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Artefact Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines
7 | 2018 Os, bois, ivoire et corne : l’exploitation des matières dures d’origine animale
Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle Paris–Londres : le cercle Hartlib, la philosophie empirique et l’invention
Anthony Turner
Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/artefact/1286 DOI: 10.4000/artefact.1286 ISSN: 2606-9245
Publisher: Association Artefact. Techniques histoire et sciences humaines, Presses universitaires du Midi
Printed version Date of publication: 30 May 2018 Number of pages: 123-150 ISBN: 978-2-7535-7494-6 ISSN: 2273-0753
Electronic reference Anthony Turner, « Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle », Artefact [Online], 7 | 2018, Online since 30 January 2019, connection on 20 April 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/artefact/1286 ; DOI : 10.4000/artefact.1286
Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
Anthony TURNER *
Abstract
Using the papers of Samuel Hartlib, the author examines the empirical research into the natural world affected in France and England during the early 17th century, the making of the instruments needed for this research, and the transmission of technical ideas between France and England.
Keywords : Hartlib, Gassendi, Mersenne, Oldenburg, making of instruments, trans- mission, magnetism, music. 123
Résumé. Paris – Londres : le cercle Hartlib, la philosophie empirique et l’invention
À travers les papiers de Samuel Hartlib, l’auteur examine les recherches empiriques sur la nature menées en France et en Angleterre dans la première moitié du xviie siècle, la production des instruments nécessaires pour de telles recherches, ainsi que la trans- mission des idées techniques entre la France et l’Angleterre.
Mots-clés : Hartlib, Gassendi, Mersenne, Oldenburg, fabrication d’instruments, trans- mission, magnétisme, musique.
*. Historien indépendant, Anthony Turner travaille actuellement sur un dictionnaire bio-biblio- graphique des facteurs d’instruments de précision français et suisses, 1430-1930 ; sur une histoire des montres émaillées au xviie siècle (avec Catherine Cardinal) et sur les astrolabes en France au xvie siècle. Son catalogue d’instruments mathématiques dans les collections de la Bibliothèque nationale de France est sous presse. Contact : [[email protected]]. Anthony Turner
“Seeing you care not much for he was not always well-informed5, there ye philosophicall discourses of our was a great deal happening in Paris to Club, you are not hold his interest. looke for many reall Experiments Less so perhaps for Samuel Hartlib. from Frenchmen” Oldenburg’s remark quoted at the beginning is clearly a response to a Henry Oldenburg’s remark, in one of reflection by Hartlib in a now lost his regular letters to Hartlib reporting letter (probably that of 13 June 1659), philosophical and cultural news and a disgruntled comment no doubt events garnered while living in Paris on the penchant for philosophising during 1659 as tutor to Robert Boyle’s that Oldenburg had reported from nephew Richard Jones, seems dismissive the Montmor Academy. The “reall but is perhaps only ironic. Oldenburg, Experiments” that were not to be who had been in the city since April, had expected in France were experiments already had time to discover the range such as Hartlib would accept as ‘reall’, of possibilities it offered, and was just which was not necessarily the same as beginning to be accepted in its cultural those that savants in the French capital circles. On 18 June, a week before his thought they needed. Other slightly letter to Hartlib, he had described to the jaundiced remarks by Oldenburg are lawyer Pierre Saporta (1613-c. 1685), in also not automatically to be taken Castres, meetings that he had attended at face value. To Boyle on 23 July he 124 at the private, but nonetheless, regular wrote that “We have severall meetings semi-permanently structured discussion here of philosophers and statists6 wch circle that met in Habert de Montmor’s I carry yr nevew to, for to study men, town residence for philosophical as well as books; though ye French discourse and discussion, and at the daily naturalists are more discursive, yn assemblies in the Hôtel of the President active or experimentall. In the meane de Thou “where everything indifferently time the Italian proverb is true: le parole is discussed, but mainly what goes sono femine, le fatti maschii7.” Like on in the world and newly published his comment to Hartlib, this inelegant interesting books2”. He described remark probably applies specifically to in some detail an account of vision the Montmor and Thuanian meetings given by Jacques Rohault at one of his where emphasis was indeed placed regular weekly lecture-demonstrations, on discussion and philosophising. which had included the dissection of Nonetheless as Oldenburg would an eye and experiments with lenses3. shortly discover, experiments (though If initially Oldenburg was somewhat more often for demonstration than for disappointed by the level of activity in investigation) were performed at the chemical medicine that he found in Paris Montmor assemblies to which Rohault Hic Parisijs multa promittunt, sed pauca took his apparatus, and which, in the præstant (‘here in Paris many promise very year that Oldeburg was present was much, but few perform’)4, it is clear from turning, following the death of Gassendi some other of his remarks that even if in 1655 and the violent confrontation of Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
Roberval and de Montmor in late 1658, industry, humility and dependence on away from speculations about causes God, meant that a good deal that was which could easily lead to dissension, essential to French natural philosophy in towards research into bodies, techniques the mid-century would be uncongenial and instrumentation which offered a to him. Fundamentally, it may be for neutral, non-divisive terrain for activity8. this reason that, the practical difficulties The Montmor academy however was of communication with a catholic not co-extensive with activity in natural state, language, correspondence and philosophy in mid-17th century Paris, and correspondents set apart, what was Oldenburg’s view was not entirely an drawn by Hartlib and his circle from objective one. In his letters he comments France is substantially rather little — a on what he sees in ways that he expects certain amount of news, much of it trivial, to be acceptable to his correspondents. information about publications and This means that in writing to Hartlib he research, knowledge of institutions and reports on practical discussions (such as events. It was the last that was probably that he had with Roberval concerning the most important for it was knowledge Descartes’ views on hyperbolical of institutions such as Renaudot’s Bureau lenses)9, on investigative experiments, d’adresse, of activities such as lens- on inventions, on chemical preparations polishing that were provoking serious and particularly on chemical medicines. attention in Paris, and the efficacy of Philosophising, rational discussion Mersenne’s correspondence network seeking causes, explanations, theories that provided essential inspiration, 125 seeking the reasons of things however models for emulation and much needed were less welcome. Hartlib’s utilitarian psychological and emotional reassurance orientation, his belief in the perfectibility for Hartlib’s similar undertakings. of human life in society through
Approaches
The world-view of the cultural been made between the old and the nation in mid-17th century France new cosmology10, but traditional galenic was a patchwork of compromise and and iatro-chemical medicine were in a contradiction. Aristotelianism, which still state of open hostility. Nonetheless this determined the categories of knowledge did not prevent a medical traditionalist and the structure of institutional such as Guy Patin from also being a learning, was only just beginning to free-thinker on amiable terms with be challenged by a thorough-going advanced mechanists such as Gassendi mechanism, and the force of this attack and Neuré11. Advanced techniques of was partly dissipated by the dissension research, of thinking or of demonstration of its two main proponents, Gassendi and could co-exist with traditional practices Descartes. Compromises had already and beliefs, creating an intellectual Anthony Turner
confusion which compounded social of sources, casual or programmed and cultural insecurity. One distinctive observation, artisanal procedures, element of apparent modernity, but, controlled experimentation12. as the correspondence of Mersenne Because of the noisy propaganda of the and Theodore Haak would reveal, in self-elected followers of Francis Bacon in fact already having a long history, was mid-17th century England, historians of an increasing emphasis on empirical the development of natural philosophy methods and procedures, an emphasis in that country have been unable to that encouraged an experimental avoid empiricism. Indeed so much was approach to nature and with it an interest it vaunted by otherwise apparently in the techniques of artisans and in the unproductive enthusiasts, that there development of instruments, methods has even been a historiographical and tools for carrying out experiments. tendency to play down its importance. Experiment, empiricism, artisanal In France, although the empirical techniques especially as these could tendency was just as widespread, it be viewed as useful and improvable, was rarely presented as an exclusive are all concepts which seem congruent way for arriving at truth, but was rather with the ideas of Hartlib and his circle. used as a technique in the building of The key element — empiricism — philosophical explanations, not being needs however to be somewhat more perceived as in itself a philosophy. closely defined. In the 17th century it As a result, although historians of the 126 can be seen as that approach to the early years of the Académie royale natural world which insists that all des sciences such as Harcourt Brown, reasoning about it should be based on René Taton, Roger Hahn and Trevor sense experience. This experience may McClaughin13, have been fully aware of or may not be experimentally derived, the highly empirical nature of that body with or without the use of instruments in its early years as of its predecessors, or apparatus, but it is always supposed the sources of that orientation in the to be derived from things. It is never a earlier decades of the century have been priori although it may be derived with little explored. Because of the accident the help of hypotheses. Such a definition that it was the philosophical writings embraces both observational studies of the two greatest savants of the mid- such as astronomy and botany, and century, Descartes and Gassendi that manipulative ones such as anatomy were of primary interest to their 18th and chemistry. Such empiricism is an and 19th century commentators, their attitude to nature, a habit of mind, empirical work — which is fundamental which is to some extent independent to all Gassendi’s output and is not of the philosophy used to order and negligible in that of Descartes14 — has interpret the phenomena observed or been less studied and with it the whole discovered, be it mechanical, hermetic, empirical investigative movement of humanist, Aristotelian, mathematical or which it was a part and from which it an amalgam of some or all of them. Such emerged. empiricism can also draw on a variety Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
A model: Peiresc
Empiricism was indeed just as phenomena would be compared with widespread in France during the middle those recorded in the writings surviving decades of the 17th century as it was in from Classical and Later Antiquity17, England. Although its antecedents reach what he most valued was precision of back to the 16th century, to Ramus and depiction whether verbal or pictorial18. Bernard Palissy15, the immediate source is It was a similar concern that he sought Peiresc and the network of observers that in his correspondents and collaborators, he organised in Provence and elsewhere. and it was this desire for precise, detailed, Peiresc, the equivalent in his generation observed knowledge that led him into of Mersenne and Hartlib in theirs, was some long programmes of investigation. universally curious and universally If the most important of these was communicative. His correspondence, probably his exploration of some of which reached across Europe and even the avenues for astronomical research into the Middle East, was voluminous opened up by Galileo and the telescope, so much so that, although seven stout carried out in collaboration primarily volumes and several supplements have with Joseph Gaultier and Gassendi, been published since 1887 it is still other undertakings such as those on the not entirely available. Matter for the anatomy of eyes and the nature of vision thousands of his letters was supplied carried out with Gassendi, the attempt to from the hours passed observing, map the moon with the help of Gassendi 127 dissecting, recording and comparing and Claude Mellan, or to co-ordinate natural and artificial phenomena. observations on the nature of winds Peiresc’s researches ranged throughout using a whole network of local observers the natural and human worlds from in Provence, are just as indicative of his the satellites of Jupiter to the eyes of approach19. the chameleon, from Roman calculating Observe, record, organise other instruments to renaissance medals, from competent observers to observe and Persian cats to Egyptian antiquities and record, co-ordinate the results and geological specimens. A compulsive communicate them so that they shall collector of both books and objects and be of use. Such was the approach of with the means to pursue them, Peiresc Peiresc who may, to the Hartlib circle, was no magpie. Behind his accumulating have seemed something of a role model was a consuming desire to understand of the virtuous, Christian humanist- the structure and organisation of the philosopher, commonwealth-gentleman. natural world and the social and spatial Certainly in 1651 Thomas Smith (1624- relations of ancient societies16. 1661)20 was discussing with Hartlib the Understanding for Peiresc came from possibility of translating Gassendi’s observation and experience, from the biography of him into English. Smith empirical examination of things, not is ‘very unwilling’ not to please Hartlib from ideas and theories about them. in the matter (which implies that it If his innate humanism meant that all was Hartlib who was pressing him to Anthony Turner
undertake the task), but although he had then Smith will, even though no English intended to make an attempt at it he has publisher will look at it while the Latin been distracted by other literary activity. version is in press. Eventually the work Moreover he is despondent about getting was translated by William Rand, an any help with it from his Cambridge unlicensed London physician associated colleagues Ralph Widdrington21 and with Hartlib and Bejamin Worsley, who Henry More22 ‘and people think had earlier translated material for the that there will be no sale for an Engl third edition of Hartlib’s Legacy (1655). It translation as long as the Latin (which was published in 1657 with a dedication is reprinting) can be had cheaply’23. to John Evelyn, another figure in Hartlib’s Perhaps the only person really qualified circle and one who, by the nature of his to do it was Thomas Fuller (author of the humanism and universal curiosity, could Holy Warre), but if he will not undertake it be assimilated to Peiresc24.
Mersenne, the mid-century and instrumentation
If Peiresc’s activities struck a enthusiasm for digests of knowledge, respondent chord with those of Samuel for coordinated, subsidised, research by Hartlib, they were similarly consonant many hands, and to the fundamental 128 with those of his younger contemporary place he accorded to experiment and and correspondent Marin Mersenne. The observation. In an expansive moment similarities will be evident. Like Peiresc, to Theodore Haak, Mersenne outlined Mesenne observed, and recorded, some of these concerns. He described a communicated with other investigators plan for correcting faults in encyclopedic and provided the means by which they works such as those of Jerome Cardan27 could communicate with each other. or Giovanni Battista della Porta28, Recipient himself of Peiresc’s patronage another for noting in philosophical and in the publication of his works on theological works passages which were music25, Mersenne encouraged others merely probable, those which were to make their writings known and unnecessary, and those which were constantly goaded his correspondents to “absolutely true”. “But’, he continues, write, translate and publish. Inevitably ‘there is no pleasure in that if one does there were differences of emphasis. More not meet with other people having the intellectual than Peiresc, Mersenne, same aim; for there are experiments to like Gassendi, gave a greater place to be made in medicine, chemistry, tillage, “philosophising”, reflecting about the mechanics, etc; such that one man alone reasons for things, than Peiresc, and a cannot do if he is not subsidised in it by a far greater importance than either of King or a Republic29”. them to mathematics26. Even so Hartlib, The empirical world of Mersenne and and the members of his circle, would the savants of mid-17th century France have responded strongly to Mersenne’s whom he wished to see work together, Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
was filled with measurements — of bricks rapid growth of interest in astrology in and metals before and after heating, or of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries human bodies alive and dead to see if the however was potent in increasing latter gained in weight; of observations demand, particularly for the astrolabe31, of the behaviour of magnets, the and the diffusion of the new geared, movements of the heavenly bodies, weight-clocks provoked a demand for (the positions of which could also be sundials to set them. This rising demand measured), of the behaviour of mercury led to the appearance of a new group in tubes, or the crystalline structure of of skilled craftsmen specialised in the snowflakes. Bizzarities in the form of making of clocks, sundials, astrolabes, monstrous births or outlandish medical globes, armillary spheres and equatoria, conditions were regularly recorded which all required engraving skills and and some systematic programmes of a modicum of mathematical knowledge. investigative research, such as those into The development of this group was the figuring of lenses, were undertaken. favoured by the Renaissance rediscovery If they were not all particularly fruitful, of ancient mathematics and the spread they nonetheless had the common aim of mathematical techniques to a variety of dispelling popular error. This was a of practical activities such as navigation, primary objective. fortification, siege-craft, land surveying Measurement, observation, recording and bookkeeping. In the history of however were not simple, nor instruments and instrument-making, inexpensive, activities. All required what characterises the Renaissance is 129 instruments and apparatus. Empirical less the quite large number of would-be investigation of the natural world at novel, but actually often rather traditional anything beyond the most superficial devices proposed by ambitious level involved the acquisition, inventors, but the establishment of development, understanding and use of permanent workshops specialised in a wide range of instruments. It therefore the production of such items of small implied, and required, the services of scale but relatively precise technology, several different craft skills at a high level and the appearance of the mathematical of competence. It was here in the artisan practitioner, a ‘technical-professional’ world of production, of mechanics and who had hardly existed before32. technicians that the new empiricism of Neither France nor England was in natural philosophers met, and fused, the vanguard of these developments. with the old-established activity of Although isolated instances of practical mathematics. sophisticated early activity occur such as Traditional natural philosophy, the, as yet not localised, workshop that that invented by the friars in the produced a small group of astrolabes 13th century and institutionalised associated with Edward III of England, in the new universities30, had little that which produced the quadrants need for instruments except for some associated with the court of Richard II demonstration devices such as the of England, and the late fourteenth- armillary sphere in astronomy. The early fifteenth century workshop of Anthony Turner
Jean Fusoris33, in neither country can period. In the variety of his activities anything approaching permanent however he was entirely typical of workshops producing a range of items his age. The men who serviced the in precision technology be discerned mathematical practitioners of the 16th before the second half of the 16th century. and 17th centuries were seldom yet the Such workshops, which perhaps first specialists they would become in the emerged in Italy among the artists shops 18th century. Rather they were general surrounding the courts such as that of ‘mechanicians’ building up a range of the Volpaia dynasty or, slightly later, competences on the basis of training in those of Falconi and G.B. Giusti34, were one particular activity. Many of them nonetheless mixed in both production were primarily horologists, others and demand, and workmen tended to general metalworkers, founders or be polyvalent. Philippe Danfrie (c. 1525- engravers, still others specialists in ivory, 1606), the Paris maker about whom tortoiseshell or precious woods, others most is known from this period was by again were enamellers or glass-workers. trade a type-cutter and founder who Whatever the case, it is the variety produced innovative ‘civilité’ printing of skills and the adaptability of their types, made dies for coins, medals and possessors, which was of importance jetons, and tools for book-binders as well to Peiresc, Mersenne and the members as mathematical instruments. In 1582, he of their circles, the increasing number was appointed mint-master to Henri III of amateurs of nature, of mathematical 130 (Contrôleur des monnaies), a post that he practitioners, of investigators and retained under Henri IV. At the same inventors in Paris and the regions. time he continued making instruments Capable artisans in precision technology and, exceptionally among makers, would be called upon to respond both to invented two new instruments, one of new needs for instruments and apparatus which was to have a long and successful stemming from savants and natural future, and published them in a book, philosophers, and to the development of which he wrote and printed himself inventions, tools, and machines requisite using type that he had also cut and cast for an expanding society intent upon himself35. improvement. Philippe Danfrie was an outstanding maker and would have been at any
Hartlib and his Paris correspondents
Knowledge of the artisan world It is a patchwork with many holes of skilled craftsmen that underlies, rather than a tapestry of harmonious and to some extent made possible the design. Some of the holes though can philosophical activities of Mersenne and be filled with information deriving from his friends is still somewhat limited. Hartlib’s papers so it is unfortunate Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
that his contacts with France were not and 1630s were also the period when more regular, substantial and direct. Mersenne published most of his major In the 1630s, although he was not works, when his correspondence with totally without news from Paris, what Descartes was well-established, and Hartlib learnt was spasmodic and when a particularly interesting technical without continuity. It was also largely ad venture was under way as the anecdotal, even sensational, rather optician Jean Ferrier attempted to grind than ameliorative of man’s spiritual hyperbolic lenses following Descartes or physical condition. Thus he was precepts40. Even so, it is a question informed of the wild prophecies, which how much of this activity would have led their utterer to the Bastille, that the been of interest to Hartlib at a period French king should become the Holy when his attention seems to have been Roman Emperor while the Turks drove concentrated on pansophia, educational the Pope out of Italy to Avignon36, but reform and piety41. Philosophy seems knew no more of Gassendi in 1635 than never to have been much to his taste that Henry Gellibrand esteemed him “Cartes [sic], Bisterfeld, Comenius begin highly “as one of the best Astronomers their philosophy a priori. But they will of France37”, and nothing at all about find themselves deceived. Iungius goes the appointment by Richelieu in 1634 of more warily and derives a posterior, not a special committee of mathematicians caring so much to teach as first to find to examine the claims of Jean Baptiste out truth that may not be gainsayd42”. Morin (1583-1656) to have found a Empirical activity and research were 131 solution to the Longitude problem38. acceptable, but mathematics, which Since Morin’s was probably the most was to become increasingly important important — and the most publicised — to Mersenne in his later years, was also attempt to resolve the longitude problem suspect. ‘For as Cartes says it polishes in either France or England during the mainly the Rational faculty. They may early 17th century, and since Hartlib was make themselves a new
immediately after notes which derive the reason is because God is so little from the letters recently received by regarded in the matter as if human Haak from Mersenne, Hartlib comments. wit were able to accomplish all. And it may be an obvious small The greatest philosophers should matter is wanting which God hides address themselves more to God in of purpose from his and other prayers and in holy life and so they exp
Pell, Mersenne, Haak and magnetism
Mersenne, as noted above, had his magnetic compasses carried out in early own universalist dreams. Haak made an 1634 by Henry Gellibrand that led him auspicious start to their correspondence to postulate that changes in magnetic by sending him a copy of John Pell’s ‘Idea declination at London that had previously 132 of Mathematics’46. Although Mersenne been thought to arise from observational thought this over ambitious, he was errors, were in fact a function of time. nonetheless highly interested and it also This postulate, the first and major step served to introduce Pell himself into towards formulation of the concept the correspondence. Thereafter in the of ‘secular variation’, the ‘variation first group of letters to have survived, of the variation’ as contemporaries Pell and Mersenne exchanged almost called it, had been difficult even for its exclusively mathematical letters in Latin, formulators to accept, and they were while Mersenne and Haak wrote about led to it only because of a very specific more general matters in the vernacular. concatenation of intellectual and social In particular they wrote about a topic circumstances47. Some of this difficulty that fascinated them both — magnetism. was already reflected in a note made by The exchange of information between Hartlib in his Ephemerides in early 1630: London and Paris about magnetism in the early 1640s may be considered Gelebrands variation of the as one of the Hartlib group’s most needle a Rare Experilent if 2. Or 3. positive achievements in advancing More (one not knowing of the other) knowledge since it brought to the had lighted by the same rules or notice of French scholars a major series
Unknown to Hartlib, or indeed to this did seem to agree with the English the experimenters themselves, such theory that magnetic declination was a situation had by accident partly diminishing with time55. occurred. In the first letter that he wrote Mersenne’s mildly favourable in response to Haak’s initiative for a comments in May 1640 depended regular correspondence, Mersenne upon much the same criteria as those accompanied a request for information earlier enumerated by Hartlib — the about a good lodestone in England with concordance of several observations a copy of an essay on magnetism that he made independently and without had written for the use of Athanasius knowledge of each other. Hartlib Kircher then working on his Magnes49. To however seems not to have noted the amazement of Hartlib and his friends this agreement which, to the French it revealed that Mersenne knew nothing philosophers, did not seem conclusive. either of Gellibrand’s enunciation of Pierre Petit (1598-1677), was therefore the temporal change in declination or set to work to make new measurements magnetic inclination50. This so impressed while Mersenne wondered if it would Hartlib that he made a special note not be necessary to wait for at least ten of it ‘Mersenne left out the 2 greatest or twenty years before being sure that Magneticall Experiments which Pell will the Paris declination value was really suggest to him’51. A copy of Gellibrand’s diminishing56. It was presumably in book was immediately sent off and this, pursuance of this programme that twenty by mid-January 1640 (once Mersenne years later Pierre Petit, still working on 133 had had it translated) was in its turn declination, sent a measurement of it causing astonishment in Paris52. (c. 1 east) to Henry Oldenburg in October It also provoked reflection and 166057. experiment. Already in February the It was thanks to Hartlib’s corres- group in Paris were trying to asses pondence circle that news of the different estimates of the declination possibility that there was a temporal there53, while Gassendi in Provence to variation in magnetic declination whom Mersenne had communicated reached Paris, and it was thanks to Gellibrand’s book as he had news of it Mersenne’s correspondence circle that, to several other of his correspondents as Pumfrey has put it, “Gellibrand’s such as Descartes, Antoine Vatier and work entered the publications of Kircher Christophe Villiers, began to think that (1641), Fournier (1643), Descartes (1644), measurements of declination that he Grandami (1645), Gassendi (1649) and had made a few years earlier but had thence into the ‘archive’ of magnetic considered aberrant as they did not philosophy58”. Declination however conform with received values might was not the only magnetic topic that have had some sense after all54. By May, exercised philosophers in France. further astounded by more comparative Mersenne’s letters to Haak and Pell are declination figures, this time obtained by full of notes and requests for information English navigators in the Davis Strait, on the behaviour of lodestones. But there Mersenne was also avowing that all was a basic difference between English Anthony Turner
and French investigators. Without pounds to make experiments with it ? actually setting out to look for them “If I had it with me for a month I should John Marr and Henry Gellibrand had greatly increase my observations61”. obtained discrepant results when using Experiments on lodestones such as the same compass in the same place but immersing them in water or cutting at an interval of some eleven years. Since pieces off them were reported62, and there was apparently only one variable offers of help made. ‘If Mr Bond would in the situation the anomaly demanded share the grounds for explaining the investigation. It should be noted diminution, instead of injuring himself, however that the English investigators we could perhaps help him somewhat’63. were concerned primarily with the Quite how Hartlib’s friends reacted to behaviour of compasses. Elsewhere in Mersenne’s almost obsessive enthusiasm Europe although investigators were for the lodestone we do not know also interested in compasses, they in detail. They seem to have tried to were far more interested in lodestones. content him. Haak sent him a copy of Mersenne’s magnetic programme, in so Samual Ward’s Magnetis reductorium far as it was defined, was one to determine theologicum tropologicum64, Mersenne exactly how lodestones behaved, having lost his own, and no doubt he what their effects were, and how they reported observations. Perhaps too it could be modified. His objectives were was Mersenne’s enthusiasm that fired firstly to destroy prevailing ideas that Haak for his interest in the subject was 134 lodestones acted through supernatural to be durable. In the early 1680s he forces of any kind, secondly to delineate was describing magnetic experiments exactly what they could and could not to the Royal society, and so important be expected to do on the basis of exact did the subject become to him that a empirical knowledge. This done then magnet figured prominently in his the competing theories advanced about portrait painted between 1683 and his them by men such as Nautonnier, death in 169065. It was also in the context Cabeo, Kircher, Le Tellier Descartes, or of magnetism that some information Grandami could be assessed. about the Paris artisan world reached It was in the execution of this London, for this was an area in which the programme that Mersenne bombarded savants had a particular need of skilled Haak and Pell with questions and craftsmen. observations. Iron was supposed to lose One of the phenomena that particularly its magnetic force when it became red intrigued Mersenne was the difference hot, but when only strongly heated it in the attractive power displayed by the did not59. If Haak should find anywhere same magnet when it was capped and a reasonably priced magnet of three to when it was uncapped. These differences ten ounces weight that unarmed lifted Mersenne wanted to assess in relation two to three times its own weight he with the weight of the stone itself, and should buy it immediately60. Would it he eventually decided to base judgement be possible to borrow Samual Ward’s of the quality of a lodestone purely on its remarkable lodestone that lifts twenty attractive power when unarmed. Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
If you can see the lodestone [of stone, which for reasons unknown to both Samual Ward], that draws twenty- artisans and savants, increased the lifting three pounds capped, uncapped power of the instrument. According and bare, let me know how much to William Gilbert an armed lodestone it weighs and how much iron it could lift three times as much weight as attracts. I have the weakest of the one unarmed and the iron of the caps said late Ward, but I was told that it should be of “the best steel, smoothed, attracted ten pounds of iron capped, shining and even”. His only approach to and I find that it only draws seven, an explanation however was that “Iron and that with difficulty… It is a unites to an armed lodestone more firmly strange business that uncapped it than to a lodestone; and on that account lifts no more than an ounce of iron, raises greater weights because the pieces and capped it lifts 112 ounces. You of iron stick more pertinaciously to one see that the caps deceive us mar- that is armed67”. Over a century and half vellously, and that it essential to see later, J. A. Nollet did not offer even this how much it carries completely bare much explanation despite recording a to know whether they are good; that proportional difference of weight lifted is why we prefer a natural stone, not by an unarmed and an armed lodestone shaped and naked, than one that is that was far greater68. Despite the long armed. And it will be good if it lifts elapse of time there had been little as much as its own weight, espe- conceptual advance but some technical cially if it a bit large: for example improvement. There had also been 135 if it weighs one of several pounds, experiment. If Nollet could generalise that or at least half a pound and that it ‘All lodestones do not have equal force: lifts more or less as much. I tell you and there is hardly anything except the this so that you will know how to test that one makes, that can show what choose66. each stone can do; for the size, the colour, the degree of hardness etc are extremely Capping or arming a lodestone was equivocal indicators’, it was because he a skilled and tricky art. It consisted in had a century of observations of the kind placing iron caps over the poles of the made by Mersenne to draw on.
Daniel Chorez
“Also, there is no doubt but that the Mersenne had been equally admirative a strength of a lodestone depends a great century earlier of the instrument-maker deal on the way in which it armed69.” Daniel Chorez. He is a maker of whom Nollet continued by naming the two a great deal of what we can now know instrument-makers, Butterfield and derives from the Hartlib papers. First Joblot, who had high reputations for such mentioned in Mersenne’s letters to Haak work at the beginning of the 18th century. in 1640, news of Chorez and his abilities Anthony Turner
may have been disseminated throughout it as a “charlatannerie75”), unless it be Hartlib’s circle as he seems to have been the same as a machine mentioned by visited whenever one of Hartlib’s friends Oldenburg in 1659 and of which he was in Paris. Thus in 1655 and 1656 news sent Hartlib a copy of Chorez printed of him was sent to London by both description. Morian70 and Erasmus Rasch71, while it Chorez’ invention Oldenburg said was Henry Oldenburg who, in July 1659, was the same as that of Cressy Dimmock reported his death some two or three (fl. 1629-1660), that is a machine for months earlier72. increasing speed or force indefinitely. Like his older contemporary Philippe ‘If it be true what is said in this paper Danfrie, Chorez was a highly versatile about ye uses of such a machine, I think craftsman of an original and innovative it is one of ye best inventions, yt ever turn of mind. Like Danfrie he was a was made. I should be glad to know, protestant, unlike Danfrie he was not whether the author thereof has never married. According to Rasch he was been in England, or whether his name self-taught73. Quite what Rasch meant be not knowne there; and whether Mr by this is unclear for Chorez evidently Dymocks and hee were never acquainted had a sound training in one of the together’76. What Hartlib’s answer to skilled mechanical crafts. Probably his these questions was, we do not know, basic commerce was in the making of as his next three letters to Oldenburg are traditional mathematical instruments lost. To the second question however an 136 such as astrolabes, but it is clear that he affirmative answer can be given. Chorez was alert to novelties. He is first heard of name was, or at least had been, known in in 1616 as the maker of a sector, then still England thanks to Mersenne. We can also a new, unusual, instrument. Four years know something of his machine from a later he was already not only making scribal copy of one of the two pamphlets telescopes and microscopes, but had also that Hartlib had received describing “the developed his own binocular version of addition to human force by a geometrical both. To the engraving and optical skills machine, which gives the force and that the making of these instruments speed so much sought after at all times, implies, Chorez added those of the newly found out and brought into horologist and general mechanician for practice by D. Chorez77”. The text that he also made pedometers, clockwork follows is a masterpiece of concealment. automata and lifting machines, besides While making striking claims for the being expert in capping lodestones. While effects of his machine, Chorez contrives it was the latter activity that probably to reveal nothing more about it than that most excited Mersenne who reported it is small, light, inexpensive to make, largely on their behaviour to Haak, easy to use and adaptable to all kinds Hartlib and his friends were probably of existing machines that lift, pull or more interested in a printed description push something. Although nothing can of a machine devised by Chorez “for be deduced from the text, the insistence moving forces74”. Of this device we know that the device can be applied to so many nothing (except that Descartes dismissed tasks and other machines makes one Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
suspect that it was a frame incorporating have been the reverse of that which had a series of pulleys. seemed possible to Oldenburg. Oldenburg’s suggestion that Chorez’ However exceptional he may have machine was similar to that of Cressy been, Daniel Chorez was not an isolated Dimmock raises interesting possibilities. figure either as instrument-maker or as The two inventions clearly had similar inventor. Inventions (in which projects objectives and neither deserves to for the organisation of resources and be referred to as a perpetual motion the exploitation of new ideas may be machine. In the description that Hartlib included) were of particular importance sent to Oldenburg of Cressy’s machine to Hartlib for it was through them that (and on which Oldenburg presumably “Improvement” could take place. The based his comments)78, Hartlib states technical innovations that Mersenne “whereas it hath been for many ages ye announced to Haak found a ready echo study and endeavour of many ingenious in London. What seemed noteworthy to persons to search and find out the way Hartlib was recorded in his Ephemerides. to bring strength and time together, or In 1648, for example, Mersenne writes to to make such an engine yt should keep Mr Haak that the draught of the flying ye same strength with other formerly machine out of Polonia is sent to him knowne proportionable engins and and that there is one with him who is yet, wthout applying more strength (as fully persuaded that he can make the more or stronger men, horses, etc) to perpetuum mobile’80. Information was obtaine a considerable swiftness above also passed on to his correspondents81. 137 yt former Engine, it stands compared Reported in Mersenne’s letters to Haak wth; or (wch is all one) to keep the same are devices as diverse as lenses and degree of swiftness and obtain a strength telescopes82, ways of finding longitude83 considerably greater, yn ye former Engine the manufacture of salt-petre from hath:”. This is little more than a long- excrement84, musical instruments85, and winded expression of Chorez statement perpetual motion86. Other correspondents that he “has invented a machine which is also reported on what could interest so easy (to use) that one Person will effect Hartlib. The connoisseur and diplomatic more wth it, than two others with any agent, Bathazer Gerbier, gave a rather other machine, whichever one chooses negative account of Pascal’s calculating among those which have gone before, machines87, and Oldenburg’s pupil and that in the same time79”. If the two Richard Jones, ‘knowing very well the machines were really quite similar then love you bear to all sortes of ingenuities’ the question arises as to whether the text wrote to describe a remarkable machine sent by Oldenburg in 1659 was the same for lifting weights that he had seen as, or a revised version of, that which near Tours, about the yield of grain, the Mersenne had sent in 1640. If so then popularity of mushrooms in France, and an influence from Chorez is possible sent a whole selection of chemical and since Dymock seems to have begun medical recipes88. developing his machine in the mid- to late 1640s. But this influence would Anthony Turner
Jean Le Maire
Many of the inventions reported so important that Hartlib was happy to to Hartlib were of little importance. obtain a copy of the Privilège accorded to They were ideas still to be worked out, Le Maire to publish his discoveries90. curiosities with little or no application, Of all Le Maire’s projects, those that devices so specific to a particular context came closest to success were those that they could only with great difficulty, related to music. Perhaps this was if at all, be adapted for use elsewhere. because he was urged on in them by Most are mentioned once and then heard Mersenne who found them of special of no more. A few however provoked interest. He reported on them copiously strong interestand a sustained enquiry. and enthusiastically to Haak, Villiers, By way of example the numerous and Doni. Examples of both Le Maire’s projects associated with Jean Le Maire new instruments were made and played may briefly be examined. to the applause of a select audience in Jean Le Maire was neither philosopher Paris by Jacques de Goüy (c. 1610-post nor instrument-maker; He was an 1650)91, who also published a sample inventive gentleman, an exponent of of music in Le Maire’s new notation92. practical mathematics. Born in 1581 At least one example of the archivole Le Maire, ‘gentleman of the King’s was sent to London, probably in 164893. Bedchamber’, proposed among other Destined for Charles I, the instrument 138 things the construction of a canal across survived the Interregnum to be France linking the Atlantic with the purchased by Spring in 165994. Thereafter Mediterranean (a precursor of Riquet’s “by My Ld. Brereton’s care and expences canal du Languedoc), invented two made perfect; comprehending both and new types of musical instrument, the organ and a Concert of 5. Or 6. Viols Almerie (an anagram of his own name) in one, giving an excellent harmony, and the Archivole, together with a new very solemne and most fit for religious form of tablature and a new way of musick”, it was displayed to the Royal teaching music. The latter was linked Society by Brereton in October 166495. with a method of language-teaching Le Maire and his projects were brought faster and easier than those in use, and to the attention of other English visitors with communication schemes based on in Paris in the 1640s. A copy of the universal language. In more traditional ‘Méthode pour la musique Almérique’ style he invented an universal surveying among the papers of Thomas Hobbes instrument — the Brachymere — and a was probably sent to him by Mersenne navigating marvel — the Mecomere — although it could have been acquired by which, so Hartlib enthusiastically Hobbes himself96. Bathazar Gerbier, by informed Lord Robartes “will give us contrast, was primed by Hartlib, who the Longitude & exactly both at Sea sent him copies of the letters concerning and Land so exactly that there shal Le Maire that had been received in 1640. bee no need any more the helpe of the Gerbier however was already aware of Compass89”. All these inventions seemed Le Maire and unimpressed: Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
For I have seen the Man long Ré, which passeth for idle among since, and was (with Honourable the Musicians. Countess of Claire) to see his Musicall instrument which is Gerbier’s judgement was perhaps Harmonious, he hath many things not too harsh. When Haak enquired jn his head, butt is not befriended by about Le Maire on renewing his the best Professors of sciences and correspondence with Mersenne in 1647, knowledge jn these parts, which he must have received a disillusioned want none that are excellent; he is reply as he wondered in the following a Narcissus of him selfe, and heady letter “what aim monsieur Le Maire on his Inventions; he hath jnvented has to be so niggardly of the public new names to the Notes of Musick, good in his inventions. What serves, as iff you should say Ra, instead of and to whom, talent hidden in a pocket handkerchief97 ?”
Differences and Influences
What seemed incomprehensible to want of assuring him of a recom- Haak, Hartlib and others of their circle pence for putting it into practise and dedicated to the publicising of new for discovering it to others, he took 139 inventions and the free circulation it wth him into his grave98. of ideas, was perfectly evident to the inventors themselves. Inventions were Failure to follow through on an made in the hope of gain. Privileges innovation, complaints about lack of such as Le Maire obtained were needed support, preferring to allow a potentially to protect them; patronage and support useful idea die with its conceiver were required to execute them. Lack of rather than make it freely available, such things could inhibit discovery. This all this was very different from the was exactly one of the reasons Oldenburg ideology of the Hartlib circle. Even if adduced in explaining to Hartlib why Oldenburg’s comments derive in part from his chauvinism, the palpable I doubt very much, whether disappointment with Paris revealed ye French will produce any great in his letters to Hartlib also reflects an matter in point of Tubes, or chy- only partially articulated recognition mistry, or any mechaniques; They that philosophical activity there was have not yt required steddiness; and not in the Hartlibian mode. Although besides, they complaine of want of Haak could assimilate Mersenne to his encouragement by men of power own circle, telling him in 1647 that he and means; witness they say, Monsr will be happy once again to serve him, Chorez, who had the same inven- nonetheless “the true end of my desire tion, yt Mr Dymocks hath, but for since yours have always been, and still Anthony Turner
remain so publicly, dedicated to the well- occasions and raritys to the Conference being and relief of this mortal state99”, College at Paris that upon them they there was in fact no true sympathy. might have conferences, eg the prophet Mersenne’s approach to nature was at Hamburg, the self-accusing man, fundamentally far more rationalist than Dr Mery’s Serpent’103. A letter to an that of the Hartlib group. He was more unnamed correspondent in January 1642 interested in correspondence for the praised the weekly conferences highly104, information of other savants than he was and efforts to get more information in correspondence to reform society. were successful in 1647 or 1648 when For the purposes of immediate, daily Gerard Boate supplied copies of some of practice then, Hartlib and his group were Renaudot’s printed pamphlets about the able to draw rather little from France. Bureau105. The correspondence with Mersenne Renaudot’s Bureau d’adresse was an failed to sustain itself, and that with existent institution offering a defined Jean Doujat, who had written to Hartlib model to follow. Other parallels that in August 1644 proposing a monthly can be adduced are more nebulous. The correspondence of news about books, philosophical club founded in London and people ‘and generally to do all that is “…for diversion sake in an innocent and possible for me to content your curiosity virtuous manner106” in 1645 probably on in everything that does not concern the suggestion of Haak107, recalls not only politics’, never even got off the ground100. the conferences of the Bureau d’Adresse, 140 Even so, some information did cross but also the numerous discussion groups the Channel: Gassendi’s biography of of this kind that were already meeting Peiresc (a pioneering essay in intellectual in Paris, some of which, like those that biography) was translated into English met around Mersenne himself and largely thanks to Hartlib, one major around the Duchess d’Aiguillon in the philosophical discovery (the temporal Petit Luxembourg, specialised in topics change in magnetic declination), owed of natural history and mathematics108. its dissemination to the two groups, and Optical activity in Paris, which like another (experiments on the vacuum) magnetism, linked savants with the also owed something to their activities. mathematical instrument-makers, could More generally there are some striking also have provoked English emulation. parallels that attest to a stimulus whether In December 1639 Mersenne sent a perceived or not. Hartlib’s ‘Office of description of the optical works of address’ project was largely based on Daniel Aubery (1617-1645), who ‘…has the Bureau d’adresse of Théophraste had a forge made in his house, and has Renaudot established in Paris in 1630 or had 200 files constructed to make an perhaps a year of two earlier101. Hartlib’s instrument to observe asterisms with his first information about it derived from telescopes. He employs 2 or 3 of the most a letter from Mersenne to Haak in able workman he could find to help him. 1639102, and it so impressed him that He wants to make all sorts of conical the following year he noted ‘it were telescopes but only for himself or for a not amiss to send all manner of curious few of his more particular friends109’. Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
Aubery had some success in his could benefit from the reassurance, glass-works. By late January a good 2ft emotional and psychological, which telescope had been prepared and he had came from knowing that other groups of completed a 2ft spherical lenses that men were engaged in similar tasks and showed Venus as large as the Moon; activities. The knowledge derived by he was undertaking the grinding of the Hartlib circle from Paris, incomplete, hyperbolic lenses which he expected discontinuous, often trivial though it was, to have completed by the spring, and operated in such ways. The empiricism was planning a 10ft telescope110 ; just displayed by French savants reinforced over a year later Richard Reeve, the first that of their English counterparts, striking outstanding English optician appears inventions stimulated competition for the first time on record attempting and improvement, institutional to grind hyperbolical lenses for Charles structures and research programmes Cavendish and John Pell both of whom supplied models for analysis and were in direct contact with Mersenne. adaptation. Given the widely different The coincidence is striking. Shortly ideological presuppositions of a afterwards it was probably Reeve who providentialist Puritan and a Minime was installed in Jonathan Goddard’s friar, it was probably inevitable that house making lenses that were used by communication between Paris and the whole group of English astronomers London would be sporadic and subject centred on Gresham College, many of to misunderstanding. Nonetheless some whom also belonged to the discussion common ground could be explored; the 141 group initiated by Haak111. results were not negligible. Parallels such as these are suggestive. Technical and intellectual transfer can take place at many levels of society, directly and indirectly. From Hartlib’s papers it is clear that some specific techniques were transmitted from France to England during this period by the simple movement of a craftsman or an entrepreneur carrying the technique with them. A clear example is Pierre Blondeau’s introduction of milled coinage112. Other techniques could be transmitted by description verbal, written or pictorial, and Chorez’ machine for augmenting human force may be one such. Other innovations however could be the result of emulation, of the stimulus provided by even vague reports of something similar being done elsewhere. All these kinds of innovation Anthony Turner
Appendix 1. Announcement of a machine by Batteliers et autres personnes se pour- Daniel Chorez. Hartlib Papers 63/101/1A-2B. Copy in a scribal hand. ront monter eux mesmes car ils cognois- tront les cous leur ester plus doux et Favorable sans ester en peril de leur voi- L’Addition à la Force Humaine ture et personnes.
Par Machine de Geometrie, qui donne Les canons et autres machines Royales la force et la vitesse tant Cherchée en tout seront maniez plus aisement, tant pour temps, trouvée nouvellement et mise en les monter et descendre, que pour les pratique par D. Chorez. mener par lieux montagneux ou mares- cageux ou les chevaux ne les pouvent Lequel a inuenté une machine si facile, trainer, les hommes serviront et feront qu’une Personne fera plus d’effet auec un effet plus merveilleux à peu de frais. icelle, que deux autres ne feront, avec une Autre machine, qu’elle qu’on voudra On pourra battre la poudre à canon prendre d’entres celles qui on precede, Et fort aysement et par consequent éviter le ce en mesme temps. grand malheur qui arrive quant le feu se met dans une grande quantité de poudre, Ladite machine est aisée à faire, et de qui cause la ruine de tout ce qui est voisin, peu de coust est facile à porter, n’occupe et donne un grand avantage à l’ennemy. guerre d’espase, et peut estre facilement Car les matieres peuvent estre conservée 142 employee par toute sorte de personnes, fort aisement avec peu de hazard puis en à cause de la simplicité de son usage. pourra faire promptement de la poudre Ce qu’elle difere de plusieurs autres au besoin, par le moyen de ladite inven- machines es de peu devaleur et de façon : tion. Et quant il plaira au Roy de faire neanmoins c’est en cela que consiste l’in- travailler aux mines qui se trouvent dans vention de multiplier la force humaine : ses Roygaumes, ou à plusieurs canaux ilsera aise d’adiouster ceste difference et qui ont este proposer pour naviger d’un invention à toutes les machines de quoy fleuve à l’Autre ou par la communica- les homes se servent pour lever, tirer ou tion des deus [sic] mers par La France, pousser ce qu’on ne peut autrement. ceste invention apportera l’espargne et la diligence predite. Et pour monstrer qu’elle profitera à Il se trouvera encore une infinité d’ou- tous, le Roy en recou un tres grand profit vrages, ou ladite invention ou partie sans fouler son people : car tous ate- d’icelle estant adaptée une personne fera liers Royaux se feront plus aisement et plus d’ouvrage que ne souloient faire prompement : le sel ne coustera pas tant plusieurs. amonter, par des rivières, les ponts et quais ne seront endommager par le ren- Tout massons et Charpentiers empour- fort des chevaux, qu’on prend ordinaire- ront lever fait battre pilotes, et espuiser ment pour monter les ponts et destroys les eaux pour fonder les ponts et autres dont de debris qui se fait fort souvent grans edifices, abregeront leur travail, et est reperé aux despens du Roy. Car les saveront beaucoup de despense. Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
apporteront la facilite et l’espargne Tous ceux qui travaillent dans terre predite. recevront un soulagement non pareil, car une grande partie de leur temps est Il demeure à Paris proche le Pont au employé à lever, soit terre ou eaux, ou Double du Coste de portau Foine. pierre, ou metaux, et Autre chose pesante comme ardoise et charbon de mine. Appendix 2. Extract from a draft or copy of a privilege for Jean Le Maire to publish his inven- La mesme invention server tous pres- tions. Hartlib Papers 18/2/45A-B. sions, tant à vins qu’huile et à draps et à tirer le fil d’or et d’argent, de cuivre et de laiton de fer et sier, et toutes sortes Louis & : a Nos Aimés et feaux de moulins à faute d’eaux ou de vent à Conseillers etc. Salut tirer l’eau des lieux forts profonds, et la faire monter fort haut pour esteindre un Nostre bien aimé Iean Le Maire, Sieur grand feu qu’on n’ose approcher. de Vaude, Gentilhomme ordinaire de nostre Chambre, Nous a remonstré, Tout Batteliers et Muniers pouront que depuis XXXV ans ença il auroit charger et decharger promptement leurs grandement travaillé à l’Esclaircis- bateaux, nauires et galers, sortir des semnt et Facilité tant des Arts liberaux, Havres, lever leurs ancres, leurs voilles que Sciences des Mathematiques et et autres choses de semblable impor- Philosophie, et mesmes en avoit com- 143 tance, ou la diligence est tellement res- pose plusieurs Livres et traittés pour quise qu’une minute de retardement est l’utilité publique, tant en Latin, qu’en souvent cause d’un naufrage. Et quant François, par le moyen desquels on peut Cette invention leur sera bien cogneue en fort peu de Temps venir à leur par- et adaptée à la preparation convenable faitte cognoissance. à leurs vaisseaux, ils advanceront leur Entre autres : sur la Traduction des chemin en temps de bonasse et se main- Langues, l’Alphabet universel ; une tiendront contre le courant des mares, Logique Physique demonstrative, vne et contre le vent qui les pousse vers les Arithmétique nouvelle et facile. Un costs et par ce moyen eviter un naufrage. Traitté de la Musique lisante ; avec des Ledit Chorez offer de monstrer l’effet Notes, Characteres, et Preceptes, tant de ce qu’il propose dans trois jours, pour la Theorie, que Pratique d’icelle, estant asseuré (au prealable) d’une autres que les Communs. Un traitté tou- recompense honneste, avec le priuilege chant la Constitution d’un instrument ordinairement octroye à tous ceux qui de Musique nouveau, nommé Almerie, procure le profit du Roy et du public. Et approchant de la figure d’un Luth, sur peu de temps après metre en lumiere un lequel on peut exprimer facilement les livre auquel ladite machine sera figure et trois genres de Musique, Diatonique, son usage descript, avec le moyen facile Chromatique et Enharmonique, avec l’Ex- de l’adapter a toutes celles qui sont pre- plication de la dite Musique, et la maniere venues à sa cognoissance, les quelles de la pratiquer sur le dit Instrument et Anthony Turner
tous autres. L’Explication et l’Usage de luy avons fait, pour la Communication l’Instrument a leuer les plans, dresser de la Mer Mediterranée, et de l’Ocean les Cartes Geographiques dit Mecomere ; par la Rivière de Garonne et de l’Aude et d’un autre Instrument pour facilter la dans ledit pais de Languedoc’. Navigation dit Brachymere. Certaines Cartes Geographiques, La Topographie All which, Le Maire wishing to pub- de Languedoc et autres Provinces ; les lish, he is accorded a ‘privilège de pro- Descriptions et figures des Machines et tection’ with a6000 livres fine for those Escluses desquelles il entend se server who infringe it. pour l’Execution du Traitté, que Nous
Notes
1. Henry Oldenburg to Samuel Hartlib 25 June 1659, ibid., p. 327, 329. The “optician” in question 1659 printed from the Hartlib papers in Alfred was Etienne de Villebressieu (1626-1659), a mech- Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall (eds), The anician, native to Grenoble who worked closely Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, i, 1641-1662, with Descartes and developed several ingenious 144 Madison & Milwaukee, 1965, p. 270. machines particularly for raising water. 2. « Où on parle indifféremment de tout mais 6. Persons skilled in affairs of state. principalement des choses qui se passe dans le 7. A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall (eds), The monde, et des livres curieux qui s’impriment de Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 287, nouveau ». Oldenburg to Saporta 18 June 1659, “words are femine, deeds masculine”, a 16th ibid., p. 261. For Saporta see Pierre Chabbert, century proverb that exists in Latin, French, « Fermat à Castres », Revue d’histoire des sciences et Spanish, German, and English. For an interesting leurs applications, xx, 1976, p. 339 ; Gérard Crevon, discussion see Teodolina Barolini, Dante and « Riquet, le canal et les érudits de Castres » in Aux the Origins of Italian Literary Culture, New York, Sources du Canal du Midi (Société d’Histoire de Fordham University, 2006, chap. 13. For similar Réveil Saint-Ferréol : les Cahiers d’Histoire, 18), comments by Walter Charleton in The Immortality 2014, p. 58-62. of the Humane Soul (1657), on the tendency of 3. A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall (eds), The French intellectuals to intemperate discussion see Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 261. Aurélien Ruellet, La Maison de Salomon. Histoire 4. Oldenburg to Michaelis 26 August 1659, ibid., du patronage scientiique et technique en France et p. 240-241. Angleterre au XVIIe siècle, Rennes, Presses universi- 5. Thus, in the same letter to Hartlib (25 June) taires de Rennes, 2016, p. 61-63. he states that Bressieux, an optical workman 8. Harcourt Brown, Scientiic Organisations in about whom Hartlib had inquired “is knowne Seventeenth Century France (1620-1680), New York, here to be no great master, and esteemed to be one Russell & Russell Publisher, 1934 (reprinted) of those, yt talk of more yn they well know, and 1967), p. 87-89. promise things they never performe”; A. R. Hall, 9. A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall (eds), The M. B. Hall (eds), The Correspondence of Henry Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 288. Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 270. On 8 November however, 10. Laurence W. B. Brockliss, French Higher following a irst meeting with Bressieux when Education in the seventeenth and eighteenth Centuries. Oldenburg saw his workshop, he had become A Cultural History, Oxford, Clarendon, 1987, “a great Artist’ and Oldenburg was anxious that p. 337-345. Hartlib help to obtain good, clear glass for his 11. Howard M. Solomon, Public Welfare, Science use”, Oldenburg to Hartlib 8 and 12 November and Propoganda in seventeenth century France, the Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
Innovations of Theophraste Renaudot, Princeton, Useful Knowledge in Early Modern London, Totnes, Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 179-180. Prospect Books, 2010. 12. For an agreeable survey of the subject and 16. The locus classicus for Peiresc’s life is the its main protagonists, see Laurence Carlin, The detailed account published ive years after his Empiricists: a guide for the perplexed, London, New death by Gassendi, Vir illvstris Nicolai Clavdii York, Continuum, 2009, chapters 1 to 7. Fabrici de Peiresc senatoris aquisextiensis v ita …, 13. H. Brown, Scientiic Organisations, op. cit. ; Paris, Sebastiani Cramoisy, 1641 and several later René Taton, Les origines de l’Académie Royale des editions which are enumerated in A. Turner, Sciences, Paris, Palais de la Découverte, 1966 ; N. Gomez, Pierre Gassendi, op. cit., p. 57. Gassendi’s Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of a scientiic Institution, life is now conveniently available in a recent the Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666-1803, Berkeley, French translation by Roger Lassalle, Un savant, Los Angeles & London, University of California une époque : Peiresc 1580-1637, Paris, Belin, 1992. Press, 1971 ; Trevor McClaughlin, « Une lettre Older but still worthwhile are Pierre Humbert, de Melchisidech Thévenot », Revue d’Histoire Un amateur, Peiresc (1580-1637), Paris, 1933 and des Sciences, xxvii, 1974, p. 123-126 ; id., « Sur George Cahen-Salvador, Un grand humaniste, les rapports entre la Compagnie de Thévenot et Peiresc 1580-1637, Paris 1951. More recent inter- l’Académie Royale des Sciences », Revue d’histoire pretations are Marc Fumaroli, « Nicolas Claude des sciences, xxviii, 1975, p. 235-242. Fabri de Peiresc, prince de la République des 14. For empiricism in Gassendi’s philos- Lettres » in Peiresc – Gassendi, l’humanisme triom- ophy see Barry Brundell, Pierre Gassendi, phant dans la Provence Baroque, Brussels, Fondation from Aristotelianism to a new natural philosophy, Claude-Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc, n.d. [1993] Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1987, especially chapter iv reprinted in a revised version in Marc Fumaroli, and p. 139. L. Carlin, The Empiricists, op. cit., La République des lettres, Paris, Gallimard, 2015, ch. iv. For examples of Gassendi’s empirical chap. 2, and the indispensible study by Peter Miller, Peiresc’s Europe. Learning and Virtue in the work see: Anthony Turner, Nadine Gomez, Seventeenth century, New Haven & London, Yale Pierre Gassendi, explorateur des sciences, Digne-les- University Press, 2000, used here in the French Bains, Musée de Digne, 1992. Anthony J. Turner, translation by Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat, L’Europe « Pierre Gassendi, astronomer natural philos- 145 de Peiresc, savoir et vertue au XVIIe siècle, Paris, Albin opher », Interdisciplinary Scientiic reviews, xix, Michel, 2015. 1994, p. 135-139. For Descartes see Desmond 17. This point is amply illustrated by Agnès M. Clarke, Descartes’ Philosophy of Science, Bresson in her edition Nicolas-Claude Fcabri de Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, Peiresc, Lettres à Claude Saumaise et son entourage chap. 2 and p. 200-202. (1630-1637), Florence, Léo S. Olschki, 1992, p. xli- 15. Reijer Hooykaas, « Pierre de la Ramée et ii-xlvii. l’empirisme scientiique au xvie siècle » in La 18. Anne Reinbold « Peiresc et les peintres Science au seizième siècle. Colloque International de son temps » in Anne Reinbold (ed.), Peiresc de Royaumont, 1-4 juillet 1957, Paris, Hermann, ou la passion de connaître. Colloque de Carpentras, 1957, p. 299-313. Palissy’s work, as presented in novembre 1987, Paris, Vrin, 1990, p. 187-204, who the version of his Recepte véritable… (1563) pub- shows how in his desire for absolute verity in lished in 1636 provoked considerable interest the depiction of things, Peiresc was at cross-cur- among Hartlib and his friends when Mersenne rent with prevailing ideas about ‘perfection’ in brought it to Haak’s attention as being similar to painting. the work of Gabriel Plattes, Mersenne to Haak 19. For astronomy see Frederic 24 November 1639 in Cornelis de Waard et al J. Baumgartner, « The origins of the Provençal (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, 17 vol., school of astronomy », Physis, xxviii, 1991, p. 291- Paris, CNRS, 1933-1988, viii, 637. Discoveries 304 ; id., « Galileo’s French correspondents », concerning Palissy in the 1980s are resumed with Annals of Science, 45, 1988, p. 169-182 ; Albert van bibliography in Revue de l’Art, 1987. For the use of Helden, « Gassendi and the telescope : towards a Palissy by Hugh Plat, the second edition of whose research community », Annales de Haute Provence, works may have been promoted by the Hartlib cccxxi-xxii, 1992-1993, p. 329-339 ; William B. group see Alan Debus, « Palissy, Plat and English Ashworth jr, « The map of the Moon of Gassendi, agricultural chemistry in the 16th and 17th cen- Peiresc and Mellan », ibid., p. 341-52 ; for vision, turies », Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Robert A. Hatch, « Coherence, correspondence Sciences, xxi, 1968, p. 67-88 and further comments and choice : Gassendi and Boulliau on light and in Malcolm Thick, Sir Hugh Plat: the Search for vision », ibid., p. 365-385 ; A. Turner, N. Gomez, Anthony Turner
Pierre Gassendi, op. cit., p. 111, 117. Numerous, quite 26. Mersenne was also less good natured than detailed, accounts of Peiresc’s empirical investiga- Peiresc. For a comparison and account of their col- tions are given in Gassendi, Vir illvstris…, op. cit. laboration see Armand Beaulieu, « Mersenne rival 20. Smith an orientalist and theological contro- de Peiresc ? », in A. Reinbold (ed.), Peiresc ou la versialist notable for his debates with the quakers passion de connaître, op. cit., p. 23-40. John Bunyan and George Whitehead in 1659 was, 27. De Subtilitate…, 1550 and many later edi- like More and Widdrington, a Fellow of Christ’s tions. College, Cambridge where he was also librarian 28. Magia naturalis, Naples, 1558 and numerous from 1659 until his death. For his career see Paul later editions. English translation London 1658 Hammond, « Smith, Thomas (1624-1661) », Oxford reprinted in facsimile with an introduction by Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Derek Price, The Collector’s Series in Science, I, Press, 2004, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ New York, The Smithsoninan Institution, 1957. article/68258]. 29. « Mais il n’y a pas de plaisir à cela, si l’on 21. A contentious Fellow of Christ’s ne rencontre quelques autres, qui ayant le mesme College Cambridge who in October 1650 had dessein : car il y a des expériences à faire de been appointed University Orator. For his Médecine, de Chymie, de Labourage, des mécha- career see Hugh de Quehen, « Widdrington, niques, etc ; ce qu’un homme seul ne peut pas Ralph (1614/15–1688) », Oxford Dictionary of faire, s’il n’estoit gagé à cela par un Roy ou une National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; République ». Mersenne to Haak 22 November online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb. 1640 ; C. de Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du com/view/article/29355]. P. Marin Mersenne, op. cit., xi, p. 426-27, ix, p. 409, 22. (1614-87), the well-known platonist philos- 20 March 1640 where he dilates on how he hates opher and also a Fellow of Christ’s College and in all deceptions that savants are forced to spend contact with Hartlib. In 1651 his only publications time combating, « et si l’on me vouloit seconder were a number of philosophical poems. Since in et ayder, je purgeroit Pline, Cardan, Baptista Porta 1650-51 he was heavily engaged in controversy et tous les autres de toutes les faussetés qui s’y with the alchemist and poet Thomas Vaughan trouvent ». 146 it is unlikely that he could have offered Smith 30. Roger French, Andrew Cunningham, much assistance. See Oxford Dictionaty of National Before Science, the Invention of the Friars’ Natural Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Philosophy, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1996. 23. A cheap duo-decimo edition was indeed 31. Hilary Carey, Courting Disaster: Astrology at published in 1651 by Adriaan Vlacq in the Hague. the English Court and Universities in the Later Middle 24. Thomas Smith to Samuel Hartlib Ages, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. Despite 3 September 1651. Hartlib Papers 15/6/255A-26B. its title, the book also contains a good deal of Rather little is known of Rand but see Charles information about France. Webster, The Great Instauration. Science, Medicine 32. For a more detailed account of Late and Reform 1620-1660, London, Duckworth, 1975 Medieval developments see Anthony J. Turner, (new ed. 2002), for his proposals for a new college Mathematical Instruments in Antiquity and the Middle of physicians in London. His attention had been Ages, London, Vade Mecum Presss, 1994, chap. 3. drawn to the Vita…Peiresc as a subject of trans- For Renaissance mathematics, Paul Lawrence lation by Worsley who combined admiration for Rose, The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics. Studies Bacon with admiration for the experimentalism of on Humanists and Mathematicians from Petrarch to Peiresc and Gassendi. See Thomas Leng, Benjamin Galileo, Geneva, Droz, 1975. For Renaissance Worsley (1618-1677). Trade, Interest and the Spirit in workshops, Anthony J. Turner, « Gli Strumenti Revolutionary England, Woodbridge, The Royal scientiici » in Storia della Scienza, IV Medioevo, Historical Society and the Boydell Press, 2008, Rinascimento, Rome, Enciclopedia Italiana, 2001, p. 25. For Rand’s relation with Evelyn see Gillian chap. xviii. For practical mathematics and prac- Darley, John Evelyn, living for ingenuity, New titioners see Eva Germaine Rimington Taylor, Haven & London, Yale University Press, 2006, The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart p. 146-147. Geoffrey Keynes, John Evelyn, A Study England, Cambridge, the Institute of Navigation/ in bibliophily with a Bibliography of his Writings, Cambridge University Press, 1954 ; Stephen 2nd edition Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1968, Andrew Johnson, “Making mathematical prac- p. 8, 283. tice : gentlemen, practitioners and artisans in 25. Joseph Scherpereel, « Peiresc et la Elizabethan England », unpublished PhD thesis musique » in A. Reinbold (ed.), Peiresc ou la pas- Cambridge 1994 ; Thomas B. Setttle, “The sion de connaître, op. cit., p. 153-185, p. 157. Tartaglia Ricci problem : towards a study of the Paris – London: empirical philosophy, invention and the Hartlib Circle
technical professional in the 16th century” in 38. For an account of Morin’s life and a brief Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Culttura, introduction to his longitude ideas see Monnette Scienze e Techniche nella Venezia del Cinquecento. Martinet, « Jean Baptiste Morin » in Pierre Atti del Convegno…Giovani Batista Benedetti e il Costabel and Monnette Martinet, Quelques suo tempo, Venice, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Savants et amateurs de science au XVIIe siècle (Cahiers 1987, p. 217-226. For warfare see Jim Bennett, d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences, n.s. 14), Stephen Johnson, The Geometry of War 1500-1750, Paris 1986, p. 69-88. For detailed discussions see Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, 1996. Jean Parès, « Jean Baptiste Morin (1583-1656) et The relevant recent collective work edited by la querelle des longitudes de 1634 à 1647 », thèse Lesley B. Cormack, John A. Schuster, Steven de troisième cycle, École des Hautes Études en A. Walter, Mathematical Practitioners and the Sciences Sociales, n.d. [1976], and the important transformation of natural knowledge in Early Modern recent discussion in A. Ruellet, La Maison de Europe, Berlin, Springer, 2017 unfortunately was Salomon, op. cit., ch. iv. published after this essay was completed. 39. News of Morin inally reached the Hartlib 33. John Davis, “Fit for a king. Decoding the circle in March 1640 when Mersenne sent Haak Sloane astrolabe and other English astrolabes with a copy of the title page of Morin’s latest publi- ‘quatrefoil’ retes », Medieval Encounters, xxvii, cation on longitude, following it in September 2017, p. 311-354 ; id., “A royal English medieval with the book itself, de longitudinibus dignoscendis astrolabe made for use in Northern Italy », Journal Mersenne added that it was quite easy to obtain for the History of Astronomy, xlviii, 2017, p. 3-32 ; Morin’s other works as their author sold them Silke Ackermann, John Cherry, “Richard II, John himself.4 September 1640, C. de Waard et al (eds), Holland and three Medieval Quadrants », Annals Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. cit., ix, of Science, lvi, 1999, p. 3-23 ; Catherine Eagleton, p. 414. By this time however, Morin’s ideas had “A king, two lords, and three quadrants”, Early been discredited and he had lost oficial support. Science and Medicine, xvi, 2011, p. 200-217 ; John 40. This episode is described by William R. Davis, “The Chetwoode quadrant, a medieval Shea, “Descartes and the French artisan Jean unequal-hour Instrument », Bulletin of the British Ferrier”, Annalil dell’Istituto e Museo di Storia della Sundial Society, xxvii (2)i 2015, p. 2-6 ; Emmanuel Scienza di Firenze, vii, 2, 1982, p. 145-159. It may 147 Poulle, Un Constructeur d’instruments astronom- be noted that if the search engine of the electronic iques au XVe siècle : Jean Fusoris, Paris, Librairie edition of Hartlib’s papers is reliable, then there Honoré Champion, 1963. is no mention of this episode, nor of Ferrier, in 34. Silvio A. Bedini, “Falconi, renaissance the whole collection, this striking omission may astrologer and astronomical clock and instrument relect a desire to keep the whole endeavour maker », Nuncius. Annali di Storia della Scienza, xix secret. 2004, p. 31-76 ; Gerard l’Estrange Turner, “The 41. Stephen Clucas, “Samuel Hartlib’s Florentine workshop of Giovan Battista Giusti, Ephemerides, 1635-1659, and the pursuit of scien- 156-1575 », Nuncius. Annali di Storia della Scienza, tiic and philosophical manuscripts: the religious x, 1995, p. 131-172. ethos of an Intelligencer”, The Seventeenth Century, 35. For a fuller treatment of Danfrie see vi, 1991, p. 33-55, who after a clear exposition of Anthony J. Turner, “Paper, print and math- Hartlib’s religious motivations, argues (p. 38) ematics : Philippe Danfrie and the making of for a reorientation in his interests from theology mathematical Instruments in late 16th Cenntury and devotion towards more secular concerns in Paris », in Christine Blondel, Françoise Parot, learning and technical development from c. 1640 Anthony Turner, Mari Williams (eds), Studies onwards. in the History of Scientiic instruments, London 42. Ephemerides 1639 30/4/3A. and Paris, Rogers Turner Books, 1989, p. 22-42. 43. Ephemerides 1640 30/4/46B. Some supplementary information is given in 44. Ephemerides 1639 30/4/26B. Anthony J. Turner, “Mathematical Instrument- 45. C. Webster, The Great Instauration, op. cit., making in Early Modern Paris », in Robert Fox p. 53. and Anthony Turner (eds), Luxury trades and 46. On this see Charles Webster, Samuel Hartlib Consumerism in Early Modern Paris: Studies in the and the Advancement of Learning, Cambridge, History of the Skilled Workforce, Aldershot, Ashgate, Cambridge University Press, 1970, 15-17. 1998, p. 69-73. 47. These are deined and explained by 36. HP 43/19A. Stephen Pumfrey, “ ‘O Tempora, O magnes!’. A 37. Ephemerides 29/3/64A. Sociological analysis of the discovery of secular Anthony Turner
magnetic variation”, British Journal for the History 59. To Haak 15 January 1640, C. de Waard et of Science, xxii, 1989, p. 181-214. al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. 48. Ephemerides 29/313A cit., ix, p. 14. 49. Published at Rome in 1641 with several later 60. To Haak 20 January 1640, ibid., ix, p. 39-40. editions. See John Fletcher, Teinhard Dieterle, 61. To Haak 10 December 1639, ibid., viii, Gerhard Römer and Ulf Scharlau, Universale p. 683. « Si je l‘avois eüe un mois, j’augmenterois Bildung im Barock. Der Geleherte Athanasius Kircher, mes observations de beaucoup ». Although Ward Kardlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, 1981, agreed to the demand (Hartlib papers 34/6/12A- p. 75-81. 13B), the conditions he laid down seemed so 50. Pell to Mersenne 21 November 1639, C. de onerous to Mersenne that he withdrew his Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin request. His English correspondents continued to Mersenne, op. cit., viii, p. 632. try to satisfy him. Eventually Mersenne acquired 51. Ephemerides 1639, 30/4/25B. another (though less good), of Ward’s lodestones. 52. Mersenne to Haak 15 January 1640, C. de This however was a disappointment - “uncapped Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin it is worthless” (“désarmé il vaut rien”). Mersenne, op. cit., ix, p. 135. 62. To Haak 10 March 1640, ibid., ix, p. 404 ; 53. « Nous sommes icy depuis peu en grand 12 May 1640, ibid., ix, p. 305. contestation, si nostre declinaison de Paris est de 63. To Pell c. 12 May 1640, ibid., ix, p. 312. « Si 4 degrez et ½ …ou si elle n’est que 3 degrez… », M. Bondus vouloit faire part de son fondement Mersenne to Haak 25 February 1640. C. de Waard pour la raison de la diminution, au lieu de luy et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. nuire [here used in the sense of detracting from cit., ix, p. 135. his reputation] nous pouvions peut-estre l’ayder 54. C. de Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du en quelque chose ». P. Marin Mersenne, op. cit., viii, p. 633. A. Turner, 64. London 1637, with another edition in 1638. N. Gomez, Pierre Gassendi, op. cit., p. 161. An English translation by Sir Harbottle Grimston 55. Mersenne to Pell 12 May 1640, C. de Waard was published in 1640. et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. 65. Pamela R. Barnett, Theodore Haak, F. R. 148 cit., ix, p. 311. S. (1605-1690): the irst German translator of 56. Mersenne to Haak, 4 March 1640, ibid., ix, Paradise Lost, The Hague, Mouton &. Co. 1962, p. 311. Mersenne was perhaps inluenced here by p. 152. [https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image- the view of Christophe Villiers at Sens who in a rs-9712]. letter dated three days earlier had councelled 66. To Haak 28 November 1640, C. de Waard et reserving judgement as ‘…such observations al (eds), CORRESPONDANCE du P. Marin Mersenne, op. want more time to be decisive’ ‘’…telles observa- cit., ix, p. 429-430. « Si vous pourrez voir l’aymant tions veulent plus de tems pour la decision”, ibid., [de Ward] désarmé et à nud, qui tire 23
68. Jean Antoine Nollet, Leçons de physique Annali dell ‘Istituto e Museo della scienza di Firenze, expérimentale, VI, Paris, 1764 and several other vii (1), 1982, p. 161-167. editions. The copy used here is the sixth, pub- 81. See for example a letter to Lady Barrington, lished in 1768, the relevant passage being on pp. 21 August 1640 reporting news from France. 166-67. The example Nollet gives of a lodestone 82. 24 November 1639, C. de Waard et al (eds), in his own possession for some ifteen years that Correspondence du P. Marin Mersenne, op. cit., viii, unarmed lifted half an ounce, but armed raised p. 638 ; 18 December 1639, ibid., viii, p. 693 ; twenty-seven and a half ounces, was clearly 31 December 1639, ibid., viii, p. 722. exceptional and cited for this reason. 83. 20 January 1640, ibid., ix, p. 52 ; 1 March 69. Ibid., p. 169. « Il ne faut pas douter aussi que 1640, ibid., ix, p. 171 ; 4 March 1640, ibid., ix, p. 178. la puissance d’u aimant ne dépende beaucoup de 84. 12 February 1640, ibid., ix, p. 107. la façon dont il est armé ». 85. 20 March 1640, ibid., ix, p. 406-507. 70. HP 56/1/24A. 86. 12 May 1640, ibid., ix, p. 306. 71. HP 56/41/2A & 56/1/25A. 87. HP 10/2/12B-13A. His acount is tran- 72. A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall (eds), The scribed and discussed in Mark Greengrass, Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 278. “Sir Bathazer Gerbier et la machine à calculer 73. To Hartlib 22 May 1655, HP 26/41/2A. For de Pascal”, Courrier du Centre International Blaise documentation of this account of Chorez and fur- Pascal, xix, 1997, p. 10-16. For Gerbier’s career ther details see Turner in Fox & Turner (n. 35). see Jeremy Ward in Oxford Dictionary of National 74. « L’afiche pour les forces mouvantes ». Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http:// Mersenne to Haak 25 February 1640. Corr. ix 134. www. oxforddnb. com/view/article/10562]. 75. To Mersenne 29 January 1640, C. de Waard 88. HP 14/3/2A-B, 7 July 1657 ; HP 44/9/1A- et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. 2B. cit., ix, p. 87-88. 89. HP 7 /55/1B, 10 March 1640. 76. A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall (eds), The 90. HP 18/2/45A-B, partly transcribed in Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., p. 278, Appendix 2. The document was no doubt sup- 26 July 1659. For Dimmock see Mark Greengrass, plied to Hartlib by Mersenne but it was not, as in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford the electronic edition describes it, a ‘petition: 149 University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb. Mersenne to ( ? Louis)’. com/view/article/54119]. 91. For whom see Edmond Vanderstraeten, 77. H.P. 63/101/1A-2B. In the transcribed ver- Jacques de göy Musicien du dix-septième siècle, sion of this document included in the electronic Antwerp, J. E. Buschmann, 1863. edition of the papers the name is given as Chorer, 92. Albert Cohen, « Jean Le Maire and La but this is clearly a misreading. See Appendix 1 Musique Almérique », Acta Musicologica. Revue de 78. 17 November 1659, A. R. Hall, M. B. Hall la Société Internationale de Musicologie, xxxv, 1963, (eds), The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, 175-9 ; James R. Knowlson, « Jean Le Maire and op. cit., p. 189-190. Hartlib who had supported the ‘musique almérique’: a set of unpublished Dymock while he developed his machine had a documents », Acta musicological, xl, 1968, 86-9 strong inancial interest in it. who offers most of the relevant documents from 79. Appendix 1, paragraph 2. the Hartlib Papers [onward : HP]. 80. Ephemerides 31/22/1B. The “Polish lying 93. There are numerous references in HP, but machine” is the “lying Dragon” of Tito Livio see in particular 63/8/51-6B, “Extracts concerning Buratini (1617-1687) who developed his ideas Jean Le Maire’s Musical Inventions”. for a man-powered lying machine in Warsaw 94. HP 29/8/4B. in 1647/48. News of the attempt was irst sent 95. Oldenburg to Boyle 13 October 1664 who to Paris in a letter from Pierre Desnoyers to concludes his description of the occasion “I must Roberval 4 December 1648, C. de Waard et al confesse it transports me, and cannot but exceed- (eds), Correspondence du P. Marin Mersenne, op. ingly please him yt playes upon it, hearing him- cit., xv, p. 560-563, and futher information fol- selfe alone perform a whole consort of viols”? lowed, reported on to Haak by Mersenne. For The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, op. cit., ii, details of the machine see Clive Hart, The Pre- p. 251-152. history of Flight, Berkeley, University of California 96. British Library ms Harley 6796 no 20 ff 175- Press, 1985, p. 134-145. René Taton, « Le ‘Dragon 77, see Cohen (n. 92). volant’ de Burattini », Revue des sciences humaines, 97. Haak to Mersenne 6 August 1647, C. de clxxxvi-vii, 1982-1883, p. 45-66 ; id., « Nouveau Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin document sur le « Dragon volant » de Burattini », Mersenne, op. cit., xv, p. 353. « Quel but Monsieur Anthony Turner
le Maire avoir d’estre si chiche de ses inventions 109. Mersenne to Haak, 31 December 1639. au bien public. A qui et a quoy sert le Talent dans Corr. viii 723. le Mouchoir ? ». 110. Mersenne to Haak 20 January 1640, C. de 98. 2 July 1659, The Correspondence of Henry Waard et al (eds), Correspondance du P. Marin Oldenburg, I, op. cit., 278. Mersenne, op. cit., ix, p. 41. The 12 February 1640 99. 5 June 1647, C. de Waard et al (eds), however Mersenne reported to Haak that Aubery Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, op. cit., xv, was having considerable dificulties in his pol- p. 248. ishing, ibid., ix, p. 108. Five years later all activity 100. Doujat to Hartlib 26 August 1644. HP would be stopped when Aubery, aide-de-camp to 9/3/3A. the Duc d’Enghien, was killed during the battle of 101. H. M. Solomon, Public Welfare, op. cit., Nordlingen. Louis Aubery Du-Maurier, Histoire p. 39, 94-95, 218-219; C. Webster, The Great de l’execution de Cabrieres et de Merindol et d’autres Instauration, op. cit., p. 68. lieux de Provence, particulierement deduite dans le 102. Ephemerides 30/4/33A. plaidoye qu’en it l’an 1551 par le commandement du 103. Ephemerides 30/4/48B. du roy Henry II. et comme son advocat general en cette 104. 27 January 1642 “ad Mr Sto”, HP cause Jacques Aubery etc. pour traitter de la paix l’an 7/27/1A-B. 1555. Etc, Paris, Sébastien Cramoisy, 1645. 105. They are now in HP 48/7 and 48/8. Other 111. A. D. C. Simpson, “Richard Reeve — the relevant documents occur in the same dossier and English Campani — and the origins of the London also in 36/1/17A and 58/3A-4B. Telescope making tradition”, Vistas in Astronomy, 106. Anthony Wood, History and Antiquities of xxviii, 1985, p. 357-365, p. 358. Oxford (ed J. Gutch), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 112. Discussed in detail in C. Webster, The Great 1786, ii, p632-633. Instauration, op. cit. Although stages of Blondeau’s 107. P. R. Barnett, Theodore Haak, op. cit., p. 78: activities are recorded by documents in HP, it is the author suggests that it was the setting up of not entirely clear of how much help members of these meetings that stimulated Haak to reopen the circle were to him. Blondeau himself may be correspondence with Mersenne in 1647. the Parisisian instrument-maker who received a 150 108. Several of these groups are surveyed in place in the Louvre in February 1642, but is not Simone Mazauric, « Des académies de l’âge otherwise known as an active maker. Having baroque à l’Académie royale des sciences » and returned to France in 1660, Blondeau rejoined the Katia Béguin, « L’académie du Grand Condé : Mint in 1662 where he was visted by the Dutch un asile de liberté scientiique ? », both in painter Willem Schellincks. See Maurice Exwood, Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère, Eric Brian H. L. Leham (eds), The Journal of Willem Schellincks (eds), Règlement, usages et science dans la France Travels in England 1661-1663 (Camden Society 5th de l’absolutisme… actes du colloque international… series, 1), London, Royal Historical Society, 1993, Paris 8-10 juin 1999, London, Paris & New York, p. 17. Editions Tec & Doc, 2002, p. 13-36.