Italy and Europe: The Case of Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730)

Roger Jacques , Les sciences de la vie dans la pensé fran&çaise du XVIII' siècle (Paris, 1963). Rodolico Francesco , La Toscana descritta dai naturalisti del Settecento (Florence, 1945), and L'Esplorazione naturalistica dell'Appennino (Florence, 1963). Berengo Marino (ed.), Giornali veneziani del Settecento (Milan, 1962), esp. the editor's introduction. Ullrich F. B. Crucitti , La ‘Bibliothèque italique’: Cultura ‘italianisante’ e giornalismo letterario (Milan and Naples, 1974). Kurmann Walter , Presenze italiane nei giornali elvetici del primo Settecento (Bern and Frankfurt a. M., 1976). Pomian Krzysztof , Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux. Paris, Venise: XVI^e–XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1987), 81–142, 213–91. Other works devoting considerable space to Vallisneri include Baldini Massimo , Teoria e storia della scienza (Rome, 1975), and Ferrane Vincenzo , Scienza, natura, religione: Mondo newtoniano e cultura italiana nel primo Settecento (Naples, 1982). Brief discussions can be found in older works, such as the histories of geology by Archibald Geikie and Frank Dawson Adams and the history of medicine by Arturo Castiglioni.

Torrini Maurizio , “Observations on the history of science in Italy”, The British journal for the history of science, xxi (1988), 427–46, p. 446.

Galluzzi Paolo , “Presentazione”, in Riccati Jacopo , Carteggio (1719–1729). Jacopo Riccati, Antonio Vallisneri , ed. by Soppelsa M. L. (Olschki, Florence, 1985), 1–3.

The first of three volumes of the LeClerc Epistolario, published by Olschki in Florence, appeared in 1987. Neither the Rome nor the Florence centre has any planned list of publications, but will sponsor editions that individual scholars prepare. See also Dibon Paul , “Communication épistolaire et mouvement des idées au XVIIème siècle”, and Sina Mario , “L'epistolario di Jean LeClerc”, in Canziani G. and Paganini G. (eds), Le edizioni dei testi filosofici e scientifici dell '500 e del '600 (Milan, 1986), 73–88, 221–8.

The volumes edited by Altieri Biagi and Basile are in the series “La Letteratura italiana, storia e testi”, published by Riccardo Ricciardi, Milan and Naples. Papers delivered at the Bologna conference were edited by Renzo Cremante and Walter Tega under the title, Scienza e letteratura nella cultura italiana del Settecento (Bologna, 1984).

Bianchi G. , Carteggio inedito di Antonio Vallisneri con Giovanni Bianchi (Jano Planco) , ed. by Simili Alessandro (Turin, 1965). Cestoni Giacinto , Epistolario ad Antonio Vallisnieri , ed. by Baglioni Silvestro (2 vols, Rome, 1940–41). Maffei Scipione , Epistolario (1700–1755) , ed. by Garibotto Celestino (2 vols, Milan, 1955). Muratori L. A. , Carteggi con Ubaldini … Vannoni , ed. by Spanio M. L. Nichetti (vol. xliv of the Edizione Nazionale del Carteggio di L. A. Muratori; Florence, 1978). Excerpts, often quite substantial, from the Vallisneri-Scheuchzer correspondence are in Kurmann (ref. 1). The only edition of the letters of Zeno is neither scholarly nor complete, the letters at times abridged: Lettere di Apostolo Zeno cittadino veneziano (6 vols, Venice, 1785).

See Generali Dario in Cremante and Tega (eds), op. cit. (ref. 5), 487–510. Also, the article by Generali in Canziani and Paganini (eds), op. cit. (ref. 4), 193–207.

The letters from Vallisneri to Bourguet are in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Neuchâtel, Fonds Bourguet, MS. 1282. I would like here to express my gratitude to Madame Maryse Schmidt-Surdez, Conservateur des manuscrits, for the help and courtesy she and her staff extended during my visit to Neuchâtel. Although there is no published catalogue of the Fonds Bourguet, the inventory available at the library itself is detailed, careful, and excellent. Some indication of the riches of the Fonds Bourguet is provided by Ellenberger F. , “Bourguet”, Dictionary of scientific biography , xv, 57–58. Portions of these MSS. have been used by Bork Kennard , “The geological insights of Louis Bourguet (1678–1742)”, Journal of the Scientific Laboratories, Denison University, lv (1974), 49–77, and especially in the superb article by Tucci F. S. , ‘“Il parlare della S. Scrittura e l'operare della natura’: Gli interrogativi della geologia storica nella riflessione di Antonio Vallisnieri”, Contributi, vii, (1983), 5–37. In addition to Tucci's excellent analysis, he used not only the letters to Bourguet (in Neuchâtel) but also found three —unfortunately, only three — responses by Bourguet in Italian archives. The only historian before Dario Generali to have a large acquaintance with Vallisneri's letters was Bruno Brunelli Bonetti who formed a vast private collection (now in public archives) of the letters, and published a charming, not very analytical, study based on his collection: Figurine e costumi nella corrispondenza di un medico del Settecento, Antonio Vallisnieri (Milan, 1938).

di Porcia G. A. , Notizie della vita, e degli studi del kavalier Antonio Vallisneri , ed. by Generali Dario (Bologna, 1986). This biography was first published in Vallisneri, Opere fisicomediche , ed. by Vallisneri Antonio Jr (3 vols, Venice, 1733), i, pp. xli–lxxx. All references in this article will be to the edition by Generali. Brief and excellent sketches of Vallisneri's life may also be found in Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), 102–24, and, with excellent bibliography, in Altieri Biagi and Basile, Settecento (ref. 5), 3–10.

Basile Bruno and Generali Dario , in Cremante and Tega (eds), op. cit. (ref. 5), 462, 505–10. My conclusions about the ‘stages’ in Vallisneri's writings are based on the footnotes by Generali in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 90–149; unhappily, Generali's otherwise excellent edition does not offer a Vallisneri bibliography, and it is difficult to arrive at a coherent, chronological sequence of writings because of some of the conventions used in the footnotes. Two of Vallisneri's works have recently been reprinted, but without any critical apparatus: Silvia Scotti Morgana, Esordi della lessicografia scientifica italiana: Il “Saggio alfabetico d'Istoria medica e naturale” di Antonio Vallisnieri (Florence, 1983), reprints the Saggio published posthumously in the Opere (ref. 9) of 1733, and Baldini Massimo , Vallisneri e la scoperta dell'origine delle fontane perenni (Brescia, 1981), reprints the Lezione accademica intorno all'origine delle fontane. Not having seen Baldini's volume, I do not know if he reprints the first (1715) edition or the much expanded second edition of 1726.

Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 103 and n. 203, referring to the text in Supplementi al Giornale de' letterati d'Italia, i (1722), 252–330.

For an especially valuable study of the Giornale, see Dooley Brendan , “The Giornale de' letterati d'Italia (1710–40): Journalism and ‘modern’ culture in the early eighteenth century Veneto”, Studi Veneziani, n.s., vi (1982), 229–70. Also, Berengo (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1), pp. XI–XII, and Generali Dario , “Il ‘Giornale de’ letterati d'Italia' e la cultura veneta del primo Settecento”, Rivista di storia della filosofia, xxxix, (1984), 243–81. For some effort to identify an editorial point of view in articles in the Giornale, see Ricuperati G. , “Giornali e società nell'Italia dell' ‘ancien regime’ (1668–1789)”, in Capra Carlo , La Stampa italiana dal cinquecento all'ottocento (Bari, 1986), esp. 133–48 for the first decade of the Giornale. In looking through the Giornale for reviews of books on natural history, I have found only the mildly critical statement about Giuseppe Monti's diluvial geology that his book describes fossils which are “volgarmente” called diluvial; see Giornale, xxxii, (1719), 534. No critical comments are detectable in the discussion of the origin of fossils, treated in the review of Buonanni's Musaeum Kircherianum (1709), in Giornale, vii, (1711), esp. 258–9. For Vallisneri's responsibilities in connection with the Giornale, see Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 78, and compare Ricuperati, op. cit. (ref. 12), as cited below, ref. 26.

For example, Montalenti Giuseppe , “Vallisnieri”, in Dictionary of scientific biography , xiii, 563. Also, Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 56–57.

The text of Vallisneri's lecture is no longer extant, but its content is discussed in some detail in Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 65–74. The reserved judgement is in the “Éloge historique de M. Antoine Vallisneri”, Mémoires de Trévoux, September 1734, 1595–1608, pp. 1600–2.

For Albrizzi's journal, see Berengo (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1), pp. XI and 11, n. 6; Ricuperati , op. cit. (ref. 12), 108–11; and Piccioni Luigi , Il giornalismo letterario in Italia (Turin, 1894), 58–65. In the bibliography of early Italian periodicals compiled by Marco Cuaz, in Capra et al., op. cit. (ref. 12), 371, 374, Vallisneri is listed as a “chief collaborator” on the Galleria di Minerva.

Vallisneri's translation of Descartes is no longer extant. Geology will be di cussed below. For analyses of his biological ideas, in addition to Roger, Les sciences de la vie (ref. 1), see Spallanzani M. F. , “Esperienza e natura in Antonio Vallisneri”, Contributi, i (1977), 5–36, and Geymonat L. , “Problemi metodologici e filosofici suggeriti dall'opera di Antonio Vallisneri”, in Il metodo sperimentale in biologia da Vallisneri ad oggi (Padua, 1962), 157–74.

The Countess is discussed in Brunelli, op. cit. (ref. 8), 37–44, and her desire to establish an academy is mentioned repeatedly in letters of the early 1720s from Vallisneri to Bourguet, Fonds Bourguet (see ref. 8), MS. 1282. An incomplete bibliography of Vallisneri's articles in the Ephemerides of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum is in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 144–8. Generali (ibid., 84, n. 165) mentions a letter from Vallisneri to Hans Sloane, 16 February 1705, in which Vallisneri requests membership in the Royal Society; but the Journal Books of the Society record his election much earlier, 30 November 1703. Perhaps news of his election had been slow to reach Vallisneri in wartime?.

Journalism will be discussed below. Vallisneri's cabinet is described by Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 86–101, and discussed by Pomian, op. cit. (ref. 1).

Some of Vallisneri's medical consulti were published in Opere (ref. 9), iii, 483–558, and additional information is in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 149 and nn. 420–3. Jacopo Riccati was one of his patients, as is evident in their correspondence (ref. 3). To contrast what is known about Vallisneri on the one hand and Zeno and Maffei on the other, see Ricuperati , op. cit. (ref. 12), 126–8, who sketches the careers of the three men before 1710.

The repute of the early dialogues is discussed in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 59–64. For the Royal Society, see the references to letters from Vallisneri to Hans Sloane, ibid., 84, n. 165. Vallisneri's relations with Scheuchzer are analysed by Kurmann, op. cit. (ref. 1). For the German academy, its founding and early history (to about 1701), see Winau Rolf , “Zur Frühgeschichte der Academia Naturae Curiosorum”, in Hartmann Fritz and Vierhaus Rudolf (eds), Der Akademiegedanke im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Bremen and Wolfenbüttel, 1977), 117–37. The rumours in Paris are mentioned by Berengo, op. cit. (ref. 1), p. XII, n. 3, citing an unpublished letter from the abbé Bignon to Apostolo Zeno, 28 February 1709.

The best study of Italian periodicals is by Ricuperati, op. cit. (ref. 12), but Berengo (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1) is very useful. In addition, Claude Bellanger et al., Histoire générale de la presse fran&çaise (5 vols, Paris, 1969–76), i, and the several studies of individual journals and journalists, such as: Barnes Annie , Jean LeClerc (1657–1736) et la république des lettres (Paris, 1938), Desautels S.J. Alfred , Les Mémoires de Trévoux et le mouvement des idées au XVIII^e siècle, 1701–1734 (Rome, 1956), Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle (2 vols, The Hague, 1963–64), Morgan Betty T. , Histoire du Journal des s&çavants depuis 1665 jusqu'en 1701 (Paris, 1928), and Ehrard Jean and Roger Jacques , “Deux périodiques fran&çais du 18^e siècle: ‘Le Journal des savants’ et ‘les Mémoires de Trévoux’”, in Bollème Geneviève (eds), Livre et société dans la France du XVIII^e siècle (Paris and The Hague, 1965), 33–59. For the publications emanating from learned societies in particular, see McClellan James E. , Science reorganized: Scientific societies in the eighteenth century (New York, 1985). There is no study of the availability of northern journals in Italy, but see Baldini Ugo and Besana Luigi , “Organizzazione e funzione delle accademie”, in Storia d'Italia, Annali 3 (Turin, 1980), esp. 1319–20.

See works cited above, ref. 15.

Maffei Scipione , “Introduzione” to the first volume (1710) of the Giornale de' letterati d'Italia, reprinted in Berengo (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1), 11; also, p. XII, n. 1, for Maffei's authorship. Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 62–63. Letter from Vallisneri to Riccati, 22 August 1721, in Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3), 114, where he refers to his early dialogues as having been “assassinati con errori intollerabili dall' Albrizzi”.

According to Dooley, op. cit. (ref. 12), 235, unpublished letters indicate that in 1707 Vallisneri was thinking about a new journal devoted to what Dooley describes as “scientific opuscoli”. Since he quotes none of the letters, it is not clear whether ‘science’ should be interpreted in the modern sense or in the common eighteenth century manner (i.e., as the equivalent of any ‘discipline’). For Calogerà, see below, ref. 26.

Three studies of the Giornale are mentioned above, ref. 12. Ricuperati emphasizes the cultural orientation of the editors and hence of the periodical; Generali discusses the range of topics and issues to be found in the Giornale; and Dooley offers analysis of a variety of subjects, from culture to Venetian politics, from censorship to the problems which induced Zeno to leave Italy (and so affected the subsequent history of the Giornale). The Giornale is very well indexed (vols xxv, xxxviii), and I have checked all references to Vallisneri; it is on this basis that I have described articles in the Giornale as invoking “Vallisneri's views … to support or combat issues See also, the example cited below, ref. 44.

For the roles of the editors, compare Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 78, on Vallisneri's responsibilities, with Ricuperati's assertion, op. cit. (ref. 12), 129, that the different sciences were the responsibility of several men, Vallisneri dealing only with medicine. The hiatus of 1718–20 and change of editors, discussed in Ricuperati, 149–50, leaves unclear Vallisneri's subsequent connection with the Giornale. Vallisneri's encouragement of Calogerà is discussed in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 78–79. The Calogerà correspondence, including many Vallisneri letters for the period 1727–29, has been inventoried but not published; see De Michelis Cesare , “L'epistolario di Angelo Calogerà”, Studi veneziani, x (1968), 621–704. For the several journals with which Calogerà was associated, see Ricuperati , op. cit. (ref. 12), 158–9.

For the expressed aims of the Giornale, see Maffei “Introduzione”, Giornale, i (1710), 13–67, esp. pp. 47–67. Dooley , op. cit. (ref. 12), 233, 249, offers information on the circulation of the Giornale in Italy, but not in other countries. For the several defensive and reformminded proposals of Vallisneri's contemporaries, see Rotondò Antonio , “La censura ecclesiastica e la cultura”, and La Penna Antonio , “Università e istruzione pubblica”, in Storia d'Italia , v (Turin, 1973), 1443–5, 1758–73. Muratori occupied a special place in this movement for cultural revival; see below, ref. 29.

Vallisneri , “Ricordi autobiografici (1679–1701)”, transcribed by Mariotti Dino , in Metodo sperimentale (ref. 16), 310–11. Vallisneri to Muratori, 11 May 1710, in Muratori , Carteggi (ref. 6), 145–6. As he explained to Muratori, the handicaps were fundamental: He was so accustomed to lecturing in Latin at the University of Padua that he tended to forget rules governing the vernacular language.

Writing under the pseudonym “Lamindo Pritanio”, Muratori had published I Primi disegni della repubblica letteraria d'Italia (1703) and Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto (1708); I have consulted both in the later edition, Delle riflessioni sopra il buon gusto nelle scienze e nell'arti (2 vols, Venice, 1766). An excellent analysis by Gaetano Righi, “L'idea enciclopedica del sapere in L. A. Muratori”, is in Miscellanea di Studi Muratoriani. Atti e Memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Provincie Modenesi, Serie VII, viii (Modena, 1933), 61–102. Also, Neveu Bruno , “Muratori et l'historiographie gallicane”, in L. A. Muratori Storiografo (Florence, 1975), 241–304.

The anti-French theme recurs often in Vallisneri's letters to Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), c. 1710–12. It is hard to date precisely the start of the dispute with Andry, which may have begun in periodicals before it entered into Vallisneri's Considerazioni ed esperienze intorno alla generazione de' vermi ordinarj del corpo umano (Padua, 1710). Fontenelle's remark would later be cited by Vallisneri in De' corpi marini, che su' monti si trovano, 2nd edn (Venice, 1728), 16. (All references to De' corpi marini will be to the second edition, the text of the geological part of the work being virtually identical to that of the first edition, 1721. Even pagination is the same, with small variations in first and last lines of each page, showing merely that the type was reset for the second edition.) The Fontenellian gaffe is quoted and his views analysed in Balmas Enea , “Fontenelle en Italie”, in Fontenelle. Actes du collogue tenu à Rouen du 6 au 10 octobre 1987 , ed. by Niderst Alain (Paris, 1989), 577–88, p. 584. The anti-French theme is evident especially in letters to and from Riccati, mainly in 1721, and Vallisneri on occasion equated Andry with “i francesi” and with the whole Establishment, the Académie Royale des Sciences. See Riccati , Carteggio (ref. 3), 101, 111, and 125, but especially the letter of 22 August 1721 (pp. 113–14) where Vallisneri declares that several of his works were “una continuata critica de' francesi e della loro Real Accademia”. To Giovanni Bianchi, in a letter dated 17 June 1722, he would declare: “Non abbiamo una Nazione piú nemica degli Italiani, della Francese”, and he went on to single out those “tanto venerati Accademici” as people unjustly accepted as “Oracoli delle Scienze, e de' Costumi etc”. Bianchi, Carteggio (ref. 6), 20–22. Vallisneri's prose, especially in his letters, is usually vigorous and colourful, his views roundly delivered, his opponents often condemned as idiots. Even so, the anti-French remarks seem to me to be unusually impassioned and sometimes ferocious.

“Préface”, in Bibliothèque italique, i (1728), esp. pp. xiv–xviii. The author of this preface has been identified as a lausannois, de Bochat C. G. Loys (1695–1754), but his writing was vetted by the other editors over so long a period of time that one may call the preface an editorial statement. See Cavadini-Canonica T. , Le lettere di Scipione Maffei e la Bibliothèque italique (Lugano-Friburgo, 1970), 16–18. The Genevan editors single out the Acta eruditorum as reliable but too scholarly for ordinary consumption, and Maffei, op. cit. (ref. 27), 25, indicates his view that the Mémoires de Trévoux neglected Italy. Basic differences in outlook, separating Italian (‘baroque’) from French (‘classical’) Jesuits, are suggested by Ricuperati, op. cit. (ref. 12), 120–1; the characterization of different kinds of Jesuits has great merit — there were other cleavages among the Jesuits during this period, such as the controversy over the antiquity of the Chinese Empire — but I am not really convinced that such differences materially affected the transmission of news about the publication of new books.

On alleged ignorance of the Italian language, see also the remarks in Cavadini-Canonica, op. cit. (ref. 31), 22–24. For Franco-Italian cultural relations, in addition to the study by Balmas on Fontenelle (ref. 30), see Maugain Gabriel , Étude sur l'évolution intellectuelle de l'Italie de 1657 à 1750 environ (Paris, 1909), and the same author's “Fontenelle et l'Italie”, Revue de littérature comparée, iii, (1923), 541–603. Maugain's book (1909) is still often acknowledged to be the best synthesis for a period for which a great deal of research, conducted since 1909, has made better syntheses less feasible or more dangerous — the more information we possess, the more hazardous is any attempt to generalize.

As a more-or-less random ‘confirmation’ of the suspicions of the Genevans, one may cite John Ray's surprise to find in Naples “such a knot of ingenious persons and of that latitude and freedom of judgment in so remote a part of Europe, and in the communion of such a Church”. See Ray John , Observations topographical, moral, & physiological (London, 1673), 272. Recent studies indicate a regular and frequent kind of Anglo-Italian communication in matters of science. See, for example, Hall Marie Boas , “La scienza italiana vista dalla Royal Society”, in Cremante and Tega (eds), op. cit. (ref. 5), 47–64; Cavazza Marta , “Bologna and the Royal Society in the seventeenth century”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxxv, (1980), 105–23; Middleton W. E. Knowles , The Experimenters: A study of the Accademia del Cimento (Baltimore, 1971), ch. 6; Adelmann Howard B. , Marcello Malpighi and the evolution of embryology (5 vols, Ithaca, N.Y., 1966), i, ch. 21.

In addition to works on Malpighi (Adelmann, op. cit. (ref. 33)) and Fontenelle (Balmas, op. cit. (ref. 30); Maugain , op. cit. (ref. 32)), see the comment by Ehrard and Roger, op. cit. (ref. 21), 38–39, that their effort to assess the Italian content of the Journal des savants was skewed by the predominance of a single Italian author: Muratori.

For example, Vallisneri to Bourguet, 25 April 1721, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 245–6. and Vallisneri to Scheuchzer, 10 January 1719, in Kurmann, op. cit. (ref. 1), 208. In letters like these, Vallisneri at times bemoaned not the lack of will or talent among Italian savants, but rather the lack of patronage that would allow them to publish works as lavishly illustrated as that by Peter Wolfart (see below, ref. 48).

For example, Vallisneri to Muratori, 24 May 1714 (in Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), 182), Muratori to Vallisneri, 8 May 1721 (ibid., 229), and Vallisneri to Muratori, 3 May 1723 (ibid., 272). In the last letter, the prose is worth quoting: “tutti i frati e bianchi, e bigi, e neri, e tutta la buona turba de' preticelli.” Also, letters from Vallisneri to Antonio Conti, 28 August 1727 and 10 September [1727?], in Brunelli, op. cit. (ref. 8), 210–12. Also, letter from Vallisneri to Riccati, 22 August 1721, in Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3), 113, where Vallisneri remarks on “la teologia fratesca” which maintains ignorance and is impervious to “il buon gusto della filosofia sperimentale e delle matematiche”. For a discussion of the cynicism among intellectuals about censorship, see Rotondò , op. cit. (ref. 27), 1416–18. A pervasive concern among historians dealing with this period of Italian history is ‘self-restraint’ (‘auto-censura’) among intellectuals, so as to avoid the problems of censorship. How common was such restraint, and how can one document what intellectuals might have wanted to say in print? Correspondence obviously is of critical importance in these matters, as indicated above (Galluzzi, op. cit. (ref. 3)). This problem will be treated more explicitly below, in connection with Vallisneri's geological ideas.

Kurmann , op. cit. (ref. 1), esp. 57–61, 64–73, 141–87 for analysis of the sources, e.g., the other periodicals, used by the editors of the Neue Zeitungen. For the cooling of the Scheuchzer-Vallisneri friendship, ibid., esp. 103–4. It is my suggestion, not Kurmann's, that this cooling had an effect on the Italian sources available to the Zurich editors. Apart from Scheuchzer, English botanist William Sherard seems to have been another friend whom Vallisneri could now and then call upon for books. See the reference to “Serard” in letter from Vallisneri to Bianchi, n.d., in Bianchi, Carteggio (ref. 6), 5–7.

See the few letters for this period in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282. For Bourguet's large number of Italian correspondents and his many trips to Italy, see Cavadini-Canonica , op. cit. (ref. 31), 48–50, 52. Also, Ullrich F. B. Crucitti , “Scipione Maffei e la sua corrispondenza inedita con Louis Bourguet”, in Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Memorie, Classe di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti, xxxiv (1969), fasc. 4.

Kurmann , op. cit. (ref. 1), 219.

It is difficult to assess from Generali's various works, including his footnotes to Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), the number, locations, and significance of Vallisneri's foreign correspondents. In England, for example, they included Sloane and Richard Waller, but do letters to Sherard (above, ref. 37) survive? Or to Martin Lister? Vallisneri, Lezione accademica, in Opere diverse (3 vols in 1, Venice, 1715), ii, 54, referred to Lister (d. 1712) as having been “mio buon amico”. The frequency with which Vallisneri sent observations to the Academia Naturae Curiosorum (above, ref. 17) suggests the possibility of a sizable German correspondence.

The few exceptions include both books by Rodolico, op. cit. (ref. 1), notably for discussion and a partial reprint of one of Vallisneri's periodical articles (below, ref. 42). Tucci, op. cit. (ref. 8) has greater range, including the use of manuscripts. The editor of Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3) provides a useful appendix, pp. 170–4, indicating the main differences in editions of both the Lezione and De' corpi marini.

Letters from Cestoni to Vallisneri, 16 November 1703 and 28 December 1703, in Cestoni, Epistolario (ref. 6), ii, 452–4. The Latin manuscript of 1704 is no longer extant, but was later abridged, translated into Italian, and published in Supplementi al Giornale de' letterati d'Italia, ii, (1722), 270–310, and iii (1726), 376–428. Discussion is in Rodolico, Esplorazione (ref. 1), 54–58, 141 n. 1, and a partial reprint, with some errors of transcription, in Rodolico, La Toscana (ref. 1), 315–20. See also Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 80.

Galleria di Minerva, vi (1708), 17, 151–2: Reviews of Woodward, Specimen geographiae physicae (1704), and Scheuchzer, Piscium querelae (1708). Whether Vallisneri ever corresponded with Woodward is unknown, but there exists an often quoted letter from Woodward to Scheuchzer, 28 February 1724, in which Woodward asks what Vallisneri is working on. See Kurmann , op. cit. (ref. 1), 104–5.

Giornale, xi (1712), 199–204. The Vallisneri text is here appended to an account of a manuscript entitled “Del bagno a acqua nelle colline di Pisa”, by Vibio Rustigalli, 1638 (ibid., 192–9).

Vallisneri to Bourguet, 30 August 1721, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 249–50. Also, Vallisneri to Bourguet, 23 September 1720, ibid., fols 237–8: “la sacra scrittura a' Filosofi naturali nulla insegna.” See Porcia , Notizie (ref. 9), 135, n. 346, and 137, n. 350. The beginnings of the Vallisneri-Bourguet friendship are obscure and may date from any of Bourguet's early visits to Italy. The first extant letter, dated 1710, seems to start in medias res. In his letters to Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), esp. in the years 1710–12, the theme of mixing science with faith recurs with some frequency.

A brief notice of the 1710 edition appeared in the Giornale, iv (1710), 433–4, reprinted and discussed by Ferrone Vincenzo , “Galileo, Newton e la libertas philosophandi nella prima metà del XVIII secolo in Italia”, Rivista storica italiana, xciii, (1981), 143–85, p. 163. (Ferrone also mentions, pp. 169–70, comparable Galilean themes in Muratori.) The edition of 1710 contained the letter to Christina, the Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632), and some shorter pieces. According to the editor of the Riccati correspondence (ref. 3), 115, Vallisneri was citing this edition of the Dialogo in his letter to Riccati, 22 August 1721. But Vallisneri also was acquainted with one of the Latin editions of the Dialogo, which he quotes in a letter to Bourguet, December 1710, Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 27–30, and in De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 44. The letter to Christina also circulated in many manuscript copies; see Opere di Galileo Galilei, ed. by Favaro Antonio (20 vols in 21, Florence, 1890–1909), v, 272–4.

De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 65, 89.

Vallisneri to Muratori, 30 November 1720, in Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), 224. What I have rendered “cowardly” reads: “O che coglion tedesco!” Assuming that the visitor, whose name Vallisneri mangled, was not the author, the book must have been Peter Wolfart's Historiae naturalis Hassiae inferioris pars prima (Cassel, 1719), which fits Vallisneri's description in all respects: Beautiful copperplate illustrations of the fossils of Lower Hesse, publishing costs supported by the local ruler, prose in both Latin and German, and “una latinità che fa stomaco”.

Vallisneri to Bourguet, 18 November 1720, Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 241–2.

De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 5–11 and 15–16. The anonymous traveller was F.-M. Misson, a Protestant lawyer who emigrated to England and who is known chiefly for his Nouveau voyage d'Italie, first published in 1691 and then in many editions and translations. The theory of ‘seeds’, for example, was espoused in England by Edward Lhwyd; for this and other interpretations of fossils in the decades around 1700, see Rudwick Martin , The meaning of fossils (London and New York, 1972), ch. 2. For the evolution of French ideas on fossils, as these can be traced in the early volumes of the Histoire et mémoires of the Academy, see my article on Fontenelle, forthcoming in the Revue d'histoire des sciences.

Attacks on the French occur at the outset and at the conclusion of the first half of De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 5–11, 15–16, 76–77, with the intervening text devoted to Burnet and especially Woodward. Meanwhile, Vallisneri cited with approval the work of Jean Astruc (ibid., 19, 43–44), Montpellier physician, and was sufficiently familiar with the Academy's Histoire to rely heavily upon the 1706 volume for its account of Leibniz's theory of the Earth.

Vallisneri to Scheuchzer, 23 September 1720 and 26 August 1721, in Kurmann, op. cit. (ref. 1), pp. 210–12. Whether it was actually Scheuchzer or his younger brother, also named Johann, who wanted a chair in Padua remains unclear; compare ibid., 103–4, with Hans Fischer, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (2. August 1672–23. Juni 1733): Naturforscher und Arzt (Zurich, 1973), 155. Kurmann's is by far the more scholarly of the two works.

Vallisneri seems genuinely to have wished to remain on friendly terms with Scheuchzer. Writing to Bourguet, I January 1722, Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 251–2, he asked if Scheuchzer had been angered by the contents of De' corpi marini. Later, however, he told Bourguet (letter dated 16 September 1727, ibid., fols 293–4) that, for all his admiration of Scheuchzer's “fecondissimo ingegno”, he could not accept Scheuchzer's identification of the famous fossil dubbed homo diluvii testis. Curiously, it was Scheuchzer who heard of Vallisneri's death before Bourguet did, and he wrote to inform Bourguet (ibid., fols 323–4, note appended by Bourguet to a letter from Vallisneri, dated 15 September 1729). As for Scheuchzer's point of view, Kurmann, op. cit. (ref. 1), 45, finds it significant that De' corpi marini was not reviewed in the Neue Zeitungen with which Scheuchzer was associated.

Vallisneri to Riccati, 26 July 1719, in Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3), 78. Later, in a letter dated 14 August 1720 (ibid., 98), Vallisneri would complain about the reactions of one revisore (examiner) to the manuscript of his Istoria della generazione dell'uomo, e degli animali (Venice, 1721). The manuscripts of both the Istoria and De' corpi marini were being examined during the same months, but the Vallisneri letters I have seen contain no reference to problems with the geological text. Among “le necessarie proteste” mentioned to Riccati, see the respectful references to miracles, the limits of human understanding, and submission to authority of the Church, in De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 24, 30, 76, 83–84, 89, and elsewhere.

For the Earth as a “machine”, the uniformity of the “ordinary laws of nature”, ibid ., 24, 31, 47, 67, 73, and elsewhere. For the separation of natural history from human sin, ibid., 49: “l'effetto principale, e final del Diluvio” was to “uccidere la rubelle, e mal nata gente”, and not to destroy and re-deposit “i Monti a strati sopra strati”. Vallisneri suggested repeatedly that the Earth's crust had not changed significantly as a result of the Flood; if one wished to say — as both Burnet and Woodward did in their different fashions — that the Earth had changed for the worse, in order to punish mankind, Vallisneri pertinently replied (ibid., 67–69) that a flood would have made the Earth more habitable, increasing the fertility of the soil. See the excellent discussion in Tucci, op. cit. (ref. 8), the remarks by Ferrone, op. cit (ref. 1), 284, and the more cautious discussion in Rossi Paolo , The dark abyss of time , trans. by Cochrane L. G. (Chicago and London, 1984), 75–79.

De' corpi marini (rei. 30), 106.

Vallisneri to Riccati, 26 July 1719, in Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3), 78. Vallisneri to Bourguet, 14 August 1719 and 18 November 1720, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 231–2, 241–2. Vallisneri to Muratori, 8 October 1721, in Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), 243. Vallisneri to Scheuchzer, letters cited above, ref. 52.

Vallisneri to Riccati, 7 September 1721, in Riccati Carteggio (ref. 3), 123. Vallisneri to Bourguet, 23 November 1717, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 225–6, where the key sentence reads in part: “Tolta la fede, che si deve alla sagra scrittura … chi ci assicura di questo universale Diluvio?” Also quoted in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 135 n. 346.

did Vallisneri , however, use some ancient pagan literature, sometimes for topographic descriptions, but also for what the ancients supposedly “witnessed” — see De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 41 (Vitruvius) and especially 34 (Ovid). One of the nastier Biblical complications Vallisneri encountered as a result of his study of parasitic worms entailed controversy about whether Adam and Eve could have been so afflicted; for discussion, see Roger , op. cit. (ref. 1), 217–19.

De' corpi marini (ref. 30), 46. ‘Obscure’ was a common term in this period, however, and it generally meant a pre-literate age in human history, when knowledge was transmitted orally and later written down in the form of myths.

Conti Antonio to Vallisneri , n.d., in Conti , Scrittifilosofici , ed. by Badaloni N. (Naples, 1972), 386–91, where the original French text of the letter is preceded by an Italian translation. The earliest date for this letter is June 1722, given Conti's allusion to the critique of Antoine de Jussieu written by Castel and published in the Mémoires de Trévoux of that month. In general, see Badaloni N. , Antonio Conti: Un abate libero pensatore tra Newton e Voltaire (Milan, 1968) for a scholarly study of this rather odd cleric who is known to Anglophone historians of science chiefly on the basis of his encounters with Isaac Newton. Porcia's letter to Vallisneri, 24 July 1721, is in Brunelli, op. cit. (ref. 8), 230. For a valuable sketch of Porcia's religious attitudes, see Generali in Porcia, Notizie (ref. 9), 19–20.

Vallisneri to Bourguet, 23 November 1717 and 1 January 1725, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 225–6, 270–1. Vallisneri to Muratori, 8 October 1721, in Muratori, Carteggi (ref. 6), 243; also, Tucci, op. cit. (ref. 8), 27. See also the remarks by Vallisneri's son in the “Prefazione” to the Opere (ref. 9), i, p. xx, about “il grande spazio di tempo” implied by his father's views on the sea gradually retreating from areas where sedimentary strata are now to be found.

Bourguet to Abauzit, 28 February 1722, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1259. This important letter was called to my attention by Kennard Bork's article (ref. 8), 61, 75, where it is cited to show that Bourguet still hoped to reply persuasively to Vallisneri's arguments. Bork and others consider Bourguet to have been a diluvial geologist, but he was neither a Burnetian nor a Woodwardian; see the elegant, delicate discussion in Jacques Roger, Buffon: Un philosophe au Jardin du Roi (Paris, 1989), 143. Vallisneri did not make delicate distinctions, but considered Bourguet to be too much tied to a literal interpretation of Scripture.

Vallisneri to Bourguet, 1 January 1722, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 251–2: “Quando ricorriamo a' Miracoli, tutta è fornita la naturale storia.”.

See Tucci , op. cit. (ref. 8), 21, for one of the few surviving letters from Bourguet to Vallisneri, 12 October 1721, where Bourguet insists, in a manner entirely typical of this period, that Moses was a reliable historian. For a Galilean text in which miracles answer all questions (“tutta è fornita”, quoted above, ref. 64), see Galileo , Dialogue concerning the two chief World Systems , trans. by Drake Stillman (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), 237: “whatever begins with a Divine miracle or an angelic operation … is not unlikely to do everything else by means of the same principle”.

Nova acta eruditorum , April 1734, 167. This comment occurs in a survey of the contents of Vallisneri's Opere. I have not found in the Acta a review of the 1728 edition of De' corpi marini, and I have been unable to search the appropriate volume(s) for a possible review of the first edition (1721). Mémoires de Trévoux, December 1734, 2131; this, too, is a review of the contents of the Opere. What I have rendered “as perplexed as before” reads: “il laisse la difficulté dans toute sa force”.

Review of Woodward, Géographic physique , trans. by Noguez (Paris, 1735), in Mémoires de Trévoux, February 1736, 245, 246, 253–5.

Vallisneri to Bourguet, 1 January 1722, in Fonds Bourguet (ref. 8), MS. 1282, fols 251–2, for allusion to “molti nemici”. The editor's appendix to Riccati, Carteggio (ref. 3), 173–4, shows that the important changes in — actually, major additions to — De' corpi marini were in the biological, not the geological, parts of that book. The dispute with Andry continued unabated in this period (above, ref. 30). For all that Vallisneri at times equated Andry with the French in general or the Academy of Sciences in particular, it may be pointed out that Andry was never a member of the Academy.

In addition to the puzzled reactions cited above, ref. 66, Vallisneri junior included in his father's Opere (ref. 9), iii, 561, a letter written by Vallisneri — neither the date nor the addressee is given — which begins by tackling the allegation that Vallisneri had been too sceptical and had asked many questions but provided no answers.

See Keill John , An examination of the reflections on the theory of the Earth [by Burnet] (Oxford, 1699), notably p. 4 where Keill says that Burnet wanted him to explain “wherein this miracle [the Flood] consisted”. In reply, Keill said, “I never thought it my business to explain miracles”. There is a huge literature on the English view that nature provides evidence of the existence and attributes of God; for the migration and gradual adoption of this view in Continental Europe, see Roger , op. cit. (ref. I), 224–53. The anti-diluvial Frenchmen included Réaumur and Antoine de Jussieu, discussed in my forthcoming article (ref. 50). Badaloni's assertion (ref. 61), 107, that Antonio Conti adopted Jussieu's diluvial theory is based on confusion about Jussieu himself, i.e., Badaloni conflates Jussieu's marine movements with the Flood.