Rome and the Royal Society, 1660-1740

Abstract

Most Fellows of The Royal Society in the late seventeenth century knew Rome through their classical education and would have been attracted to visit it for the remains of antiquity and for the new churches and palaces of the papal city. John Evelyn, in Rome 16 years before the foundation of the Society, John Ray, Edmond Halley and Robert Nelson, and Bishop Burnet and G.W. Leibniz, also met people who had links to the Accademia dei Lincei of Prince Federico Cesi, and to the later Accademia Fisica-mathematica associated with Queen Christina of Sweden. Besides astronomy, they were especially interested in cabinets of curiosities and in Vesuvius and other volcanic sites. They met English residents in Rome, especially those around the Venerable English College.