CIMENTO, ACCADEMIA del. — Scientific society founded in Florence on the initiative of Vincenzo Viviani among Galileo’s disciples, and inaugurated on 15 June 1657 under the auspices of Ferdinando II and Leopoldo de' Medici, who housed it in a room adjoining his library in the grand-ducal palace. Its aim was the pursuit of truth through multiple and collective experiments; hence the choice of its “device”: three crucibles within a lit furnace, and the Dantean motto: “Provando e riprovando.”
The seriousness of its aims ruled out the use of academic names and even of a statute; a draft of the latter, drawn up by the member Paolo Del Buono, was never implemented. In addition to Viviani and Del Buono, its members included Alessandro Marsili, Antonio Oliva, Carlo Rinaldini, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Candido del Buono, Francesco Redi, and Count Lorenzo Magalotti. Corresponding members included Cassini, Ricci, Rossetti, and Falconieri among the Italians; Stenone, Thévenot, and Fabry among the foreigners. The work was suspended from the end of 1657 through 1658 because of the transfer of the grand-ducal court to Pisa, and resumed actively only in 1660, extending also to astrophysics, especially through the work of Magalotti, who had assumed the office of secretary. In 1666, Magalotti himself published an accurate account of the Academy’s studies and experiments under the title Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'A. del C., which may be regarded as the first model of experimental research, the first practical course in physics. The Saggi (translated into English in 1684 by the scientist Riccardo Walter and into Latin by Pietro van Musschenbroek, Leiden 1731) and the 48 manuscript volumes preserved in the National Library of Florence demonstrate how the A. del C., in its brief period of ten years, succeeded in renewing and expanding the physical, mathematical, astronomical, and natural sciences.
In 1667, the disagreements that arose between Viviani and Borelli and, above all, the appointment as cardinal of Prince Leopoldo, the society’s driving force and guide, marked the end of the Academy. Only at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Murat was governing Tuscany, did the A. del C. come back to life for a single session (cf. Gazz. Universale di Firenze for the year 1801, nos. 21 and 28, pp. 166 and 207).
The activity of this Academy made experimental physics Tuscan, the study of which had been initiated half a century earlier by the Roman Accademia dei Lincei (v.), in which Galileo and other distinguished Florentines had displayed frequent and admired activity.