Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

THE FATE OF THE MEDICI LORRAINE SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

1995; Oxford University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jhc/7.2.159

1477-8564

Silvio A. Bedini,

History of Medicine Studies

Following the demise of the medics dynasty in 1737, the duchy of Tuscany passed to Duke Francis Stephan of Lorraine, who was to rule in absentia. He transferred his late father’s collection of scientific instruments, machines and science teaching apparatus from Lunéville to the Pitti Palace in Florence, where they joined the large collection of experimental apparatus of the accademia del Cimento. Accompanying the collection from Lorraine was Philippe Vayringe (1684–1746), clockmaker and mechanician of the late Duke of Lorraine. Upon Vayringe’s death in 1746, Francis I Stephan, now Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, ordered the collections of scientific instruments from Lunéville and those produced by Vayringe in Florence to be transferred to his places in Vienna, a total of more than 1,600 instruments, machines and apparatus, including items of the Accademia del Cimento. In the course of time these were dispersed among various repositories and have not been identified. At the end of World War I the Italian government attempted to recover the Accademia items from Austria but without success. Fortunately the collections formed originally by the Medici princes had been overlooked in storage in the Galleria degli Uffizi and survived the transfer; many are presently preseved in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence.