Abstract
The first Renaissance academies developed around the middle of the fifteenth century and had a primarily encyclopedic character. The main trait of the knowledge cultivated in their first phase was the revival of the classical culture. On the one hand they, fostered a renewed interest especially in Platonic philosophy, and on the other hand they cultivated the dream of a somewhat all-embracing knowledge.
Vernacular literature, liberal arts, music, mathematics, and the study of nature were all parts, within the fifteenth to sixteenth-century academies, of a wider landscape of interests.
It is exactly this tension and strife towards a unifying and organic picture of knowledge that threatens any attempt at formulating a classification of themes and contents that were addresses by the first renaissance academies.
The question of the scientific academy in the Renaissance should thus be posed and defined considering on the one hand the relation with the wider academic phenomenology and on the other hand with the birth and rise of the “new science,” in particular when it comes to the very process that science underwent in order to be autonomous from an organic and homogeneous view of knowledge, a view that was exactly the hallmark of that model in which the academies were born.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Primary Literature
Cesi, Federico. 2001. Lynceographum: quo norma studiosae vitae Lynceorum philosophorum exponitur, ed. A. Nicolò. Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Cesi, Federico. 1616. Discorso del natural desiderio di sapere. In Opere scelte, eds. C. Vinti and A. Allegra. Perugia: Fabrizio Fabbri Editore. 2003.
Della Porta, Giambattista. 1589. Magia Naturalis, 2nd ed. Naples: Horatius Salvianus.
Ruscelli, Girolamo. 1567. Secreti nuovi di maravigliosa virtù. Venice: eredi di Marchiò Sessa.
Taegio, Bartolomeno. 1571. Il Liceo. Milan: Appresso Pietro & Francesco Tini.
Secondary Literature
Biagioli, Mario. 1996. Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability in seventeenth-century science. Critical Inquiry 22(2): 193–238.
Bohem, Letizia, and Ezio Raimondi (eds.). 1981. Università, Accademie e Società Scientifiche in Italia e in Germania dal Cinquecento al Settecento. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Boschiero, Luciano. 2007. Experiment and natural philosophy in seventeenth-century Tuscany. The history of the Accademia del Cimento. Dordrecht: Springer.
Brown, Harcourt. 1967. Scientific organizations in seventeenth-century France, 1620–1689. New York: Russell & Russell. (1. ed.: The Williams and Wilkins Company, Baltimore 1934).
Burke, Peter. 1986. The Italian renaissance: Culture and society in Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cochrane, E. (ed.). 1970. The Late Italian renaissance, 1525–1630. London: Macmillan.
Eamon, William. 1996. Science and the secrets of nature: Books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Eamon, William, and Paheau Françoise. 1984. The Accademia Segreta of Girolamo Ruscelli: A sixteenth-century Italian scientific society. Isis 75(2): 327–342.
Galluzzi, Paolo. 2014. Libertà di filosofare in Naturalibus. I mondi paralleli di Cesi e Galileo. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Garin, Eugenio. 1992. Fra ‘500 e ‘600: scienze nuove, meodi nuovi, nuove accademie. In L’Accademia dei Lincei e la cultura europea nel XVII secolo: manoscritti, libri, incisioni, strumenti scientifici, ed. A.M. Capecchi, C. Forni Montagna, and P. Galluzzi. Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Hall, Marie Boas. 1962. The scientific renaissance, 1450–1630. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Maylender, Michele. 1926–1930. Storia delle accademie d’Italia, vol. 5. Bologna: Cappelli.
McClellan, James E. 1985. Science reorganized: Scientific societies in the eighteenth century, Ch. II: “Origins: Scientific societies in the seventeenth century”, 41–66. New York: Columbia University Press.
McNeely, Ian F. 2009. The renaissance academies between science and the humanities. Configurations 17(3): 227–258.
Middleton, Knowles W.E. 1971. The experimenters: A study of the Accademia del Cimento. Baltimore/London: John Hopkins Press.
Moran, Bruce T. (ed.). 1991. Patronage and institutions: Science, technology, and medicine at the European court. Rochester: Boydell.
Rossi, Paolo. 1988. Le istituzioni e le immagini della scienza. In Storia della scienza moderna e contemporanea, ed. Paolo Rossi. Turin: UTET. 5 v.; v. I.
Waźbiński, Zygmunt. 1987. L’Accademia medicea del disegno a Firenze nel Cinquecento. Florence: L.S. Olschki.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
Giannini, G. (2015). Scientific Academies. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_79-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_79-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Scientific Academies in the Renaissance- Published:
- 06 April 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_79-2
-
Original
Scientific Academies- Published:
- 28 November 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_79-1