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T_h_e_~_c_a_d_e_m_i_e_S_O
_f_It_a_~~I,illffi],
T The Platonic Academy,
foremost of Italian
academies, was set up by
Cosimo de'Medici in
Florence in 1442. In this
idealized engraving, the
members are seen
indulging in the debate of
philosophical matters,
emulating the original
Platonic school at Athens.
A The crest of the Academy

of the Lynxes. Named for

the animal traditionally held
to be the most keensighted, the academy was
founded in 1603. It
specialized in the study of
natural history, but
broadened its outlook to
astronomy on the election
of Galileo in 1610.

The Academy of the Lynxes

In 1603, Marquis Federigo Cesi, then only 18,

brought together three of his friends at his palace in
Rome, to launch an academy to "penetrate the
interior of things and know their causes and the
operations of nature which work within them ". The
company swore to study together; in their singlemindedness they would remain unmarried. Each
week they would meet, to report to each other what
they had found out. They called themselves the
"Academy of the Lynxes ", as the lynx was
traditionally the most keen-sighted of animals.
Cesi's own interests were in natural history; he had
a fine collection of minerals and fossils and the only
work of his ever published was botanical. Another
member produced the first published
microscopical observations - of a bee. It was
Galileo's success with his telescopic observations
that drew the academy to astronomy; they quickly
elected him and sponsored some of his books. But,
having backed Galileo, the academy could do little
to help when Copernicanism was condemned.
During the 1620s its activities faded away.

The Academy of the Concrete

Most Italian acacDmies depended on a patron and

all were very short-lived. A few carried out some
good experimental work in physics and natural
history. The Accademia del Cimento ("Academy of

the Concrete") brought together by Galileo's pupil,

Vincenzio Viviani (1622-1703), at Florence in the late
1650s was important. However it survived less than
a decade. Italy's political fragmentation and its
relative decline meant that no national institution
could emerge to lead the scientific movement.
T This glass spiral
thermometer was
employed in experimental
work carried out by the
Accademia del Cimento. It
contained alcohol in a
vacuum; this expanded and
contracted according to the
external temperature, and
the level was measured by
calibrations in the glass.