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book reviews Early Science and Medicine 21 (2016) 595-597 595 Marco Guardo and Raniero Orioli (eds.) Cronache e statuti della prima Accademia dei Lincei. Gesta Lynceorum, «Ristretto» delle costituzioni, Praescriptiones Lynceae Academiae. Rome: Scienze e Lettere Editore Commerciale, 2014, pp. 177, €35.00, ISBN 978-88-218-1090-9. The Accademia dei Lincei, the first scientific academy in early modern Europe, was founded in 1603 by Federico Cesi, an aristocrat from Umbria (the son of Duke of Acquasparta and a member of an important family from Rome) who was interested in natural history, particularly botany. The academy was named after the lynx, an animal whose sharp vision symbolizes the observational skill that science requires. Federico Cesi’s father, the Duke of Acquasparta, disap- proved of the research career that his son was pursuing. The academy strug- gled consequently, but after the death of the Duke, Federico had enough money to allow the academy to flourish. Cesi founded the Accademia dei Lin- cei with three friends: the Dutch physician Johannes van Heeck and two fellow Umbrians, mathematician Francesco Stelluti, and polymath Anastasio de Fili- is. Later members include Giovanni Battista della Porta (1610), Galileo Galilei (1611), Johann Faber (1612), Luca Valerio (1612), Cassiano del Pozzo (1622), and Francesco Barberini (1623). The book under review presents the critical edition of two texts: the record of the activities of the Academy of the Lincei (Gesta, written in 1606–1607), and the first version of the summary of its constitutions (the so-called “Ristretto” composed in 1612). Finally it proposes another edition of the final version of the statute (Praescriptiones, first published in 1624). A singular destiny has marked the manuscript n° 3 of the Linceo Archive of the Library of the Academy of the Lincei in Rome, which contains the Ges- ta Lynceorum – in past exhibitions always opened on fol. 3r, which displays the Academy’s horoscope. Surprisingly, this manuscript has never been fully published. Until recently, the same held for the Lynceographum, the academic statute, which had to wait four hundred years before being published (Lyn- ceographum quo norma studiosae vitae Lynceorum philosophorum exponitur, now edited by Anna Nicolò, Rome 2001). In this case the causes are due to the difficulties which it represents in its various redactions, versions, later addi- tions and variants. Gesta Lynceorum, by contrast, exists in a single manuscript tradition, from which several copies had been drawn. The history of the first Academy of the Lincei is generally split temporally into two periods: from its foundation in 1603 to the disappearance of the Dutch partner van Heeck in 1609, and then from the rebirth of the academy in 1609 (when the opposition of Cesi’s father ceased) to the death of Federico Cesi in 1630. The Gesta concern the activities of the Academy in the early years (1603– 1605). ISSN 1383-7427 (print version) ISSN 1573-3823 (online version) ESM 6 ©Early koninklijke Science brill and nv,Medicine leiden, 2016 | doi21 (2016) 595-597 10.1163/15733823-00216p12 A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period Between the Renaissance and the Baroque: Philosophy and Knowledge in the Czech Lands within the Wider European Context 596 book reviews The manuscript that contains the Gesta is a miscellaneous text; the first part (ff. 1–5) is in the hand of Cesi, while the second part is attributed to van Heeck (ff. 6–29) who, on his return to Rome in 1605, took on the task of the historian of the academy, drawing up his memoirs and consolidating his notes with those of Cesi. The covenant of the founding of the Accademia dei Lincei was signed on August 17, 1603, in the house of Federico Cesi in Rome, by the first four mem- bers. And two days later, on August 19, the four men started their activities: teaching, discussing and resolving to take each one a name; to call the Acca- demia Lincea “a lunce animante visu inter caeteros animantes praestantissi- mo;” and finally, to adopt a kind of cypher inspired by astrological symbols. The four members explicitly intended to base their research not on the books (“non pro scriptorum stylo”) but analyzing and studying the reality (“sed ex rei veritate”). Each of them also dedicated the night to study and to work, to elaborate to their skills. Cesi dealt with botany; van Heeck with astronomy, Platonic philosophy and medicine; Stelluti with mathematics; and De Filiis with the sampling of natural phenomena. The portion of the Gesta attributed to Federico Cesi is composed of three separate documents: the report of an astrological-alchemical ritual (Septem- ber 25), followed by two minutes of meetings related to the first joint meeting on October 12, and the second meeting on October 15, 1603. The composition of van Heeck’s narrative is probably to be dated in the pe- riod following the first half of 1606, when he finally returned to Rome, because the threat of the Inquisition had come to pass, and also at a time when Fed- erico Cesi seemed to have achieved a certain economic autonomy, which freed him from paternal and family environment influences. The writing probably ceased in the first half of the year 1607, when van Heeck began to show signs of restlessness which led him to leave Italy, as evidenced by his letter to Stelluti of the 2nd of June 1608, sent in from Madrid. This is the last trace we have of him, except for his suspension from the academy in 1616 because of mental distur- bance (“propter defectum mentis”). The Gesta (55–121) are introduced and the related manuscript tradition re- constructed by Raniero Orioli (14–22), who subsequently summarizes the main events of this chronicle (22–53). In editing the manuscript edition, Orioli has limited interventions to cases in which the reading could be possibly com- promised, and he has carried out a collation of the manuscript of the Linceo Archive 3 with the manuscripts of two later copies. In 1603 Federico Cesi proceeded to compose the academic statute, the afore- mentioned Lynceographum. The writing that encompasses “laws, constitutions and statutes” was produced in order to illustrate “the way of life of the Lincei.” Early Science and Medicine 21 (2016) 595-597.

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