L. F. Marsigli’s voyage to London and Holland, 1721-1722

Abstract

The Marsigli Archives in Bologna University Library consist of 146 packages or volumes of material: drafts, texts, illustrations, maps—principally in Latin, Italian and French, but with Hungarian, Balkan, Turkish and other oriental inclusions—and his correspondence is scattered across Europe (1)*. It is a testimony to the energy and perseverance of a man who, spending the best years of his life as a soldier, was an expert on military fortifications and on Ottoman political and cultural life; is still honoured for his mapping of Hungary, for his natural history of the Danube basin, and as a founder of oceanography; and whose Institute of Sciences, with its Observatory, stands today as part of Bologna’s academic heritage. This prodigious output in so many subjects and languages has prevented any modern comprehensive study of Marsigli (contemporary biographies and an autobiography of the first part of his life were written (2)), but a number of historians are now actively studying one area or period of his life. The work presented here is one such contribution. It is FRATI 97 in the Archive and has not previously been transcribed or translated in full, although a summary in Italian was published by Longhena in 1938 (3).