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Notes
At least three cases can be distinguished: the schools of the religious orders open to laymen (especially the Jesuits, Barnabites, and Piarists), some of which were authorized to give doctoral degrees; other universities governed by states or by local magistrates, but entrusted to the Company of Jesus (as were, at different times, Parma, Mantua, Macerata); universities that were formally “secular”, but organized wholly or in part according to the Jesuit model, and that used some Jesuits as teachers. See U. Baldini, Die Philosophie an den Universitäten, in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. Band 1. Allgemeine Themen. Iberiche Halbinsel. Italien, Herausgegeben von Jan-Pierre Schöbinger (Basel, 1998) pp. 621–668.
F. M. Renazzi, Storia dell’Università degli Studi di Roma detta comunemente la Sapienza, 4 volumes, Roma, 1803–1806. This work for certain questions is still valid. The only comprehensive history which is more recent (N. Spano, L’Università di Roma, Roma, 1935) completes it for the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, but it is quite summary and for the years before the Napoleonic epoch it adds nothing new. The few other useful works for the period examined will be cited below.
The founding Bull of Boniface VIII, In supremae praeminentia dignitatis (20 April 1303) is published in N. Spano, L’Università di Roma, p. 15. The new Bull of Eugene IV, with the same title, is dated 10 October 1431.
Abrief exposition is in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, II, p. 26.
According to Renazzi the course of theology of the Sapienza for this reason remained almost without students (Storia dell’Università, IV, p. 2).
The “pro Universitate” congregation was established by Sixtus V in his Bull Immensa aeterni Dei (January 1587), which defined the structure and the tasks of the 15 congregations that, from then to the fall of the Papal State in 1870, formed the Curia, which handled both the technical-political questions of the Papal State (public works, finance, the fleet and army, etc.) and questions related to the organization and doctrine of the Church. It was co-ordinated by the Cardinal Camerlingo (one of traditional positions of the Curia), to whom the administrative body of the university, the college of advocates, answered. The college named the Rector, responsible for its ordinary operations and who was head of administrative and teaching personnel.
The college, that brought together the advocates authorized to plead cases before the highest courts of the Papal State, had its seat within the university; it was assigned this task by the Bull Sacri Apostolatus ministerio of Sixtus V (1587: see the text in G. Carafa, De Gymnasio Romano et de eius professoribus, Romae, 1751, II, pp. 595–599). In the 16th and 17th century the Rector was always named from its own members, and its judgment was imperative for the Rector in all questions of importance. One can speak of a “cultural policy” of individual Rectors, distinct and in contrast to the college, only when they acted on the orders, or with the support, of the Cardinal Camerlingo, the Secretary of State of the Pope.
In the State there was a Congregation (equivalent functionally to a modern ministry, but with a different structure because it was formed by a group of cardinals, one of whom presided with the title of Prefect) for rivers and roads. This was never on the same level of the analogous offices along the Po and in the Republic of Venice, and was almost the only permanent one, because for the other technical questions (including military engineering) there were few offices with a defined structure but they were assigned on a case by case basis. The job given by Urban VIII to Bendetto Castelli (1626) to study the floods of the river Reno is the first known case of a professor of mathematics from the Sapienza assigned an engineering question, and similar cases were rare in the future. As has been said above, the permanent Congregations of the Roman Curia were 15 in the Bull Immensa aeterni Dei of Sixtus V (1588), that established the framework of the Curia until the revolutionary period; others were formed for transitory questions (such as, the one formed by Gregory XIII to reform the calendar, in which, significantly, there were no professors from the Sapienza). On the structure of the Curia: N. Del Re, La Curia romana: lineamenti storico-giuridici, IV ed., Roma, 1998. On the technical offices of state, the preparation of specialists and the reforms that occurred between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, see O. Verdi, Agrimensori, architetti ed ingegneri nello Stato Pontificio del primo Ottocento: dalla professione privata all’impiego pubblico, in “Roma moderna e contemporanea”, VI, 1998, 3, pp. 367–396, and the bibliography that is cited in it. This article demonstrates that until the period of the restoration the engineers and architects of the state were not trained in the university or the related schools (except a course of architecture in the Roman Academy of St. Luke, that was primarily artistic in character), but were formed mainly in the field.
M. R. Di Simone, La “Sapienza” romana nel Settecento. Organizzazione universitaria e insegnamento del diritto, Roma, 1980, pp. 153–154.
Besides the clear case of theology (whose lecturers were systematically members of regular orders), this was true especially for chairs in logic and philosophy. While metaphysics, a conceptual bond between natural philosophy and theology, from the Middle Ages until the mid-18th century was assigned to regular clergy in nearly all Italian universities, logic and philosophy tended to be assigned to laymen (often physicians, who began their teaching careers to go on to lectureships in medicine, which was of greater interest to them and which were, on the average, better paid). In Rome, on the contrary, from 1690 to 1748 all the readers of logic and philosophy (except two in logic) were regular clergy. Naturally what is said here holds over the long run and for most cases, not for every particular case. Occasionally Rome called professors with great reputations from the outside (like Francesco Patrizi in philosophy at the end of the 16th century); these cases, however, were not the product of a preconceived policy, but were the personal initiatives of popes or cardinals.
On the history of the Church’s prohibition of astrology, its new forms in the 16th century and its possible historic effects, see U. Baldini, “The Roman Inquisition’s Condemnation of Astrology: Antecedents, Reasons and Consequences”, in G. Fragnito (ed.), Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 79–110.
There was a course in higher mathematics in the College (the “academy of mathematics” or “academy of Clavius”) that over about 50 years between the 16th and 17th centuries (to some extent even later) trained many specialists, while at the same time in 20 years of teaching Luca Valerio, a mathematician of great talent, did not produce even one significant pupil (U. Baldini, Saggi sulla cultura della Compagnia di Gesù, Padua 2000, Chap. II; U. Baldini and P. D. Napoletani, Per una biografia di Luca Valerio. Fonti edite e inedite per una ricostruzione della sua carriera scientifica, in “Bollettino di storia delle scienze matematiche”, XI, 1991, n. 1, pp. 3–157). The existence of a crisis in the relationship between the Sapienza and the Roman College beginning in the 16th century with the development of the latter has been often noted (see, e.g., Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, III, pp. 173–174; the same historian wrote that, because of the competition of the religious schools, in the years between the 17th and 18th centuries the courses of theology and philosophy were almost without students: IV, pp. 2–3).
Mons. G. Giustino Ciampini, who in the last decades of the 17th century was of the people most interested in the new science and founded an experimental academy, left money for the establishment of a “Roman University” on a new model, in which science, figurative arts, music, and modern languages (in the Sapienza only the classical languages and Hebrew were taught, and until the end of the 18th century the lessons were in Latin) were to be taught. The project was never carried out but its existence is revealing. See H. Gross, Rome in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 236–237; on Ciampini’s Academy: W. E. Knowles Middleton, “Science in Rome, 1675–1700”, The British Journal for the History of Science VIII (2):138–154 (1975).
Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 10–12.
See the historical overview and the bibliography in A. L. Bonella, “La professione medica a Roma tra Sei e Settecento”, in Roma moderna e contemporanea VI (1998), 3, pp. 349–366.
Colombo taught anatomy around 1559; Cisalpino practical medicine, from 1592 to 1601; Faber the “simples” (botany) from 1601 to 1628; Castelli held the same position from 1629 to 1634, and Trionfetti from 1678 to 1708; Porzio taught practical medicine from 1672 to 1681, and surgery and anatomy in 1682 and 1683; Lancisi taught surgery and anatomy from 1682 to 1695, extraordinary theoretical medicine from 1696 to 1701 and practical medicine from 1702 to 1719; Baglivi succeeded him in 1696 until 1701 in the lectureship of anatomy, and from 1702 to 1706 in extraordinary theoretical medicine (see I Maestri della Sapienza di Roma dal 1514 al 1787: i Rotuli e altre fonti, edited by Emanuele Conte, Roma, 1991).
On this school see: Bonella, La professione medica, pp. 362–365. Paolo Zacchia (1584–1659), one of the founders of social and legal medicine, and Giovanni Guglielmo Riva (1627-ca. 1677), who carried out important research in anatomy, only taught in the hospitals where they practiced. Generally, the pontifical archiaters (both Zaccaria and Riva were archiaters) were physicians in the hospitals rather than academics. Lancisi, a pupil of Riva, in addition to the university taught at Santo Spirito, where he had practiced since his youth, and set up a medical academy that was a sort of graduate course compared to the university course. Antonio Leprotti (1687–1746), archiater to both Clement XII and Benedict XIV, taught only in the hospitals and tried to energize Lancisi’s Academy. Among Roman doctors were born several naturalistic-medical academies as early as the 17th century; beginning in 1715 Lancisi’s Academy went much further with an ambitious modern programme, but in the 18th century it ceased to function in several periods, and even when it did, it did not live up to original intentions (Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, 165 ss.; P. De Angelis, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, la Biblioteca Lancisiana, l’Accademia Lancisiana nel 250. anno di fondazione, Roma, 1965). In theory the hospital schools were not supposed to train physicians, but to increase their practical experience after their academic training; in fact, however, it seems that a good number of physicians were trained almost exclusively in these schools. The control of medical education was so lax that Clement X (1670–1676) introduced a “matricola” (a register) in which they had to be enrolled to practice, and subordinated enrolment to a prior examination; but it does not seem that the situation improved significantly.
Naturally this behavior is only rarely documented in official records, but it is found unequivocally in contemporary memoirs. In the most important work of this kind, Memorie della Sapienza di Pantaleo Balsarini, lecturer in logic from 1727 to 1746 and librarian, written between 1740 and 1770 (Rome, Bibl. Universitaria Alessandrina, mss. 60–64), chapter 12 on the chairs of the Sapienza begins with this phrase: “This chapter must be described with tears” (ms. 60, p. 298). Balsarini wrote (p. 301) that many professors (especially, but not only, in medicine) seriously neglected their teaching, and in his consideration of individual professors (particularly in ms. 62) blamed some of the best known (like F. Jacquier) for this. In the chirograph of 1748 with which some reforms were introduced, and of which more will be said below, Benedict XIV wrote that the Rector of the University, C. Argenvilliers, had informed him that in the Sapienza “good studies... day after day are nearly abandoned” (text in G. Carafa, De Gymnasio Romano et de eius professoribus, Romae, 1751, II, p. 643 and ff., and Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, p. 453 and ff.). Even after these partial reforms were introduced later in the century the Rector C. L. Costantini wrote that after 1780 it was common to not hold any or only a part of the lessons (Relazione dell’Archiginnasio Romano nel Rettorato di Monsignore Carlo Luigi Costantini, Rome, Bibl. Univ. Alessandrina, ms. 117, f. 16r). For Naples, Filippo Caravita’s report of 1714 is important, in which we read that two of the most prominent professors of medicine, Luca Tozzi and Luca Antonio Porzio (both associated with the Neapolitan circles most open to the new science and corpuscularism, and because of this considered in all the histories of scientific and philosophical thought of the Kingdom of Naples between the 17th and 18th centuries), had for many years dedicated themselves exclusively to their medical practices, delegating their lessons to obscure substitutes who were unpaid (G. De Blasiis, “L’Università di Napoli nel 1714”, in Archivio storico per le province napoletane, I, 1876, pp. 142–166).
These limits are perhaps the reason why the reforms of University of Rome, unlike those which occurred in Turin, Pavia, Padua and elsewhere, are considered only in a few specialized works, and have had little influence on the study of the development of the Papal State in the 18th century (they are not considered in F. Venturi, “Elementi e tentativi di riforma nello Stato Pontificio del Settecento” in Rivista storica italiana, LXXV (1963), pp. 778–817).
On the creation of the Botanical Garden (preceded in the century before by some private gardens and that of the Vatican): Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, III, pp. 158–159; R. Pirotta and E. Chiovenda, Flora romana (Roma, 1900), pp. 112–113.
Text in Carafa, De Gymnasio, pp. 600–607.
Which often were substituted for public lessons, which were not offered. See the text of the prohibition in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 424–425.
See the commission report in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 429–430. More radical proposals had come from Gian Vincenzo Gravina, professor of civil law beginning 1699 (after 1703 he also taught canon law). He had sent several memoranda to the Pope, describing the state of the university very negatively, and had indicated as a priority taking its direction away from the Concistorial Advocates. Nevertheless, despite its passivity and traditionalism, this body, considered by many as a cause of the problems, kept its role until Napoleonic years. The final two recommendations of the congregation, as appear below, were not permanently applied. The obstacles to change were not only the Concistorial Advocates, but also the professors, who propagated, at times publicly, their objections, or proposals that did not produce any real innovation. Gravina’s memoirs were perhaps produced at several different times rather than as a single text: Sbozzo di supplica al Papa a pro dell’Università degli Studi, contra gli Avvocati Concistoriali (Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, ms. XIII B 44, ff. 22v-23r), and Per l’Università della Sapienza contro il Collegio degli Avocati Concistoriali alla Santità di Nostro Signore Papa Clemente XI (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. Vat. lat. 9790, ff. 1–41; another copy in ms. Ottob. lat. 3137, ff. 132v–145v). A long memoir addressed by a group of professors to Clement XI was published in Rome in 1705 (Memoriale alla Santità del Sommo Pontefice Clemente XI Nostro Signore intorno allo Stato antico, e Moderno dello Studio Generale della Sapienza di Roma; a sample was included in Balsarini’s Memorie, ms. 61, f. 122 and ff.).
However, it was neglected to the point that in 1742 it had to be reorganized because “it had gone to ruin”: Balsarini, Memorie, ms. 60, p. 86 and ff. (in the name of the Rector T. Antamori).
Text in Carafa, De Gymnasio, pp. 608–635, and in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 450–452. In Italy this regulation was not adapted for the entire 18th century. At the same time, however, the Pope confirmed the prerogatives of the Concistorial Advocates, including the appointment of the Rector. Before the decisions of 1744 and 1748 Benedict XIV asked a commission of professors (formed in 1741) to make proposals. The commission used principally an external model, the reforms introduced at the University of Turin between 1720 and 1727 (Balsarini, Memorie, ms. 63, ff. 19r–20r). In 1743, as the first provision, the anatomical theater was improved.
Text in Carafa, De Gymnasio, pp. 636–642, and in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 459–460.
The proposal to establish the two chairs of advanced mathematics and chemistry was made by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga (Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 221–222). In his youth he studied with Celestino Galiani, a student of Newtonian physics and a promoter of the reforms in Naples, and he was a personal friend and protector of Boscovich; so it cannot be excluded that the proposal came from the mathematician of the Roman College (on the Cardinal and his relationship with Boscovich: U. Baldini, Saggi sulla cultura della Compagnia di Gesù, cap. IX).
Text in Carafa, De Gymnasio, pp. 643–655, and in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 453–458.
G. Bonelli, one of the professors of medicine who was most interested in botany and the Botanical Garden, complained that after 1720 this neglect had become habitual (Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, p. 217).
The Memoirs of Balsarini point out that at least a few of the professors of medicine continued to neglect their lessons and anatomical demonstrations; a short time later, the physicians reactivated some of the extraordinary chairs and lectureships that had been suspended. See A. Pazzini, La storia della Facoltà Medica di Roma, Roma, 1961, I, p. 46.
Student attendance was not required, and remained the lowest of the universities of the other major Italian cities; moreover, the direction of botanical garden continued to be considered only as an initial step in the curriculum of professors of medicine (this was claimed by Bonelli: see note 44).
Renazzi wrote that “once the first enthusiasm passed”, the university returned “back to its original state of languor and disorder” (Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 218–219); the same judgment is found in the Relazione of Costantini (f. 4r), who added that even the archive “was the most perfect picture of the confusion” (f. 5r). The lack of real improvement is reflected in the low number of enrolments; in 1753 the students enrolled in all the courses were 140, and 180 in 1773 (Di Simone, La “Sapienza” romana, p. 146). The significance of these numbers is clear if one considers that the attendance was lower than enrolment, that the University of Padua had more than a thousand students and that in Rome most of the enrolled studied law: 101 in 1753, 125 in 1773. Between 1748 and 1773 the only regulatory change was the Bull Splendor paternae gloriae of Clement XIII, of 1759 (text in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 462–464), which however only concerned the course in theology: it established moral theology (cases of conscience), granted in perpetuity to the Carmelites, who already held other theological chairs.
C. L. Costantini, who became Rector in 1787, wrote that he had to “pass on to his successors a Sapienza not reduced to such a state that he would have to blush”, and much of the work he accomplished was merely applying the reforms of Benedict XIV (Relazione, f. 7v). This confirms the fact that they had not been put into effect.
It should be noted that, while the Inquisition had been abolished in nearly all the Italian states, which took over both the preventive and a posteriori censorship of the press, so decreasing also the role of the Index, the two Congregations were still active in the Papal State. So, while elsewhere the decree of 1616 that prohibited works in favor of heliocentrism stopped being observed between the end of the 17th and half way through the 18th century, in Papal territory it remained formally in effect until 1820; and even after 1758, when the general formula of condemnation of heliocentricism stopped being published in the Index librorum prohibitorum, scientists working in Rome avoided open declarations of the subject (see Baldini, Saggi sulla cultura della Compagnia di Gesù, cap. IX).
Reproduced in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 471–475, and in Pazzini, La storia della Facoltà Medica, pp. 636–637 and 639–641.
From 1781, when Lorenzo Prospero Bottini became Rector (1737–1818, then a Cardinal: see Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 13, Roma 1971, pp. 471–472), at the top of the bureaucracy of the Sapienza there were a group of men who, even though they came from the College of Consistorial Advocates or were appointed by them, judged the old situation to be intolerable and tried to change it. One of them was Costantini, already cited as the author of the Relazione, librarian beginning in 1782 and Rector in 1787, the real implementer of the reforms of Pius VI; another was Renazzi, the future author of the Storia dell’Università. The latter, in his opening address in 1781 (Oratio de studiis litterarum ad bonum Reipublicae referendis habita in Romano Archigymnasio VI. Kal. Decembr. An. MDCCCLXXXI in solemni studiorum instauratione, Romae [1781]), announced the Pope’s intention to restructure the university.
Text in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 476–477.
Text in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 477–478.
An Italian translation of the regulations of the Napoleonic universities, to be used in Rome, was printed only in 1812 (Decreti, statuti e regolamenti principali dell’Università imperiale, Roma 1812). In 1813 professors were required to swear loyalty to the Empire, and those who refused had to transfer to the school of the Roman College. On this period: R. Boudard, Experiences françaises de l’Italie napoleonienne: Rome dans le systeme universitaire napoleonien et l’organization des academies et universités de Pise, Parme et Turin, 1806–1814, Rome, 1988.
On the reform of 1824: A. Gemelli and S. Vismara, La riforma degli studi universitari negli Stati pontifici, 1816–1824, Milan 1933. See also A. P. Bidolli, “Contributi alla storia dell’Università degli Studi di Roma—La Sapienza durante la Restaurazione”, in Annali della Scuola Speciale per gli Archivisti e Bibliotecari dell’Università di Roma, XIX–XX (1979–1980), pp. 71–110. Here it is enough to mention one of the more unusual aspects of the reform: the establishment in 1816 of a chair of “holy physics” separated from ordinary physics, intended to demonstrate the compatibility of cosmology (as well as of biology, zoology, and botany) with the Bible, understood mostly in its literal meaning. The chair remained active for about 40 years, and about it there is only one brief work (S. Proja, Cenni intorno la cattedra di fisica sacra nell’Archiginnasio Romano, Roma 1838).
While it is certain that they studied with Castelli in Rome, it is not known if they were his students in the university or in private courses, but this is irrelevant for the considerations made in this text. Torricelli and Borelli are known generally, while Ricci is known only to specialists; nevertheless his Exercitatio geometrica (1666) is one of the most important achievements of Italian mathematicians in the years between Cavalieri and Torricelli and the diffusion of analytical geometry and later calculus (J. E. Hoffmann, “Ueber die Exercitatio geometrica des M.A. Ricci”, in Centaurus (1964), pp. 139–193). Another important pupil of Castelli in Rome, even less known because of his early death, was R. Magiotti.
On this, and the programme of the discipline, see Baldini, Die Philosophie.
The Holy Office suspected Giulio Cesare Lagalla, a professor at the Sapienza in the first decades of the 17th century, an acquaintance and correspondent of Galileo who provided Aristotelian explanations of the observations made possible by the telescope, to be inclined to Averroism. His private position, however, did not influence his teaching, and after him nearly all the lecturers were strictly orthodox regular clerics. On Lagalla see the relevant passages in the National Edition of the Opere of Galileo and, more recently, I. Gallo, Ancora su G. C. La galla, in Rassegna storica salernitana, 8 (1987), pp. 17–29.
On Nazzari and the journal: J.-M. Gardair, Le “Giornale de’ letterati” de Rome, 1668–1681, Florence 1984.
The list of the philosophy professors in Conte, I maestri della Sapienza, p. 1081 and ff., has gaps after 1678; a more complete one is found in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, III, pp. 181–184.
From 1765 to 1768 Jacquier and Le Seur taught in the Court of Parma; later the former seems to have interrupted his teaching several times, even if his name appeared constantly on the university roll until 1787. Balsarini, who knew the internal happenings of the university, wrote that he “over time lost the concourse [that is the attendance of the students], and credit” (Memorie, ms. 62, pp. 115–116). One of the reasons may be the fact that the “minimum” French father also taught in the Roman College De Propaganda Fide, where he probably had a larger number of students and more impelling teaching obligations. As for the laboratory, nothing proves that it was used for anything other than teaching; in 1789 the Rector C. L. Costantini wrote that until 1780 in the laboratory of physics and that of chemistry there were 15 demonstrations per year, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and that the professors suspended lessons the day before (Tuesdays and Fridays) to prepare the lessons; so the students did not go to the university on those days, deserting the lessons of medicine (Relazione dell’Archiginnasio Romano, f. 16v). No contemporary descriptions of the laboratory apparatus exist, and there has been no attempt to reconstruct its organization.
Jacquier taught until 1787; from 1767 to 1792 also taught philosophy as an extraordinary lecturer the Piarist Girolamo Maria Fonda (1732–1800), who, during the long absence of Jacquier, was the only professor. He was more scrupulous, but not a scientist of the highest level: his notable scientific works are Elementi di architettura civile e militare, for the School of the Piarists (Roma, 1764), and an essay Sopra la maniera di preservare gli edifici dal fulmine (Roma, 1770). On Fonda: P. Stancovich, Biografia degli uomini distinti dell’Istria, Capodistria 1888, pp. 229–230. On Jacquier and Le Seur, so united in life and in their scientific work that it is difficult to discuss them separately, there is no adequate work, despite the fact that their long commentary on the Principia is mentioned in all the histories of physics of the 18th century. The fullest biographical treatment is still G. Ceruti, Elogio funebre del Padre Jacquier detto in Arcadia, Roma 1788; on both of them see also F. Bonnard, Histoire du couvent royal de la Trinità du mont Pincio à Rome (Rome, Paris, 1933), pp. 178–186. Perhaps Jacquier’s university lessons were more technical than the manual he wrote for his courses in the College of Propaganda Fide (Institutiones philosophicae ad studia teologica potissimum accommodatae.... Physicae pars I, Venetiis 1785), but it is improbable that they were much different.
See the summary of C. Preti in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 55, Roma, 2000, pp. 289–291.
After Giordano, who died in 1711, Domenico Quarteroni taught (first as Giordano’s assistant, then as an extraordinary professor after 1699), whose scientific publications deal only with calendar theory and land reclamation (P. Riccardi, Biblioteca matematica italiana, republished Milan 1952, I, columns 326–327). In 1727 Diego Revillas, an abbot of the order of St. Jerome, joined him; Revillas published on astronomy, historical metrology (his study on the Roman foot is important), and meteorological instruments (Riccardi, I, columns 551–552). He was also a notable personality in the academic circles of Parma, where he worked before Rome (A. Vallisneri, Epistolario, I, edited by D. Generali (Milan, 1991), pp. 62, 65–67). In Rome he had a role in the canonization of St. Juan de Avila. According to Balsarini he was highly esteemed in the university (Memorie, ms. 60, p. 306), but his teaching remained traditional. In 1742 the Benedict (Olivetan) monk, Cesareo Pozzi (1718–1782), joined him and from 1745 to 1769 succeeded him (in 1748 he joined Le Seur in the new chair of “mixed” mathematics); however, he does not seem to have published scientific works. The views on him are varied, but they agree on the ineffectiveness of his teaching: for Balsarini it contained “little theory” and was “neglected” (Memorie, ms. 60, p. 306); Renazzi saw him as a man of talent, who dedicated to other activities (Storia dell’Università, IV, p. 101). For information on him see Carteggio di Pietro e Alessandro Verri (Milan, 1923) and ff., IV, pp. 239–240.
This does not mean that the professors did not know the basic elements of modern mathematics (with the possible exception of calculus), but this characterizes the basis of their preparation and their teaching. Renazzi, who had personal experience with the university of the second half of the century, wrote that until Benedict the XIV the programme was limited to the elements of geometry (Storia dell’Università, IV, p. 221).
As mentioned, in 1765 Le Seur and Jacquier went to the Court of Parma; when returning in 1768, the first rejected the chair due to its limited retribution (Balsarini, Memorie, ms. 62, p. 117). He did not publish a textbook for his courses, and no manuscript notes of them are know to exist.
Riccardi (Biblioteca matematica, I, col. 576) lists only a part of his writings. Three of them [De natura extensionis, Naples 1760; De naturae vi et lege generali, Romae 1756 (reviewed in Acta eruditorum, 1757, p. 648); De rectilinea lucis propagatione, Romae 1760] are of interest, being critiques of Boscovich’s theory of force. From 1754 to 1761, when he was still teaching in his Order’s Collegio Calasanzio, Gaudio was in Rome the more decided opposer of the Jesuit’s theory; he criticized it not only in the works mentioned, but also in at least nine dissertations discussed in public by his students during those years. His Institutiones mathematicae ad usum Scholarum Piarum, in 3 volumes, were published in Rome between 1772 and 1779. The only work specifically on him is still A. Amoretti, Elogio di P. Gaudio (Nice 1848).
Pessuti (1743–1814) had studied in the Piarist college Calasanzio, in Rome, where mathematics was taught by Gaudio; in 1760 he published his philosophical and mathematical theses. Before 1770, in an unknown way, he became a teacher in the military academy of St. Petersburg, where he met Euler, then returned in Rome before 1780. A first rate analyst and a member of important scientific academies, he was unable to create a significant and stable school (the best Roman mathematicians of early 19th century were not his pupils). He is not of interest only to historians of science, but also to cultural and political-ideological historians of the city, because he directed and collaborated for a long time with the most important local journals, and he was the most eminent academic who collaborated with the French during their occupation of Rome. Despite this no specific study of him exists. See: E. De Tipaldo, Biografia degli Italiani illustri, III (Venice, 1836), pp. 266–269; G. Ferretto, Note storico-biografiche di archeologia cristiana (Città delVaticano, 1942), ad ind.;M. Caffiero, Le “Efemeridi letterarie di Roma (1772–1798)”, in Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica (1997), 1, pp. 77–78. Some unpublished papers of his, entitled Schede di Gioacchino Pessuti, are in the codex Vat. lat. 9828 of the Vatican Library; interesting information on his mathematical work and his debates with G. Calandrelli (n. 104) may be found in a work by A. Eximeno, a Jesuit from Valencia who lived in Rome for some years: De studiis philosophicis et mathematicis instituendis (Madrid, 1789), part II, passim.
As for Lancisi the first aspect prevailed in his university teaching and his most original research, such as De subitaneis mortibus, while the second was obviously central in his work in the hospital of the Holy Ghost. On him there is no more adequate monograph than De Angelis, Giovanni Maria Lancisi. The work of Baglivi, as is commonly known, includes many subjects from medical practice to nosologic systems and physiology (he was one of the most rigorous theoreticians of iatromechanics), but his most original work was in pathological anatomy. For a summary of his work see: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 5 (Roma, 1963), pp. 250–252.
Pascoli (1669–1757) taught anatomy and surgery (1702–1708), theoretical medicine (1709–1719) and then, after Lancisi, practical medicine (1720–1749). For the essential information see E. De Tipaldo, Biografia degli Italiani illustri, II (Venice, 1835), pp. 209–210; L. Castaldi, “A. Pascoli filosofo e anatomista perugino”, in Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali,XV (1924), pp. 173–180. Cocchi (1685–1747)—not to be confused with a contemporary Antonio Cocchi, a better known physician in Florence—was the lecturer of simples in 1726 and 1727; then ha taught anatomy and surgery from 1728 and 1740, and theoretical medicine after 1744.A pupil of Baglivi and Lancisi and a correspondent of Morgagni, he published several writings on medicine which had a considerable reputation (in one of which he proposed a correct interpretation of the mechanism of cataracts), but his teaching does not seem to have been very effective: Balsarini thought he was a “great talent”, but neglected (Memorie, ms. 60, p. 140, and ms. 62, p. 84). See also Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 26 (Roma, 1982), pp. 461–463. Volpi, earlier an assistant of Lancisi, taught theoretical medicine from 1726 to 1740; afterwards he held the lectureship of the simples from 1719 to 1725, and later taught chemistry (from 1760 to 1773); see Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 219–220. Bonelli taught chemistry in 1759 and practical medicine from 1763 to 1793; on him see P. Casini in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 11 (Roma, 1969), pp. 757–758. As said below, his most significant work—not truly original—was not in medicine, but in botany, and its origins were in Turin and Padua, not in Rome.
Balsarini attributed to Saliceti (1714–1789) “ultimate diligence” (Memorie, ms. 62, p. 261). Even if in the university he only taught anatomy, Saliceti was known as a physician (later he was also an archiater of Pius VI), member of various Italian academies and correspondent of famous scientists of the time; he was not, however, an original researcher. For his biography see A. Fabroni, Elogi di uomini illustri, II (Pisa, 1789), pp. 269–282. In 1767 the demonstrations were usually held on holidays (to not interfere with the lessons) and Thursdays, especially concentrated in the period of Advent (Balsarini, ibid.; on the attraction of the demonstrations see ms. 63, f. 140r–140v).
In the current state of research, nevertheless, any precise conclusions are premature. The courses of medicine in the hospitals also had their own scientific equipment (the Academy of Lancisi had chemistry and physics laboratories), in which university professors often taught, so that to some extent these courses were continuations of university teaching (with the same function of university clinics today). Usually theywere usually attended by people who were already physicians which dealt with specific problems raised by clinical practice and were less restricted by rigid and antiquated programmes; so it is plausible that these courses not only touched on more defined questions, but were more in touch with contemporary research. The best example is Santo Spirito, where around 1770 the school was restructured with the building of an anatomical theater. Demonstrations were given regularly, anatomical and obstetric models in wax were purchased, practical exercises for students went on, with awards for the best of them (Renazzi, IV, pp. 295–296). On medicine as profession in XVIIIth century Rome see Bonella, La professione medica.
Since its origins there was resistance to the creation of a chair; this happened elsewhere as well, but in Rome it seemed greater: “in those times many said that Chemistry was not profitable for Rome, but harmful” (Balsarini, Memorie, ms. 62, p. 116).
Up to the pontificate of Pius VI they were: Luigi Filippo Giraldi (1748–1759); G. Bonelli e G. M. Volpi, already mentioned as a medical lecturer (1759–1760 and 1760–1773); Pasquale Adinolfi (1774–post 1787). Evidence of theoretical backwardness of teaching there is the faithfulness of Adinolfi to the chemistry of the phlogist (Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 266–267).
Already at the end of the 17th century a transition from monastic herbalism and the medieval and renaissance tradition of the “simples” to a broader conception of botanical research was begun by Giovanni Battista Trionfetti (1656-ca. 1708), professor from 1682 to his death, educated in Bologna in the naturalistic tradition begun by U. Aldrovandi. See Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 123–142.
This situation was denounced by Giuseppe De Panicis, lecturer in the simples from 1744 to 1746, in the inaugural address of 1745 (Oratio pro studiis botanicis abita in Horto Accademico MDCCXLV (Romae, 1745)); see Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 226–227; U. Baldini, “De Panicis, Giuseppe”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 39 (Roma, 1991), pp. 8–9.
E. Conte, I Maestri della Sapienza, p. 1099.
Conte, I Maestri, pp. 1099–1102, does not correctly differentiate between the professors of the two categories, putting some of the first in the second. A better classification is found in Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 223–247: After De Panicis the lecturers of the Sapienza were Francesco Aurelio Ginanneschi (from 1747 to 1768) and Giuseppe Micciari (from 1768 to at least 1787); the “ostensori” were Vallombrosian Benedictine priest Francesco Maratti (from 1746 or 1747 to 1777) and Nicolò Martelli (from 1777 to 1794). The custodians were Francesco Bertoldi (from 1744 to 1747), Liberato Sabbati (from about 1747 to 1779) and his son Costantino (from 1780 to after 1809). The new organization implied a higher status for the custodians: until Bertoldi, they were merely gardeners, chosen for having worked in other botanical gardens, while beginning with L. Sabbati (surgeon and expert in chemistry) they were university educated, and often physicians. The higher academic qualifications of individuals who worked in the botanical garden were such that, even when Pius VI renewed Benedict’s XIV prohibition for individuals to move from the “ostensione” to medical lecturers, it was not followed: in 1794 Martelli became the lecturer of anatomy.
The investigation of Pirotta-Chiovenda (ibid.) demonstrates that most of the important botanical writings by authors working in Rome came from the personnel of the Botanical Garden (like G. Bonelli), and almost none by lecturers in theoretical botany. However, given that the expression of an official position on innovative theoretical proposals-like Linnean classification—was an attribution of the latter, the former could not declare themselves without violating their area of academic competence. Even if there does not seem to be explicit testimony of this kind, this could be one of the reasons for the delay of the acceptance of the new botany in Rome. In fact, the programmes of theoretic botany were faithful to the Tournefort system until 1809 (Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 253–254), while as will be seen writings produced by the staff of the Botanical Garden raised doubts about it 25 years earlier.
Between 1750 and 1800 the work in this fields was normally outside the Sapienza and divorced from it, and only near the end of the century they gained some ground, not in teaching but in the personal interests of the professors of anatomy and botany. In 1804 the direction of a naturalistic museum, formed out of biological and mineralogical collections made by professors over the previous decades, was entrusted to the professor of natural history: see the Bull that established it in Renazzi, Storia dell’Università, IV, pp. 476–477.
A scientific academy came into existence only in 1799–1800, when the Academy of the Lincei was re-established, but in the preceding decades other bodies, mainly erudite, literary, and historical (the best known academies being the Arcadia, the Tiberina, the Quirina, and the Academy of the Occulti), held scientific discussions that were not superficial or merely popularizing. A good example was the report of the physician G. G. Lapi to the Quirina Academy (September 1758, but published in 1759) on the volcanic origins of the lakes Albano and Nemi, which began the study of the volcanic origins of part of Latium. Another, perhaps more important place for this were the schools of the religious orders, which traditionally had mathematical chairs, and in which from the mid-1700s the chairs of philosophy were places of naturalistic and physical research and had important collections as well (if the Kircherian Museum of the Roman College, formed in the 17th century, was inspired by the old wunderkammer, the mineralogical collection of the Nazareno College of the Piarists was of the highest level: Renazzi, IV, pp. 297–298). Some colleges and convents had astronomical observatories (in the second half of the century there were at least five observatories in Rome), and a center of culture and scientific research were the palaces of some of the high nobility (such as the Caetani) and some cardinals, in particular F. S. Zelada (who had a collection of wax anatomical models, later donated to the hospital of Santo Spirito, an important library, a private observatory and a collection of physical apparatus, later donated to the Roman College). On all of this the studies (except for articles on individuals or generic summaries of single academies) are fewand not up to date. See Renazzi, IV, pp. 288–304; Pirotta-Chiovenda, “Flora romana”, in F. Millosevich (eds.), Le scienze fisiche e biologiche in Roma e nel Lazio (Roma, 1933) (uneven essays on single disciplines); Arte, scienza e cultura in Roma cristiana (Bologna, 1971) (very general); M. Calisi, Le Specole romane nel Settecento, in L. Pigatto (ed.), Giuseppe Toaldo e il suo tempo. Nel bicentenario della morte. Scienza e lumi tra Veneto e Europa (Padova, 2000), pp. 423–445.
For botany the widest study (and in certain ways one of a kind) remains Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana. Among the fields omitted in this article the most developed (discussed mainly in the academies because of its relationship to archaeological research, then in great expansion in Rome), is geo-paleontology. For some basic information see E. Clerici, “La geologia e la paleontologia in Roma e nel Lazio”, in F. Millosevich (ed.), Le scienze fisiche e biologiche, pp. 79–111.
On the first see Casini, Bonelli, Giorgio. He was trained as a physician at the University of Turin, where he was a pupil of the noted botanist, C. Allioni, and he was also in contact with the curator of the Botanical Garden of Padua, G. Pontedera. Both, as members of the preceding generation, followed the Tournefort system, and Bonelli was never able to disassociate himself. As mentioned, his interest in botany was not professional, because he taught practical medicine. On Maratti see Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 229–236.
Martelli was a pupil of Maratti, whom he succeeded as ostensore in 1777. He replaced Bonelli in 1784 to edit the remaining volumes (II–VIII) of the Hortus romanus. In the preface to Vol. II he disassociated himself from the convictions of his predecessor, perhaps as an effect of a visit of M. Vahl, a third pupil of Linnaeus (1783–1784). Nevertheless Maratti only introduced Linnean nomenclature in Vol. VI and (perhaps to be coherent, and because the Garden still maintained its old organization) maintained until the last volume the Tournefort division of plants. That this may have derived from institutional restrictions is supported by the fact that in Rome the Linnean classification was publicly supported by two non-university botanists, Francesco (Cesare) Majoli (1746–1823) and Luigi Filippo Gilii (1756–1821), in the same years. The 27 volumes unpublished Plantarum collectio by Majoli, written “juxta Linnaeanum sistema”, is conserved in the City Library of Forlì; in 1785 Gilii published the first Linnean work to appear in Rome, a Delineazione dei generi naturali divisi in VI classi a norma del «Sistema naturae» di Linneo (on both see: Pirotta-Chiovenda, Flora romana, pp. 254–261).
See the basic information in Pirotta-Chiovenda, pp. 235–247.
On Zelada there is no recent or adequate study. For the essential facts, see G. Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, CIII (Venice 1861), pp. 460–469.
The initiatives of the Cardinal were often strictly tied to the most important Roman scientists of those years (such as the astronomers Giuseppe Calandrelli and Andrea Conti), and to notable private initiatives, such as the construction of the observatory of the Caetani dukes, perhaps the most significant private initiative of its kind in Italy in the late 18th century (for the basic information, see: L. Fiorani, Onorato Caetani (Roma, 1969)).
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Baldini, U. (2006). The Sciences at the University of Rome in the 18th Century. In: Feingold, M., Navarro-Brotons, V. (eds) Universities and Science in the Early Modern Period. Archimedes, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3975-1_14
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