Images and Institutions brings together an international team of historians of art and science for a three-day symposium in Rome to gain a larger picture of the relationships between visual culture and the developing practices of collaborative science. During this symposium we will study the diverse ways in which images were used in the production and dissemination of knowledge in early modern scientific societies such as the Accademia dei Lincei, the Accademia del Cimento, and the Académie Royale des Sciences. Central questions include: What common visual practices were shared among these institutions, and importantly, where did they diverge? How did differing national artistic contexts impact the visual culture of scientific institutions? And how did these relationships shift over time with new enlightenment societies founded in the 18th century? By comparing these institutions, we will explore the ways in which images and image-making practices were integral to the advancement of early modern collaborative science.
Venues
14 September at the Accademia dei Lincei (2-7pm)
15 September at the KNIR (9am-7pm)
16 September at the BHMPI (9am-6pm)
Program Images and Institutions: The Visual Culture of Early Modern Scientific Societies
Day 1 (14 September 2022) Accademia dei Lincei, Sala delle Scienze Fisiche, Palazzo Corsini – Via della Lungara, 10
14.00-14.30 Welcome and Introduction (Katherine Reinhart and Matthijs Jonker)
Session 1. The Visual Strategies of the Early Accademia dei Linceix
Chair: Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi (Accademia dei Lincei)
14.30-15.00 paper 1. Irene Baldriga, Ut pictura manifestat: Iconographic patterns and
documentation “after reality” in the visual imagery of the first Accademia dei Lincei
15.00-15.30 paper 2. Matthijs Jonker, Understanding the Exotic: Original and Copied
Images in the Production of the Tesoro messicano
15.30-16.00 discussion
16.00-16.45 Break and time to see the small exhibit of Lincean material in the Biblioteca
Corsiniana
Session 2. Understanding other Cultures Through the Circulation of Images
Chair: Ariella Minden (Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History)
16.45-17.15 paper 3. Eric Jorink, Teyler’s Foundation of Haarlem (1778): between art, science, and religion
17.15-17.45 paper 4. Federica Favino, Structure and iconography of the ancient triremes
on the Trajan Column
17.45-18.15 paper 5. Aleksander Musiał, Tracing Vapours: António Nunes Ribeiro
Sanches’s Treatise on Russian baths (1771-9) between Paris and Saint Petersburg
18.15-19.00 discussion
Day 2 (15 September 2022) Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), Auditorium, Via Omero 10/12
Session 3. The Visual Strategies of Institutional Journals in the 18th Century
Chair: TBC
9.30-10.00 paper 6. Simon Rebohm, Between Epistemology and Practice: Images in the
Ephemerides of the Leopoldina
10.00-10.30 paper 7. Alicia Hughes, Image-making in The Society of Physicians in
London and the Medical Observations and Inquiries journal (1754-1784)
10.30-11.00 discussion
11.00-11.30 break
Session 4. Old Theories and New Instruments: Microscopy in Rome and London
Chair: Sietske Fransen (Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History)
11.30-12.00 paper 8. Ellen Pater, Through Buonanni’s Lens: Observing and Representing
Spontaneous Generation at the Collegio Romano
12.00-12.30 paper 9. Xinyi Wen, Between Internal and External: The Doctrine of
Signatures and Visual Culture in Early Royal Society
12.30-13.00 discussion
13.00-14.30 lunch
Session 5. The Visual Strategies of the Accademia del Cimento
Chair:
14.30-15.00 paper 10. Stefano Gulizia, Image-Making in the Cimento’s Network:
Expertise more geometrico in Borelli, Steno, and Malpighi
15.00-15.30 paper 11. Eva Struhal, Virtual witnessing: illustrations and mental images in
the Saggi della naturale Esperienze
15.30-16.00 discussion
16.00-17.00 break
Keynote lecture (hybrid)
Chair: Florike Egmond (Leiden University)
17.00-18.30 paper 12. Sachiko Kusukawa, Early Modern Scientific Institutions and Their
Images
18.30-19.30 drinks
Day 3 (16 September 2022) Bibliotheca Hertziana, Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22
Session 6. The Visual Strategies of the Académie Royale des Sciences and other French Institutions
Chair: Laura Valterio (University of Zurich / Bibliotheca Hertziana)
9.00-9.30 paper 13. Katherine Reinhart, Science & Statecraft: On the Epistemic and
Political Functions of Images in the Académie Royale des Sciences
9.30-10.00 paper 14. Antoine Gallay, The Value of Accuracy: How Savants Supervised
Draughtsmen and Corrected Pictures in the Early Académie Royale des Sciences
10.00-10.30 discussion
10.30-11.00 break
11.00-11.30 paper 15. Carole Nataf, Picturing shells from Senegal: Visual competition at
the Académie des Sciences, the Jardin du roi and Parisian curieux circles in the year 1757
11.30-12.00 paper 16. Leendert van der Miesen, “The figures in your hands”: Images at
L’Académie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts in Bordeaux
12.00.12.30 discussion
12.30-13.30 lunch
Session 7. Artistic and Scientific Exchange within Early Modern Institutions
Chair: TBC
13.30-14.00 paper 17. Sophie-Luise Mävers, Crossing institutional boundaries? Artistic
reflections on the interdependencies of academies of sciences and arts in late 17th and 18th century Europe
14.00-14.30 paper 18. Immacolata Iaccarino, Gelati’s intellectual circle: the epistemic
interaction and the figurative program of Ottavio Scarlattini’s L’huomo, e sue parti figurato (1684)
14.30-15.00 discussion
15.00-15.30 break
15.30-16.00 paper 19. Ruth Sargent Noyes, A case study in a previously unidentified state
of Mattheus Greuter’s Melissographia [online]
16.00-16.30 paper 20. Angelo Cattaneo, The “Armazém da [Casa] Índia”
16.30-17.00 discussion
17.00-17.15 break
17.15-18.00 final discussion
Scientific organization: Katherine Reinhart (Binghamton University), Matthijs Jonker (Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, KNIR), Irene Baldriga (Sapienza, Università di Roma), Sietske Fransen (Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute Art History)