Navigating Historical Learned Societies and Their Publications
The other day I tried to follow a citation for the Akademie der Wissenshaften, Berlin, the Mémoires, 1776. But I have little experience trying to look up these older journals, and was confused to find publications from the Berlin Academy, the Königliche-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, journals in Latin, French, and German, under names like Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles-Lettres de Berlin, Avec les Mémoires pour la même Année, tirez Registres de cette Academie and Miscellanea Berolinensia. I've got a small amount of experience with these older publications, so I knew that you can often find collections, abstracts, summaries, and translations, but I couldn't find a reference on this "Berlin Academy" beyond the Wikipedia page for the Prussian Academy of Sciences (German: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) which featured a history of the Academy, but little on the publication history.
Fortunately, the Euler Archive contains references for a number of historical publications, and through this I was able to disentangle the web of publications, and found my desired reference using the HathiTrust catalog.
So I thought, wouldn't it be convenient if there was a reference page that allowed quick access to the different journals that had been digitized, along with information about their synonyms and publication history?
Well here it is. It's a work in progress.
Royal and Learned Societies
Beginning in the 1660s with the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, and reaching into the 19th century, many royal or learned societies grew out of the major European cities of the day. For a write-up about these learned societies, see this article on JSTOR (available through sci-hub). Important examples include:
- The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (1660)
- L'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris (1699)
- Königliche-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1700)
- Société Royale des Sciences de Montpellier (1706)
- L'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg (1724)
- Journal des sçavans (1665)
- Royal Society of Edinburgh (1737, 1783)
- The American Philosophical Society (1743)
Many more e.g. French royal societies appeared in the 18th century. See the above linked paper for a partial list.
The societies existed through centuries of political and social change, seeing changes in leadership, periods of inactivity, mergers between societies, changes in publication style, dissolution and revival, and so on, so it's not surprising that the names and identities become muddled as you look further back. The preferred languages typically change from Latin, to French, to the native language of the region (German, English, etc). The format varies, including Acta, Histoires, Mémoires, Transactions, Proceedings, Nouveaux Histoires, Nova Acta, and so on. It requires some effort, if secondary sources are not available for a summary, to understand the publication history of a particular society, and to distinguish those publications from reviews and translations.
This is all not to mention the problems of dating the journals. For example, the Mémoires for a given year, say 1776, might not be published until 1778, assuming no outside influences such as war or reorganization. Additionally, the modern Gregorian calendar was not adopted universally until the 20th century, creating Old Style and New Style dates. In France, you also have the French Republican calendar, appearing between 1793 and 1805; this can create further confusion around the turn of the 19th century.
To clarify the publication history of a learned society, you can look in a few places. Obviously, a well-written Wikipedia article exists for major publications such as the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, which includes more information than you could need. Societies which continue to exist today often have historical information about the publication, that can help you understand the society better. Academic papers published in various journals and hosted on e.g. JSTOR are an excellent reference. The Euler Archive's page on publications is filled with practical and useful information about a number of important journals that Euler published in. And, hopefully, this page will be useful too.
Details About Important Societies and Publications
In the subsections that follow, a common name is given as the header, then the various synonyms (with dates) are provided, including a brief history of the society. This is followed by an explanation of the publications the society used and any relevant information for them, and lastly links to digitized versions of the publications are provided. For a large and international list of learned societies, see the Wikipedia page here.
The Royal Society of London
The archetypal Royal Society, often simply called The Royal Society; its main publication was the Philosophical Transactions which continues to be published today. It is often cited as Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, or Philos Trans R Soc Lond. This is the easiest journal to find information about. In addition to the main Philosophical Transactions, there was the Abridged Philosophical Transactions, which provided paraphrases of works appearing in the Transactions; and various collections of abstracts and indices covering different periods have appeared. The history of the society and its journal is well-documented by the society itself as well as the Wikipedia page. There is also an Euler Archive page, and a page from the Repertorium deutscher wissenschaftlicher Periodika des 18. Jahrhunderts (Repertory of German Scientific Periodicals of the 18th Century), available here. On the latter website you will find a link to a pdf featuring a complete, alphabetical index of the works published in the Transactions in the first 70 volumes (to 1787), with references to both the Transactions and the Abridged Transactions.
The Society did not have many substantial changes in identity, being known fairly consistently as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
The Philosophical Transactions themselves were initially published under the full title The Philosophical Transactions, Giving some Account of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World. The publication history can also be found on its Wikipedia page. It was published as issues, which were kept under the title of volumes corresponding to the year.
The University of Pennsylvania has compiled links to access the various issues and volumes that are freely available, you can find that here. The Abridgement Series, published in 18 volumes covering the years 1665-1800, are linked on this Wikisource page.
L'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris
The Académie was first established in 1666, then more formally (with rules and a publication) in 1699. The associated periodicals are in French.
Digitized and available online from BnF Gallica (1699-1786). See the Dictionnaire des Journaux page here.
In 1699, we have the Histoire de L'Académie Royale des Sciences Année M. DC. XCIX. Avec les Mémoires de Mathématique & de Physique, pour la même Année. This was the first publication, published according to the rules established that same year, although the Academie predates this first publication.
From the preface to this first volume:
PREFACE.According to the Regulations given by the King to the Académie Royale des Sciences at the commencement of the year 1699, this Histoiré was required to be published at the end of this same year. But since by these Regulations the whole Académie has been renewed, some time was needed in order to give to all things a first movement, which will be easier to maintain henceforth. Without entering in detail upon everything which slowed an Impression which ought to have been made two years earlier, it suffices to say here that the Histoire of the year 1700 has started printing, as soon as it is finished, that the year 1701 will follow immediately after, and that lastly we shall scarcely cease that which we set forward in the precise terms of the Regulations.The Histoire of the Académie des Science is only properly the Record of its Works, and of its thoughts, excepting some actions regarding its new establishment, and which are particular to the year 1699.
The main publication, the Histoire, stayed mostly unchanged from 1699-1786. But there was also:
- Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences (1666-1699), published in 1733
- This is cited by the Dictionnaire des Journaux but I haven't found a digitized version or more bibliographical information, if it is in fact a separate publication
- Memoires de L'Academie Royale des Sciences, Depuis 1666 jusqu'en 1699, published in 11 tomes (13 vols.) from 1729-1734, tome 1 available here, other tomes available from Google Books, e.g. here
- Table générale des matières contenues dans l'"Histoire" et dans les "Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences" available here, as tome 1 (see "See all documents from the same set" under Synthesis on the left side)
- Published title is Table Alphabetique des Matières Contenues Dans l'Histoire & les Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, publiée par son Ordre
- Published 1734-1786 in 9 tomes, 1-7 and 9 are available, could be more
Königliche-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Established in Berlin in 1700 under the name Kurfürstlich Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften, quickly renamed in 1701 as the Königliche-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, then in 1744, when merged with the Nouvelle Société Littéraire it was called the Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften. In some English translations such as this one, it was known as the Royal Society of Berlin.
Synonyms:
- Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin (Generic)
- Kurfürstlich Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften (1700-1701)
- Königliche-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1701-1744)
- Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften (merged with Nouvelle Société Littéraire, 1744-)
- Prussian Academy of Sciences
- Royal Academy of Berlin (English translations, at least 1705-)
- L'Académie Royale de Prusse (French, at least 1768-)
- Societas Regia Scientiarum Berolinensis (Latin publications as early as 1710)
- Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1946-1972)
- Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW, consolidation with other academies, 1992-)
A few publications are available from the Internet Archive, more are available on HathiTrust under the author name Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (the name used from 1946-1972). The Euler Archive has a page available here. The Repertory of German Scientific Periodicals of the 18th Century has a page with the indexes of all publications to 1804 available here.
From 1710 to 1744, the Academy published under the title Miscellanea Berolinensia, in 7 volumes, in Latin.
After the reorganization in 1744, it published under the title Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles-Lettres de Berlin, Avec les Mémoires pour la même Année, tirez Registres de cette Academie, and the primary language changed to French. The Histoire Avec les Mémoires was actually composed of two separate sub-publications which were printed together (although for the first two years they were separated even in printing), the Histoire and the Mémoires. It was published annually, each volume referring to a year, although publication would be delayed by at least two years in most cases. For instance, the 7th volume corresponds to the year 1751, but it wasn't actually published until 1753. Because of political events (the Seven Years' War) the gaps are sometimes larger (e.g. the Histoire for 1760 was not published until 1767). You'll often see this represented as e.g. 1760/1767.
Beween 1770 and 1786, the periodical used the name Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres, but the publication style is still similar to that of the Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences.
Then from 1786 to 1804, it was published under the title Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres, Avec l'Histoire pour le même Temps. Beyond 1804, the journal moved to publishing in German, seeing two more reorganizations before we reach present day.
Publication Digital Access
The 18th century works are all available online. On the Repertory of German Scientific Periodicals, linked above, you'll find indices, which I compiled into a spreadsheet you can access here. This provides the article names and page numbers in a searchable format, and I add "tags" whenever I look something up.
Below you'll find links to the publications in digitized format. When the publication name is linked, all volumes can be found under that link. For the Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, I've made a table for the links.
- Miscellanea Berolinensia (1710-1743)
- Volume 1 (1710)
- Volume 2 (1723)
- Volume 3 (1727)
- Volume 4 (1734)
- Volume 5 (1737)
- Volume 6 (1740)
- Volume 7 (1743)
- Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres de Berlin (1745-1770) [year in parentheses is publication year]
Acta Eruditorum and Nova Acta
The Acta Eruditorum was a monthly German publication which provided abstracts, summaries, notes, reviews, and other news from across the scientific world. All articles in the Acta were published in Latin. It published under the name Acta Eruditorum from 1682 to 1731, and then changed its name to the Nova Acta Eruditorum, continuing publishing from 1732 until 1782. The Euler Archive has a nice page on the publication.
After the end of each year, the Acta would publish the Index auctorum ac rerum, an index of authors and topics; from 1689 onwards, supplement volumes were also published. These supplements can be found under the names Actorum Eruditorum quae Lipsiae Publicantur Supplementa. and Ad Nova Acta Eruditorum quae Lipsiae Publicantur Supplementa. ordered by tomes (e.g. Tomus I.), though you'll also see it as volumes.
Online accessible scans of all annual volumes is available from HathiTrust:
- Acta Eruditorum
- Acta Eruditorum (1682-1731) [other scans exist, like these from University of Michigan)
- Indices generales auctorum et rerum (1693-1745, tom. 1-6)
- Acta Eruditorum Supplementa (1692-1734, tom. 1-10)
- Nova Acta Eruditorum
- Nova Acta Eruditorum (1732-1782) [see also Univ. of Mich. scans]
- Ad Nova Acta Supplementa (1735-1757, tom. 1-8)
L'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg
TODO. Euler Archive link.
Royal Society of Edinburgh
TODO.
The American Philosophical Society
TODO.
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