Sebastiani, ‘Le origini della fisica del calore: le teorie sulla natura del calore da Galileo a Newton,’ Physis, 24 (1982), 301–56 (323–4).

¹⁷Galileo Galilei, ‘Discorso al Serenissimo Don Cosimo II, Gran Duca di Toscana, intorno alle cose che stanno in su l'acqua o che in quella si muovono’, Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, edited by Antonio Favaro, 20 vols (Florence, 1890), IV, 65; as translated by S. Drake (note 7), 22.

¹⁶Drake (note 7), xvi; Gianni Bonera, Galileo Oggi (Pavia, 1995), 89.

¹⁸Galilei (note 17), 66; as translated by Drake (note 7), 23.

¹⁹Bonera (note 16), 90.

²⁰It is worth noting that, unlike Gassendi, Galileo did not believe in the existence of cold atoms, preferring instead to claim that cold was merely caused by the absence of hot atoms. This is important since, as we shall see later, it was precisely the position adopted by Borelli in 1657. Grilli and Sebastiani (note 15), 312–3.

²¹Ibid., 309–13.

²²Again, despite the impression that Galileo was constructing a natural philosophy based purely on a mechanistic corpuscularianism, we may still be critical of his treatment of qualities, since he insists that the creation of heat, caused by the rapidly moving corpuscles, can even convert particles of other substances into heat. Grilli and Sebastiani (note 15), 311–2; E. J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanisation of the World Picture, translated by C. Dikshoorn (Oxford, 1969), 424. That is to say that Galileo faced much the same problem as Gassendi when trying to formulate a mechanical atomism; they both unavoidably incorporated Aristotelian qualities into their atomistic philosophy.

²³Favaro (note 17), 96. Galileo Galilei, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences Pertaining to Mechanics and Local Motion, translated by S. Drake (Madison, 1974), 57. See also Dijksterhuis (note 22), 422.

²⁴R. H. Naylor, ‘Galileo's experimental discourse’, The Uses of Experiment: Studies in Natural Science, edited by David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (London, 1990), 117–34 (124). See also M. Clavelin, The Natural Philosophy of Galileo: Essay on the Origins and Formation of Classical Mechanics, translated by A. J. Pomerans (Cambridge, 1974), 24; Alexandre Koyré, The Astronomical Revolution, translated by R. E. W. Maddison (London, 1980), 470; Thomas B. Settle, ‘Galileo's use of experiment as tool of investigation’, Galileo: Man of Science, edited by Ernan McMullin (New York, 1967).

²⁵The use of salt and other substances to increase the freezing power of the ice led the academicians to label all their experiments performed this way as examples of ‘artificial freezing’.

²⁶BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 29v. All translations of the Cimento's published and unpublished letters and manuscripts are my own, unless otherwise stated.

²⁷Magalotti (note 11), 164; Middleton (note 6), 169.

²⁸BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, ff. 29r–30v.

²⁹Magalotti's draft, as well as the editorial notes that Viviani, Borelli and Rinaldini composed, have been published by Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 280–348.

³⁰Ibid., 333.

³¹Magalotti (note 11), 172. This experiment seems never to have been recorded in the Cimento's diary, or in the first draft of the Saggi. It only appeared in the final published version of the text, which could lead us to believe that the experiment was performed after July 1662, following Magalotti's completion of the first draft of the Saggi.

³²Ibid., 172.

³³Ibid., 173.

³⁴Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 334.

³⁵Here we may be able to utilize the work by some twentieth‐century sociologists of scientific knowledge to illustrate the social negotiation of the efficacy of this experiment. In this case the academicians were not only using static mechanics to measure a dynamic force, which is the force of expanding water, but the success of their experiments also depended upon what they all agreed and negotiated as being reasonable grounds for assuming that the results were correct. See H. M. Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London, Beverly Hills, New Delhi, 1985), 5–28. This means that the academicians argued that the dead weight equalled the force of expansion of freezing water, on the basis of what they generally believed to be correct parameters for measuring natural phenomena. This is how they negotiated whether a static weight is the same as a dynamic force, because they were the accepted modes of thought for many seventeenth‐century mechanists.

³⁶Middleton (note 6), 173.

³⁷According to Targioni‐Tozzetti, Viviani performed the experiment on 7 November 1660. Giovanni Targioni‐Tozzetti, Notizie degli Aggrandamenti delle Scienze Fisiche Accaduti in Toscana nel Corso di Anni LX del Secolo XVII Raccolte dal Dotttor. Gio. Targioni Tazzetti, 3 vols (Florence, 1780), I, 426.

³⁸BNCF, Ms. Gal. 267, f. 21v; Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 334.

³⁹Magalotti (note 11), 174; Middleton (note 6), 179.

⁴⁰BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 136r.

⁴¹BNCF, Ms. Gal. 263, f. 50r; Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 389.

⁴²BNCF, Ms. Gal. 263, ff. 50r–51r; Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 389–90.

⁴³Magalotti (note 11), 182–93.

⁴⁴Ibid., 186, 204.

⁴⁵Ibid., 272.

⁴⁶Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 334.

⁴⁷Ibid., 334–5.

⁴⁸BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 132v.

⁴⁹Dear (note 5), 180–208. Dear emphasizes Pascal's use of ‘universal claims' or ‘generalizations' to attempt to demonstrate that Pascal and most of his contemporaries in the mid seventeenth century had still not adopted the ‘modern’ ‘scientific’ inductive practice of performing experiments repeatedly. This historiographical approach seemingly ignores how experiments of all types are laden with theoretical skills and commitments, as is being argued in this paper. However, regardless of the merits or shortcomings of Dear's position, it cannot be denied that he still provides an excellent account of the mathematical skills adopted in the study of physical phenomena throughout Europe during the scientific revolution. It is this aspect of Dear's argument that interests us most.

⁵⁰Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 390.

⁵³Magalotti (note 11), 204; Middleton (note 2), 207.

⁵¹It was traditionally thought that a body possessing a quality such as heat could at times be surrounded by a body bearing the opposite quality, cold, and made to intensify. According to scholastics, in such an occasion the water's sudden initial movement, the ‘jump upon immersion’, was therefore a result of it being surrounded by the quality of either heat or cold. This effect was referred to as antiperistasis.

⁵²Magalotti (note 11), 204; Middleton (note 2), 206.

⁵⁴BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 47r.

⁵⁵However, it is also clear from this citation that the Cimento still employed a qualitative atomism. That is, while the ‘corpuscles of fire’ act mechanically when they penetrate the glass owing to their shape and movement, they still seem to be bearing the quality of heat. This was not stated explicitly by Magalotti, but there appears to be an ambiguity in the theoretical framing of the academicians' work on the effects of heat and cold, as presented in this passage, that suggests a belief in qualitative atomism. In particular, in the latter part of the passage, Magalotti mentioned how the corpuscles penetrating the glass take effect on the volume of the container before the ‘new cold’ reaches the liquid. This clearly assumes that cold and heat are also properties of those invading corpuscles. In other words, just like Gassendi and Galileo, the academicians attempted to construct a philosophy consisting of the pure mechanical properties and movements of atoms. Yet in their efforts to present this philosophy in their work on heat and cold, they could not avoid referring to the existence of qualities and their role in the freezing and heating processes. This is not to suggest that the academicians were still purposefully hanging to the remnants of Aristotelian ontology, but rather that, in their ambiguous utterances concerned with the atomistic properties of heat and cold, they simply fell short of being what we might consider pure mechanists dealing only with primary qualities. It should be noted that, with regard to the main argument of this paper, this did not stop them from pursuing a physico‐mathematical, mechanical and anti‐Aristotelian natural philosophy.

⁵⁶BNCF, Ms. Gal. 283, f. 14r; Galluzzi (note 4), 811. Borelli also referred to this letter, apparently written sometime in October, in his editorial notes for the Saggi. Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 335.

⁵⁷BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 47r.

⁵⁸‘Ambedue le sperienze, fatte da V.A.Sma per evidentemente convincere, che i corpi focosi dilatano il vaso del vetro, e la privazione di essi lo ristringe, mi hanno pavuto tanto belle, gentili, et accommodante al bisogno, che mi parrebbe peccato a non le lodare e massimamente commendare, come esse meritano, non sapendo trovare encomi sufficienti per celebrare il generosissimo Mecenate, Promotore, et Autore di una Accademia tanto utile e necessaria per l'acquisto della vera Filosofia. BNCF, Ms. Gal. 275, f. 84r; Targioni‐Tozzetti (note 37), 404–5.

⁶¹BNCF, Ms. Gal. 275, f. 82v. As translated by W. E. Knowles Middleton, ‘Carlo Rinaldini and the discovery of the convection in air’, Physis, 10 (1968), 299–305 (302).

⁵⁹BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, f. 31v.

⁶⁰BNCF, Ms. Gal. 262, ff. 31v–32r.

⁶²BNCF, Ms. Gal. 275, ff. 83r–v.

⁶³Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 390–1. As translated by Middleton (note 62), 303.

⁶⁵Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 390–1. As translated by Middleton (note 62), 303. In any case, the mechanists' own explanation of what occurred with the thermometers actually did not deny the scholastic notion of positive levity. In other words, as Middleton points out, they did not consider ‘that the postulated upward motion of their particles of heat was a variant of the Peripatetic dogma of the positive lightness of fire’. Middleton (note 61), 305.

⁶⁴Although the repetition of the experiment was never recorded in the diary, we may conjecture that this document may have been written in November 1657, after Rinaldini's communication with the Prince and his insistence that the experiment be repeated.

⁶⁷BNCF, Ms. Gal. 275, f. 84v.

⁶⁶BNCF, Ms. Gal. 283, f. 14r; Galluzzi (note 4), 811.

⁶⁸Magalotti (note 11), 207–8.

⁶⁹For a brief summary and excellent analysis of the correspondence between Viviani and Rinaldini, as well as the letters by Borelli and Leopoldo, see Galluzzi (note 4), 812–3.

⁷⁰It is not known exactly when Leopoldo performed this experiment. While it is described in the diary between the entries for 7 September 1658 and 20 May 1660, no date for the experiment is given. Nevertheless, judging by when Borelli wrote what appears to be a response to this experiment, we may be willing to believe that it was indeed performed in September 1658.

⁷³BNCF, Ms. Gal. 263, f. 59r; Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 392.

⁷¹Magalotti (note 11), 252.

⁷²This is where this experiment is attributed to Leopoldo. ‘L'autore di questa esperienza fu il S.mo Principe Leopoldo’. BNCF, Ms. Gal. 263, ff. 59r–60r; Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 392.

⁷⁴This link between the corpuscularian beliefs of Galileo and the Cimento is also noted by Grilli and Sebastiani (note 15), 326.

⁷⁵Galluzzi (note 4), 816.

⁷⁶Borelli was in Rome during this time collaborating on the translation of recently rediscovered lost books of Apollonius' Conics. The Cimento's meetings were suspended during this time.

⁷⁷Abetti and Pagnini (note 2), 412.

⁷⁸Ibid.

⁷⁹Ibid., 414.

⁸⁰This text was entitled Contro il Freddo Positivo. See Galluzzi (note 4), 817–8.

⁸¹Ibid., 818.

⁸²John A. Schuster and Richard R. Yeo (editors), The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method (Dordrecht, 1986), 35.

⁸³T. Sprat, History of the Royal Society (London, 1667). As cited by P. Dear, ‘Totius in verba: rhetoric and authority in the early Royal Society’, Isis, 76 (1985), 152.

⁸⁴Ibid., 154.