scholarly journals Thomas Henshaw's strange séance in Venice, circa 1648: A coda to Robert Boyle by himself and his friends

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
John Sharp ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Venice ◽  
First Time

This article presents a hitherto unpublished account of a magical séance conducted by the virtuoso Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700), later Fellow of the Royal Society, while travelling in Venice ca 1648. The episode had previously been known through an account of it given by Robert Boyle, but in Boyle's version its protagonist was unclear. It is now for the first time revealed as Henshaw on the basis of a further record of it among the papers of John Sharp, Archbishop of York (1645?–1714). The discrepancies between the ‘new’ version of the story and that given by Boyle are here elucidated and the opportunity is taken to outline the background to the séance in terms of the history of magic in early modern Venice. In addition, broader comments are included on the implications of the episode for attitudes towards alchemy and magic in the period.

The Disruptive Presence of the Namban-jin in Early Modern Japan

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 581-602
Author(s):  
Alexandra Curvelo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Visual Display ◽  
The South ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
First Time ◽  
Folding Screens

Abstract When the Portuguese arrived in Japan around 1543, it was the first time in the history of the archipelago that Western foreigners had entered the country and settled there. These “barbarians from the south” (namban-jin) were considered strangers and viewed with curiosity and suspicion. In Tokugawa Japan (c. 1615-1868), politically marked by territorial unification and the centralization of power, the image of the Europeans that was created and visually registered on folding screens and lacquer-ware was used as a model to frame this presence by both the Japanese political and economic elites and those considered marginal to the existing social order. Namban art, especially paintings, can be seen as a visual display of Japan’s self-knowledge and its knowledge of distant “neighbours.”

Introductory remarks

1973 ◽  
Vol 267 (882) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Agricultural Practice ◽  
Special Committee ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
National Importance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Royal Charter ◽  
First Time

On behalf of the organizers I should like to add our welcome to that of the President, and to say how gratified we are that this meeting has attracted such a large and distinguished gathering, representative of so many agricultural interests. I think it is not generally known that the Royal Society has a long history of direct interest in agricultural matters, for in 1662, when the Society received its Royal Charter, it appointed a special committee - the Committee for Agriculture, or the Georgicall Committee - which met for the first time in that year on 20 March. This is 311 years ago almost to the day. It is particularly interesting and significant to us meeting here today that the Society and its Committee showed a proper concern for agricultural practice and its national importance, as well, of course, as a keen interest in scientific matters. Furthermore, special measures were initiated to implement the Committee’s ideas and decisions through the members of the Society, and these measures embraced horticultural and forestry topics as well as those of agricultural pertinence.

Short memoirs for the natural experimental history of mineral waters: by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Fellow of the Royal Society. London. 1685; Octavo

1685 ◽  
Vol 15 (172) ◽  
pp. 1063-1066
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Mineral Water ◽  
Mineral Waters ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Experimental History

The Author divides this Tract into six Sections; the first where of is only introductory, wherein he telIs us that although the best warrant we can have for the use of any of these waters, is the long and sufficient Experience of their good and bad effects, yet since the advice of Physicians to their patients in this case is a thing of so great consequence, the circumstances so many and so necessary to he considered, and since the Cnriosity of men hath been little greater, then to inquire only what Colour the Mineral water will strike with Galls or Oaken leaves, and what Kind and Quantity of Salt will remain after evaporation ; upon these and such like considerations our Honourable Author hath thought fit to communicate these his Memoirs in order to a more full and Methodicall History of Mineral waters ; to the drawing up of which, he thinks these 3 following Observations necessary.

Nathanael Vincent and Confucius's ‘great learning’ in restoration England

2005 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Jenkinson
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
English Language ◽  
Great Learning ◽  
History Of ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
First Time

This paper outlines the sinological activities of Nathanael Vincent (d. 1722), an obscure and elusive fellow of the Royal Society (1683–7; readmitted 1694) who was also fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge and chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. An amateur scientist operating in the shadow of the great fellows of the early Royal Society, Vincent's involvement ranged from investigating the work of Denis Papin to presenting a manuscript of Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica . However, his greatest contribution to the intellectual history of the Restoration is located in his 1685 translation of Confucius's ‘Great Learning’, which seems to be the first time that a Confucian book began to be printed in the English language. Hitherto unnoticed, hidden away in an appendix to a court sermon, it nonetheless represented part of the interest in Chinese culture in the circles of the early Royal Society. This paper places Vincent in the context of the activities of the early Royal Society and offers an overview of this interest in sinology. It then considers how Vincent gained access to Confucian texts, how he was able to ‘translate’ from them, and what ramifications the philosophy had for an Anglican divine in Restoration England.

The Radium Committee of the Royal Society and the fate of the substances purchased by it

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Todd
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Research Fund ◽  
World War ◽  
Ernest Rutherford ◽  
History Of ◽  
Government Laboratory ◽  
The Government ◽  
First Time

In this article, documents relating to the history of the Radium Committee of the Royal Society are collated for the first time. Founded in 1903, the committee had its status enhanced in 1904, when the Goldsmiths' Company donated £1000 for the establishment of a Radium Research Fund. Two years later the fund was used to purchase 500 kg of pitchblende residues from the Austrian government. The French chemist Armet de Lisle was contracted to perform the first stage of extraction, and the process of purification was performed at the Government Laboratory during 1907 by the Government Analyst, T. E. Thorpe, yielding an estimated 70 mg of radium chloride. In 1914 the unexpended balance of about £500 was awarded to Ernest Rutherford, but the bulk was not used until 1921, when Rutherford had moved to Cambridge. The fund was then used to purchase radium that had been on loan to him from Austria before World War I. After Rutherford's death in 1937 the Committee was wound up, and the Society's radium was controlled on a more ad hoc basis. After Thorpe's work in 1907, the radium was lent out successively to several leading scientists until its existence was last recorded in 1953.

scholarly journals The Early Royal Society and Visual Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachiko Kusukawa
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Production Processes ◽  
History Of

Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artifacts—manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting, and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades.” Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records.

The Hon. Daines Barrington, F. R. S. —annotations on two journals compiled by Gilbert White

1986 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-93 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Degree Of Isolation

In the field of natural history the Hon. Daines Barrington (1727—1800) is best known as one of the correspondents to whom Gilbert White addressed many of the letters that comprise The Natural History of Selhorne (1). Of almost equal familiarity is the knowledge that Barrington devised the format of The Naturalist's Journal (2), in copies of which White recorded near daily observations of weather and other natural occurrences for a period of over 25 years. That the putative correspondence of Selborne was based on a real correspondence (3), and that Barrington arranged for four of White’s dissertations (4), on ‘hirundines’, to be read at meetings of the Royal Society (5), is also well known. What, however, as the result of recent research, can now be reported for the first time, is that Barrington’s contribution to White’s work extends a good deal further than has been previously thought; and that, with William Sheffield (6), he provided White with the incentive both to ‘quicken [his] Industry, & sharpen [his] attention’ (7)—two important acknowledgements for a man who, throughout his life, experienced a degree of isolation (8), and who, as an old man, in response to a correspondent who complained ‘a little of Procrastination’ , claimed:

scholarly journals The rediscovery of Palmyra and its dissemination in Philosophical Transactions

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-230
Author(s):  
Gregorio Astengo
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

This paper examines the first publicly documented western encounter with the ancient city of Palmyra as an archaeological site. This encounter was achieved in the late seventeenth century by a group of British merchants, who reached Palmyra and made drawings and reports of its ruins. The reports were then published in Philosophical Transactions in the mid 1690s. This paper points to the ways in which such accounts came into being, as well as how the city was described and publicly communicated for the first time in Philosophical Transactions . These articles had a great impact throughout the following centuries as a reference for the study of Palmyra. This paper therefore also stresses the pivotal role of Philosophical Transactions for the production and dissemination of Palmyra's archaeological legacy, as well as for the development of early modern archaeology within the early Royal Society.

A Brief History of the Method of Fixing by Horizontal Angles

1972 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 528-534
Author(s):  
Charles H. Cotter
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Vice President ◽  
East India Company ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
History Of ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
First Time ◽  
Royal Society Of London

John Hadley (1670–1744), Vice-President of the Royal Society of London, communicated his ‘Description of a new Instrument for taking Angles’ to the Society on 13 May 1731. Hadley's invention for the first time provided the navigator with an instrument by which he could measure altitudes of celestial bodies with ease and accuracy on board a lively ship at sea. It was not however until about 1750, when the instrument was to be found on board vessels of the East India Company, that Hadley's quadrant (or octant as it is sometimes called) rapidly came into general use.

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