Some Italian visitors to the early Royal Society

Abstract

Scholars in Tuscany heard early in 1661 that the Royal Society had been formed. This was by way of a letter from Dr John Finch, later Sir John and F.R.S., a fervent Italophile who had taken the degree of M.D. at Padua and was professor of anatomy at Pisa from 1655 until at the restoration of Charles II in 1660 he returned temporarily to England. In this letter he flattered its recipient, Prince Leopold, by referring to the establishment in London of ‘an Academy, begun on the model of that of Your Highness’ (1), a reference to the Accademia del Cimento formed by the Prince and his brother Ferdinand the Grand Duke of Tuscany.