The Accademia del Cimento and Its European Context

The Accademia del Cimento, organized in Florence under Medici patronage, devoted itself for ten years (1657–1667) to the experimental investigation of a broad range of scientific matters, and provided a model and inspiration for many subsequent scientific societies. Despite its crucial position in the history of science, the Cimento’s work and diverse membership has remained incompletely studied. This volume contains fifteen papers by an international array of scholars on new aspects of the various projects, members, and methods of the Cimento and its relationship to other early modern academies. Marco Beretta, Antonio Clericuzio, and Lawrence M. Principe are the Editors of this volume. “ . . . Its significance is not confined to the history of scientific institutions, but ranges more widely to include topics such as the development of the experimental method in general and of post-Galilean Italian science in particular, and the functioning and failure of communications in the republic