Concept

Accademia del Cimento

Overview

The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani and ceased to exist about a decade later. The foundation of Academy was funded by Prince Leopoldo and Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici. The tenets of the society included:

Experimentation (about everything, in this early period of science)

Avoidance of speculation

Creation of laboratory instruments

Standards of measurement

Motto – Provando e riprovando = Proving and proving again (or Trying and Trying again)

A publication Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'Accademia del Cimento sotto la protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal segretario di essa Accademia first published in 1666, later translated into Latin in 1731. It became the standard laboratory manual in the 18th century.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Both, however (though differing in other respects), were professorial, and reduced every subject to controversy, establishing and defending certain sects and dogmas of philosophy, so that their doctrines were nearly (what Dionysius not unaptly objected to Plato) the talk of idle old men to ignorant youths.
Francis Bacon, Novum organum
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(10) Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Cæsar the Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of…
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
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In this manner lived Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many others. As the demand increased, the school, both of philosophy and rhetoric, became stationary, first in Athens, and afterwards in several other cities. The state, however, seems never to have encouraged them further, than by assigning to some of them a particular place to teach in, which was sometimes done, too, by private donors.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Close in meaning to Accademia del Cimento; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed Accademia del Cimento

Johann Sturm

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Pythagoreanism.

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