Lorenzo Magalotti

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the 17th-century cardinal, see Lorenzo Magalotti (cardinal).

Commemorative medal of Lorenzo Magalotti

Lorenzo Magalotti (24 October 1637 – 2 March 1712) was an Italian philosopher, author, diplomat and poet.

Magalotti was born in Rome into an aristocratic family, the son of Ottavio Magalotti, Prefect of the Pontifical Mail: his uncle Lorenzo Magalotti was a member of the

Accademia del cimento and a gazetteer of the sciences.[1]

Magalotti started off as one of the most ardent followers of Galileo Galilei[2] but was increasingly distressed by the personal rivalries among the individual members, which constantly undermined the academy's dedication to collective research. Gradually, Magalotti lost interest in science.[3] He became a traveller, an ambassador, and ended up as a poet. He translated Paradise Lost by John Milton, and Cyder by John Philips into Italian.

Life

Magalotti received four years of education at the Collegio Romano and three years at the University of Pisa. He studied law and medicine, but changed to mathematics under

Heinsius, Robert Boyle and Pierre Gassendi. The astronomers of the Cimento succeeded in providing the first sustained confirmation of Christiaan Huygens's discoveries: Saturn's rings
.

The rings of Saturn (imaged here by Cassini in 2007) are the most conspicuous in the Solar System.

On 20 May 1660, Lorenzo Magalotti had replaced Segni, and a few years later he wrote the only publication of the academy, the Saggi di naturali Esperienze ("Essays on Natural Experiments"). Alessandro Marchetti, Marcello Malpighi, an anatomist, and Antonio Vallisneri, a physician, Vincenzo da Filicaja, Benedetto Menzini, both poets, Francesco Redi, a "microbiologist", Viviani, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, a physicist, and Carlo Renaldini, an astronomer regularly attended its meetings. These were usually held in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Members performed numerous experiments, in the fields of thermometry, barometry, pneumatics, the velocity of sound and light, phosphorescence, magnetism, amber and other electrical bodies, the freezing of water, etc.

Medicine was, without doubt, the talked-about subject of the day.

Niels Stensen, better known as Steno, arrived from Copenhagen by way of Leiden and Paris early in 1666. The Norman astronomer Adrien Auzout, inventor of a device for measuring planetary diameters, arrived in 1668, fresh from a quarrel with Jean-Baptiste Colbert and armed with a letter from Magalotti, who by then had become Leopoldo's main talent scout abroad.[7]

Comet Hale-Bopp, as seen on 29 March 1997 in Pazin
, Croatia

Magalotti knew as well as anyone that a scientifically valid explanation of the

blessed bones of the divine poet at Ravenna. Magalotti had met Sir John Finch and Henry Neville, he had improved his English and with his boyhood friend Paolo Falconieri
, an architect, he made plans to visit Northern Europe.

Travelling to the Netherlands

The two companions left in mid-July, crossed the Alps, and arrived in

Tyrol, travelled to Mainz to visit the prince-elector, and set direction down the Rhine. On 19 December they arrived in Amsterdam. On his first day he saw the Admiralty of Amsterdam and the warehouses and wharves of the Dutch East India Company. Cosimo planned to start an East India Company from Livorno. The duke took his lodgings in a house at Keizersgracht, keen on keeping a private life, living with the Tuscan merchant and slave-trader Francisco Ferroni
.

While it is difficult to make out who went where with whom, and supposedly, the somewhat shy, pious, and taciturn Cosimo never went somewhere without company, an excerpt of the diary of Cosimo's visits is following here.

A patron of the arts, Cosimo visited fifteen painters over a four-month period:

Schouwburg of Van Campen, a copy of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. He probably saw "Medea" by Jan Vos. They did not understand a word, but it had been attractive to watch. The pit was almost empty, while no others were invited. On 12 January, he attended the prince William III of Orange, who was only 17 at that time and performed in the ballet on that evening. Johan de Witt saved Cosimo from a boring conversation with some Amsterdam burgomasters and introduced him to some nice looking young ladies. Cosimo met John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, who had spent a long time in Dutch Brazil
.

In the 17th century, many visitors came to Holland to see collections of paintings or rarities. The duke paid a visit to Gerrit van Uylenburgh, who owned part of the collection by Gerard Reynst. Dutch scientists and collectioners Franciscus Sylvius, Frederik Ruysch, Jan Swammerdam[11] and probably Theodor Kerckring and Nicolaes Witsen showed them their cabinet of curiosities. At Swammerdam, who studied all kinds of insects, and knew almost everything about bees, Cosimo was accompanied by Melchisédech Thévenot.

Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper comparing the teeth of a shark head with a fossil tooth

Cosimo, who was informed by the geologist and anatomist

tapestries and went back to the Dutch Republic
.

Around

Ash-Wednesday, Cosimo peregrinated via Bentheim to Hamburg
. While the inns were less abundant, Cosimo spent the night in a farmhouse, where they could "talk with the cows" in the stable. The travelling became harder because of all the marshes and mud. Magalotti did not go along and went to London.

Travelling in England

He was shocked to see how much money the English spent on

Hampton Court, and Oxford where they visited Robert Boyle. When Magalotti became ill Boyle visited him and sat by his bedside for two or three hours daily.[17]
One of the main purposes of the trip had been fully realised. Receiving courtesies from wise and learned men is ample recompense for all the trouble and money spent on travelling. And a score of prominent scholars and one real king was not a bad record for a thirty-year-old tourist of as yet no particular accomplishment.

They ended up, toward the end of April, in Paris.

Ismael Bouillau, his scientific correspondent.[19]

Travelling to Spain and Portugal

Marguerite d'Orleans

Because Cosimo's wife, the beautiful, vivacious, headstrong and thoroughly spoiled Marguerite Louise d'Orléans was as intractable as ever, he headed on 18 September, from Livorno for another journey to Spain. Magalotti, as a member of the retinue of 27 men, was given the job of keeping a diary.[20] Magalotti promised to send catalogues and books to Antonio Magliabechi, a dirty librarian, who did not care about his looks. From Barcelona they travelled to Madrid where he spent a month; It is supposed the 8-year-old Carlos II, by then hardly able to speak and walk, received him in a private interview.[21] Then they went to Córdoba, Seville and Granada, followed by Talavera la Real and Badajoz. Magalotti found Spain to be bankrupt and demoralised, proud and lavish. Its learning hopelessly out of touch with the rest of Europe; its religion consisted largely of elaborate processions, gaudy reliquaries, and fables. None of the professors at the University of Alcalá could speak more than three words of Latin.[22]

By January, he had arrived in Lisbon via

Galicia, Spain.[23]

Travelling to England and the Netherlands

From

Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1669, Magalotti painted a view of the house during the two-day stay,[26] which is one of various images to be found in an illustrated manuscript in the Laurentian Library, Florence.[27]

Count Magalotti visited Exeter, and wrote of over thirty thousand people being employed in the county of Devon as part of the wool and cloth industries, merchandise that was sold to "the West Indies, Spain, France and Italy".[28] They met the miniaturist Samuel Cooper, who painted Cosimo,[29] and John Michael Wright. Cosimo later called at Wright's studio where he commissioned a portrait of the Duke of Albemarle from Wright.

Painting of Samuel Morland by Peter Lely

Falconieri presented to the Royal Society in London and to Charles II of England, copies of the newly printed reports of experimental science in Florence, Saggi di naturali esperienze.[30] In England he made a number of good friends, including Isaac Newton; among the over one hundred distinguished persons who came to call on him was Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, who became his correspondent. Samuel Morland sent him a calculating machine and his loudspeaker. Cosimo became a dedicated Anglophile.[31]

On 14 June 1669, they left England and travelled to Rotterdam. He met

Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa they moved south. Cosimo visited Louis XIV, and Marguerite of Lorraine his mother-in-law, in Paris. Via Lyon and Marseille he arrived in Florence on 1 November 1669.[33]

In his writing travelogs Magalotti was inspired by Jacob Spon and Jean Chardin.[34] He renounced the career of those who toured the world [just] to copy epitaphs and count the steps in bell towers.[35]

Ambassador in Vienna

After 1670, Florentine science changed somewhat in character. Magalotti was unsure whether many of Cosimo's projects were worth the huge sums spent by the Grand Duke. For instance, Cosimo aspired to convert England, northern Germany and India to

Persia.[36]
Magalotti continued his travels without the Grand Duke.

Swedish sauna illustration from Magalotti's diary

He visited Brussels,

Imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna. He described in his book Sweden in the year 1674 Charles XI of Sweden
as "virtually afraid of everything, uneasy to talk to foreigners, and not daring to look anyone in the face". Other traits was a deep religious devotion: he was God-fearing, frequently prayed kneeling and attended sermons. Magalotti otherwise described the king's main pursuits as hunting, the upcoming war, and jokes.

In May 1678 he went home. In 1680 his brother found him a rich widow in

impotent. Magalotti decided that he was better suited for some sort of intellectual activity. In 1709 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.[37]

He died in Florence in 1712.

Works

See also

References

  1. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973) Florence in the Forgotten Centuries 1527–1800, p. 255.
  2. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 237.
  3. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 246.
  4. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 231.
  5. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 240.
  6. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 251.
  7. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 248.
  8. ^ Wetering, Ernst van de (9 May 1997). "Rembrandt: The Painter at Work". Amsterdam University Press. Retrieved 9 May 2023 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Liedtke, W. (2007) Dutch Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 512, 518.
  10. ^ The cook and the lacemaker by Netscher can still be seen in the Uffizi.
  11. ^ Israel, J. (1995) The Dutch Republic, Its Rise Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806. Clarendon Press Oxford, p. 877.
  12. ^ Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 by Jonathan Irvine Israel [1]
  13. town hall of Amsterdam [2]
  14. ^ Selfportrait of Rembrandt in the Uffizi Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "Chapter 13 The Plantin House as a Tourist Attraction, The Golden Compasses, Leon Voet". DBNL. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  16. ^ Lecture 20 incois.gov.in [dead link]
  17. ^ Borderlines or Interfaces in the Life and Work of Robert Boyle (1627–1691): The authorship of Protestant and Papist revisited by D. Thorburn Burns "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 257.
  19. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 258.
  20. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 261.
  21. ^ Acton, p 103
  22. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 262-263.
  23. ^ "e-Journal of Portuguese History".
  24. ^ a b Acton, p 104
  25. ^ Count L. Magalotti, Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, through England during the Reign of King Charles the Second 1669, (J. Mawman, London, 1821), p.277.
  26. ^ Billingbear Park, Waltham St. Lawrence, Berkshire", from website David Nash Ford's "Royal Berkshire History" (Accessed 13 September 2007).
  27. ^ "Travels of Cosmo III". www.buildinghistory.org. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  28. ^ Gray 2000, Exeter: The Traveller's Tales. p.18
  29. ^ "Exhibitions". www.rct.uk. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  30. ^ Susana Gomez Lopez, "The Royal Society and Post-Galilean Science in Italy" Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 51.1 (January 1997:35–44) p. 38.
  31. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 262.
  32. ^ Vermeer and the Delft School by Walter A. Liedtke, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) [3]
  33. ^ Acton, p 105
  34. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 264.
  35. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 268.
  36. ^ Conchrane, E. (1973), p. 269.
  37. ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  38. ^ "Saggi di naturali esperienze: Institute and Museum of the History of Science".

Sources

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lorenzo_Magalotti&oldid=1220798702"