The Authors and Reviewers of the Acta Eruditorum 1682
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Acta Eruditorum The authors and reviewers of the Acta Eruditorum 1682 – 1735 by A.H. Laeven and L.J.M. Laeven-Aretz Electronic Publication Molenhoek, The Netherlands, 2014 Contents Introduction 2 1. The Collectores Actorum Eruditorum: the choice of collectivity. 4 2. The finding of five annotated copies of the Acta. 5 3. Discovering the authors of the individual contributions. 8 4. List of reviews and reviewers 1682-1735. 11 5. List of articles and their submitters 1682-1735. 124 6. List of articles taken from contemporary journals 1682-1735. 135 7. Index of contributions to the Acta Eruditorum 1682-1735. 141 1 Introduction In 1990 one of the authors of the present work published The Acta Eruditorum under the editorship of Otto Mencke. The history of an international learned journal between 1682 and 1707. (Amsterdam & Maarssen, APA-Holland University Press). It was the translation of a Dutch dissertation, which had appeared in 1986. That dissertation was the result of the first detailed survey into the external history of the highlight of the early scholarly periodical press in the German Countries, so far. Together with its successor, The Nova Acta Eruditorum, the periodical lasted for a whole century, from 1682 till 1782. So it became one of the most important vehicles of learned communication of the Enlightenment, not only within the German Countries, but across the entire Republic of Letters. The journal was presented to the world as a product of collective authorship by the Collectores Actorum Eruditorum. But in reality the management of the publication rested in the hands of the editor-in-chief, from the start till 1707 Otto Mencke, and thereafter his son, Johann Burkhard, who in turn was succeeded by his son Friedrich Otto. During the last two decades of the existence of the journal (from 1756 onwards), Johanna Catherina Mencke, the widow of Friedrich Otto, entrusted the management to Karl Andreas Bel, professor Poëseos and librarian at Leipzig university. Part of the task of the editor-in-chief was to guard an unquestionable objectivity, above all of the reviews of newly-published works. Otherwise the journal could incur the stigma of being the mouthpiece of a particular scholarly or religious faction. So the Acta not only strove for the greatest possible impartiality, the editorship also wanted to ensure that its journal would not become a battleground for contentious parties, since anything of this kind would soon harm the journal’s reputation as an independent review organ. If a review unintentionally provoked a heated response, the opponent’s attack was answered in a separate publication. Only an apologia of this kind could in turn be reviewed in the Acta. In consequence, we find no long-drawn-out polemics in the Leipzig journal. Another important concern of the Collectores Actorum, and particularly of the editorship, was the propaganda of courtesy and mutual respect, virtues which were highly esteemed in the Republic of Letters. Reviews of books which contained coarseness, mockery and severe criticism were often rejected as not appropriate. With a similar eagerness they tried to avoid such tendencies in articles submitted for publication in the Acta. Nevertheless one can say that contributors of articles was given a slightly freer rein. They at least were offered the opportunity of airing conflicting opinions, provided that this was done objectively and with respect for other ideas. Since most of the articles were restricted to mathematics and natural sciences, the risk of irreconcilable differences was much smaller than it would have been with theological and philosophical subjects. Against this background the Collectores Actorum published their reviews consequently anonimously. As far as the articles are concerned, we see a mixed approach. A lot of it mention the name of the author (in full or initials only). But a very substantial part of these were published nameless, as well. The find of a few copies of the Acta Eruditorum with marginal notes, mentioning the names of the contributors, made it possible to reconstruct, to a very large extent, the vast and steadily renewing team of contributors who gave hand to the publication of the journal. In the above mentioned publication the present author already revealed the names of the authors and reviewers for the years 1682-1706. Now a complete listing of all authors and reviewers of the Acta Eruditorum for the years 1682-1731, the full period of its existence under the original title, is presented. In addition to this are included the names of the authors and reviewers of the Nova Acta Eruditorum for 1732-1735, the only years of the continuation of the Acta with annotations of the names of the contributors of the journal. However, as far as completeness is concerned some restrictions have to be made: the copies with marginal notes do not contain the names for each and every contribution to the Acta. Besides that, it was not always possible to identify the person mentioned with a 100% 2 certainty, and a few times different copies mention different names. But all-in all, the result does not stay more than a tiny percentage away from a complete overview of the Collectores Actorum. Hopefully these listings will be a useful addition to the history of the Acta Eruditorum, as published before, as well as to that of learned journalism, more in general. Furthermore it might contribute in some respects to the intellectual history of the Republic of Letters, and to that of Leipzig university and Saxony in particular, from where this international project was directed for a full century. And last, but not least, it may add valuable information to the biographies and bibliographies of the scholars involved in the work of the Acta Eruditorum. 3 1. The Collectores Actorum Eruditorum: the choice of collectivity. Even the earliest speculations about the publication of a learned journal for the German countries, such as those expressed in 1668 by Leibniz with a view to the compilation of a Nucleus librarius semestralis1 , envisaged a format in which the editorial work would be done by a group of associates. Since Leibniz, after all, wanted to achieve the selection and review of a hundred outstanding books from the offerings at the half-yearly Messe, as well as the printing of an “abstract journal”, all within the space of six weeks2, it seems highly unlikely that the philosopher contemplated bringing off such a tour de force unaided. Leibniz’s plans never came to fruition, but the idea of collectivity manifested itself again in the organization of the oldest scholarly journal in the German territory, the Miscellanea curiosa Medico-physica..., published by the Academia Leopoldina in 1670. From the outset, the Acta Eruditorum followed the same line: responsibility for the publication was, it is true, vested in one person, who acted both as senior editor and publisher, but was borne by a group of associates who carried out the difficult reviewing work anonymously and without payment. The journal was therefore presented as the product of the collaboration and shared responsibility of the Collectores Actorum, while the publisher and senior editor never appeared in the foreground in the publication itself. The reasons for this approach were apparantly: the broad spectrum of disciplines, languages and countries to be covered was too much for one person to manage; the enterprise had its roots in the activities of a number of learned societies in Leipzig; and right from the start the initiators seem consciously to have sought to give the Acta the standing of the official journal of a sort of Saxon academy, since they undoubtedly expected this to produce numerous advantages in terms of acquiring a privilege, subsidies, acceptance and sales. Besides that, and perhaps above that, came the more idealistic considerations of objectivity and moderation, as discussed in the Introduction above. 1 G.W. Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, Hrsg. von der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Berlin, Leipzig, Darmstadt 1923-. Here Reihe I, Bd. 1, N. 1 and N. 2. 2 Cf. A.H. Laeven, The Acta Eruditorum under the editorship of Otto Mencke. The history of an international learned journal between 1682 and 1707, Amsterdam & Maarssen 1990, chapter I.2.c. 4 2. The finding of five annotated copies of the Acta. In many cases, regrettably, it is difficult to determine precisely who submitted regular contributions, in the shape of book reviews, book news and other announcements, to the editors of the journals of the Ancien Régime. Often, only the prime movers are known, while the great host of collaborators remains largely untraceable. Initially, it appeared that this would also be the case with the Acta Eruditorum: nowhere in the journal itself are the names of the Collectores Actorum mentioned. A happy coincidence, however, made it possible to reconstruct almost in its entirety the group of associates who contributed regularly and incidentally to the Acta. Among the copies of the Acta which have been preserved are a few in which the names of the contributors have been noted in the margin. Although none of the annotated copies which have been traced can be said to be complete in this respect, they supplement one another to a significant degree. These annotated sets are to be found in the Universitatsbibliothek in Leipzig3 , the Sächsiche Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek in Dresden4, the Niedersachsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen5 and the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.6 Finally, the Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek Schwerin (Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) has a single volume, and this the first, 1682 volume7, with a few annotations, while the Biblioteca Nazionale “Vittorio Emanuele III” in Naples also has a series with marginal notes.8 In order to compile the list of reviewers and correspondents of all volumes of the Acta Eruditorum 1682-1731 and of the Nova Acta Eruditorum 1732-1735, we consulted and studied the copies in Dresden, Göttingen, Heidelberg and Leipzig.