Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences

Nel 1796-1797 Venturi trascrisse a Parigi numerosi brani dei manoscritti leonardiani, appena giunti da Milano in conseguenza delle requisizioni napoleoniche, e tempestivamente pubblicò (1797) l’Essai su Leonardo da Vinci dove si rivendicava all’artista toscano la nuova immagine di promotore di prima grandezza della scienza moderna. Nella prima parte di questo articolo si mostra che Venturi era ben attrezzato per discutere della biografia di Leonardo e per analizzare i testi e i disegni leonardiani sul moto delle acque. Le notizie biografiche dell’Essai, in genere esatte, erano in parte frutto di una tradizione storiografica erudita il cui cardine era costituito dalla prova documentaria. Gli esperimenti idraulici eseguiti a Modena attorno al 1791 furono a loro volta al centro delle Recherches expérimentales, anch’esse pubblicate a Parigi nel 1797. Non mancano inoltre possibili punti di contatto tra quest’opera di Venturi e le sue trascrizioni dei codici di Leonardo. Le trascrizioni parigine erano volte, secondo il progetto originario, a pubblicare dei trattati su quanto Leonardo aveva scritto sulle scienze. Solo successivamente Venturi venne a conoscenza del codice barberiniano in cui L. M. Arconati aveva raccolto e ordinato, in forma di trattato, testi e disegni di Leonardo sul moto delle acque. Fondandosi su una copia di questo trattato, ma accettandone solo in parte i testi dei capitoli e la distribuzione delle materie, egli compilò il manoscritto Leon.o Vinci. Dell’acqua ancor oggi inedito. Alcune delle correzioni e aggiunte al testo arconatiano sono discusse nella seconda parte di questo articolo per mettere in evidenza l’approccio e il metodo di lavoro di Venturi.

Giovanni Battista Venturi and the Unpublished Manuscript «Leon.o Vinci. Dell’acqua»

In 1796-1797, G. B. Venturi transcribed a number of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts, which had just arrived in Paris from Milan as part of Napoleon’s requisitions, and promptly published (in 1797) an Essai on Leonardo where he proclaimed him a promoter of modern science of the first rank. As it is shown in the first part of this article, Venturi was well equipped to discuss Leonardo’s biography and to analyze his texts and drawings on the motion of water. The biographical details of Leonardo’s life in the Essai were not only generally correct but were also in part the product of an erudite historiographical tradition based on documentary evidence. In addition, the hydraulic experiments performed at Modena around 1791 were at the centre of Venturi’s Recherches expérimentales, another book published in Paris in 1797, and there are possible points of contact between this work and his transcriptions of Leonardo’s codices. According to his original plan, Venturi intended to publish the 1796-1797 transcriptions as Leonardo’s contributions to science. Only afterwards did he learn of the Barberini Codex, which contains a treatise by L. M. Arconati in which Leonardo’s writings on the subject of water were collected and ordered. Venturi’s still unpublished manuscript “Leon.o Vinci. Dell’acqua” was the result of his reading of Arconati’s treatise, although he only partially accepted Arconati’s texts and his arrangement of the material. In the second part of this article, some of Venturi’s textual corrections and additions are discussed in order to illuminate his approach and working methods.

We study the possible intellectual contexts and contents of the unnnoticed Castilian manuscript on the construction of an astrolabe—found among the papers of the cosmographer-chronicler López de Velasco—that the unknown Andrés de Alcántara wrote in the last quarter of the 16th century, most probably as a text to instruct cosmographers. This treatise emerges in the context of King Philip II‘s cosmological program to describe and map the extension of the mundus novus, which engaged most intellectuals and technicians of the sixteenth century in Spain and the New World, especially regarding the calculation of the longitude and high-sea navigation using astronomical measures. The study includes the edition of Alcántara‘s text (MS Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial K III 8, ff. 289r-310v, possibly autograph).

According to Lavoisier’s chemistry, nitrogen was the inert gas par excellence. Therefore, a strong challenge was the reactive visibility that the German chemist Johann Friedrich August Göttling (1753-1809) had ascribed to it and which was refuted by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799). After the first three months of his inquiry on animal respiration (1795-1799), something weird drew Spallanzani’s attention: his eudiometric analysis forced him to deal with the enigma of an increase of nitrogen during the passage of the air through the lungs. In Lavoisier’s interpretation, this fact was impossible and it was at this moment that Göttling’s name appeared in Spallanzani’s notebook. He suspended his biological inquiry to work on the reactivity of the gases: his eye was dazed by a blurring phantasmagoria of lights, fumes, and nuances of colours which supported Göttling’s thesis. Translating the “chemistry of light” into a chemistry of weight and volume was difficult and exhausting. In the end, however, Göttling’s explanations yielded one after another, and Spallanzani confirmed brilliantly the chimie nouvelle with his Chimico esame degli esperimenti del Sig. Gottling (1796).

In this paper we give an overview of the life and work of Professor Eduardo L. Ortiz (1931-2021), from his early days in the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires to his life in the Imperial College. We list the places where he taught, his awards, the societies of which he became a member, and give some emphasis to the teachers and researchers who were most important to him. We analyse separately his works in mathematics and history of mathematics, in both cases producing tables indicating the papers written alone or in co-authorship with other researchers in each of the periods defined. We identify who were his collaborators and where the papers were published. Through the analysis of these two tables it is clear the change in the main topic of research in the later part of his life. There is a section on his relationship with Portugal, and an account is given of his talks and papers written on Portuguese-related themes. In a final section we present a list of his publications.

Stavros Lazaris

Roscher M., Krebber A., Mizelle B. (éds.), Handbook of Historical Animal Studies

Michel Blay

Sur la définition et le contenu du terme « science » à propos du livre de Kapil Raj intitulé Science moderne, science globale. Circulation et construction des savoirs entre Asie du Sud et Europe (1650-1900)

Mohammad Javad

Esmaeili Ibn al-Šāṭir, L’Achèvement de l’enquête et la correction des fondements/Kitāb nihāya al-sūl fī taṣḥīḥ al-ʾuṣūl

Mali Alinejad

Zanjani Tommaso Alpina, Subject, Definition, Activity. Framing Avicenna’s science of soul

Alfredo Perifano

Roberto Poma, Nicolas Weill-Parot (éds.), Les Utopies scientifiques au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance

Dario Generali

Licia Beggi Miani, Roberto Marcuccio (éds.), Leonardo da Vinci. Percorsi di ricerca e studi sulla ricezione

Pierre Crépel

Martina Schiavon, Laurent Rollet (éds.), Le Bureau des longitudes au prisme de ses procès-verbaux (1795-1932)