THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF ITALY. m 



French. Institute in theirs. Considering the adverse spirit sur- 

 rounding it throughout the two centuries and a half of its exist- 

 ence, one can not but wonder that it ever survived or ever was 

 revived. 



Frederico Cesi, son of the Duke of Acqua Sparta, was but 

 eighteen years of age when he founded the Academy in 1603, 

 having been born in 1585, nor had either of his three associates 

 passed the age of twenty-three. Young as was Frederico, he 

 already enjoyed the acquaintance, personally or by correspond- 

 ence, of the foremost scientists and philosophers of his time. His 

 first associate in his undertaking was Francesco Stelluti, who 

 appears to have been prompted by an ardor for study and a 

 nobility of character similar to that of Frederico. The third of 

 this little band was Heck, Eckius, or Reckius, as he was variously 

 called, a Hollander and a Catholic, who found the Calvinistic 

 inhabitants uncongenial, left the Low Countries and settled in 

 the town of Scandriglia, in Sabina, where he practiced medi- 

 cine. His fame as a profound student in all the branches of phi- 

 losophy reached the ears of Cesi, who invited him to Rome as an 

 attache to his family. A fourth member was added in the per- 

 son of Anastasio de Filiis, a relative of the Cesi family, residing 

 with them, and who was devoted to mechanics. 



In order to give method to their studies these young men 

 organized an Academy upon the 17th of August, 1603, which date 

 was to be annually remembered by a day of festivity, and gave it 

 the title of del Lincei or the Lynx, from the well-known acuteness 

 of vision of this animal, and with the motto, " SagacUas ista." 

 The plans were drawn upon an ambitious scale. With the orders 

 of the Church and the Masonic fraternity in their mind, they con- 

 ceived of the organization of a world-wide society, embracing at 

 the same time investigations of a scientific character with a 

 broad philosophical brotherhood connected by affiliated lodges. 



The meetings were to be private, and the members were re- 

 quired to be " philosophers eager for real knowledge, who will 

 give themselves to the study of Nature, and especially to mathe- 

 matics." 



They met three times a week and had five lectures at each 

 meeting, each one performing his own duty. Heck was reader 

 in Platonic and Transcendental Philosophy. In one of his theses 

 he proposed a medicine of his own to "keep the soul alert" 

 and to prevent it from growing sluggish by reason of the heavi- 

 ness of the body. Unfortunately, he could not have taken his 

 own medicine, if it possessed the virtues claimed, neither does 

 he inform us of what his medicine consisted. So we can never 

 know whether Brown-Se'quard's mixture had a prior discoverer 

 or not. Each worked industriously, and besides their literary 



