Transcription of Excerpts from the Diary of the Accademia del Cimento


 

As a follow-up to my recent post about the notes of the Accademia del Cimento, I've transcribed, formatted, and roughly translated (meaning Google Translate + light editing) excerpts from the diary of that same Academy, relating to electricity among other things. This includes a roughly translated and slightly edited version of the Notizie of Giovannia Tagione Tozzetti (see previous post) which features the Essays combined with the relevant excerpts from the diary. This took an outrageous amount of time to assemble, and the translating is in a terrible state, it's more of a convenience for anyone reading it to get the gist, so you don't have to put it into Google Translate yourself. I don't know Italian!

The diary entries I used were from Ms. Gal. 262 ff. 61v-81r, 116v-117r, and some sheets from later relating to vacuum experiments. Full citation:

Magalotti, Lorenzo. “Gal. 262 - V, Posteriori. 3, Accademia Del Cimento. Fisica Sperimentale.”  Firenze, n.d.

I cited it as Lorenzo Magalotti, the secretary of the Accademia. But this isn't really accurate, for a couple reasons. First, Magalotti was only the secretary from 1660-67, before that it was Alessandro Segni. Second, this isn't the original diary, it's a copy, with clear drawings and neat handwriting. I don't know who made the copy, and there are less refined versions of the diary (see e.g. Ms. Gal. 260), but I don't have a better author to cite. 

Below you'll find (1) the transcription with the original pages; (2) a collection of transcribed notes organized together and roughly translated. 



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