The opposite poles of a debate - lapides figurati and the Accademia dei Lincei

The essay analyses the research carried out by some members of the Accademia dei Lincei on lapides figurati, namely by Fabio Colonna on animal fossils, and by Federico Cesi and Francesco Stelluti on plant fossils; the aim is to show the role played by the Accademia dei Lincei in establishing during the second half of the seventeenth century the opposite poles of the debate on the lapides figurati, on the one hand as chronological indices of a past world and, on the other, as sudden outcome of the vis vegetativa.

The Afterlife of the Cesi Garden

One of the most celebrated gardens in early modern Rome was built by Cardinal Federico Cesi (d. 1565) near St. Peter’s Basilica. Earlier studies of the site have concentrated on the famous sixteenth-century antiquities collection displayed in the garden. The Afterlife of the Cesi Garden: Family Identity, Politics, and Memory in Early Modern Rome shifts the scholarly focus to also examine the changing appearance, functions, and the broader social, political, and economic significance of the garden for the Cesi family and for the city of Rome over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through a close analysis of visual evidence, unpublished archival documents, and a plan of the garden by the architect Giovanni Battista Contini (d. 1723), Katherine M. Bentz demonstrates that the long post-Renaissance afterlife of the Cesi Garden reveals the ways in which politics shaped specific urban environments in Rome, how aristocratic Romans considered and used gardens over generations, and the vital and symbolic role that the garden played for centuries.

A Roman correspondence: George Ent and Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1637–55

George Ent (FRS 1663), a distinguished physician, was in Rome in 1636, visited the notable collector Cassiano dal Pozzo and saw his Paper Museum. After he returned to London he carried on a correspondence with Cassiano in letters of more than ordinary interest. Cassiano had sent Ent specimens of fossil wood and a table made from fossil wood. They had come from the estates at Acquasparta belonging to Prince Federico Cesi, the founder of the Accademia dei Lincei. The specimens and the table were shown to early meetings of The Royal Society and had a significant part in the developing debate on the origin of fossils. The letters also record exchanges of books between London and Rome. Among medical matters there is news of William Harvey and his works.