Abstract
Pierre des Noyers, secretary of Queen of Poland Louise-Marie Gonzaga, is known for his role as a messenger, envoy, court journalist and sometimes propagandist. His work as an unofficial diplomat for the Queen and ambassador for France is less famous though no less interesting. Even though he was already quite involved in these time-consuming tasks, Pierre des Noyers also acted as a scientific intermediary for the quite curious Queen Louise-Marie of Poland. He maintained contacts with many scholars from France and Italy. He could nurture this network thanks to his position as an informal diplomat at the court of the Queen and his dedication to science in general. Even by discarding his most official and political letters, his known correspondence amounts to several hundred letters written in a period of around 50 years to various friends and scholars. Roberval, Gassendi, Boulliau, Hevelius or Pascal are among these contacts and he plays for most of them the role of a scientific intermediary sharing with them observations, books and anecdotes. His letters are filled with astronomical observations, prodigies and prophecies. Des Noyers was also a practitioner of science. Having possessed a rather large collection of scientific instruments he always sought the improved ones and his daily life was marked by scientific studies. He wrote meteorological bulletins for Academia del Cimento in Florence, studied the measurement of time, observed the sun and showed interest in the inner workings of the human body. This article will delve further into more scientific aspects of Pierre des Noyers’s life, both at the court of Louise-Marie and outside. The first part presents a rough overview of the secretary’s contacts in the scientific environment of 17th Century France and how they were used to connect scholars from Poland with this environment. The second part of this work presents Pierre des Noyers’s practice of science as a tool to understand the world and for which utmost diligence in measurement and practice is required. The last part focuses on des Noyers’s application of this scientific method in two, now pseudo-scientific fields: astrology and divination.
Highlights
Pierre des Noyers (1607–1693), secretary of que Queen of Poland Louise-Marie Gonzaga, was born in Festigny, Champagne
His work as an unofficial diplomat for the Queen and ambassador for France is less famous though no less interesting. Even though he was already quite involved in these time-consuming tasks, Pierre des Noyers acted as a scientific intermediary for the quite curious Queen Louise-Marie of Poland
Gassendi, Boulliau, Hevelius or Pascal are among these contacts and he plays for most of them the role of a scientific intermediary sharing with them observations, books and anecdotes
Summary
Pierre des Noyers (1607–1693), secretary of que Queen of Poland Louise-Marie Gonzaga, was born in Festigny, Champagne. Two easy to miss mentions in his correspondence tell us of a sister and a brother, Elisabeth and Claude, and there are some documents in Châlons-en-Champagne regarding his father’s affairs, mostly real estate transactions He entered very early in the service of the Gonzaga-Nevers family. In previous articles I presented the dense network of correspondence Pierre des Noyers established in the name of Queen Louise-Marie Gonzaga to gather information about European politics and to act as an alternative covert way of communication with the court of France1 In these articles I entirely omitted its scientific component for the sake of brevity but it happens that many of Pierre des Noyers’ contacts are from the “scientific community” of the time. This does not diminish their value as Pierre des Noyers was a man of science while being secretary of the queen
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
