The Royal Society and post-Galilean Science in Italy

1997/01/22 by Susana Gómez López
Arts and Humanities · #History of Science and Natural History

paper · doi:10.1098/rsnr.1997.0004

openalex publication_date 1997/01/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

When the Royal Society was established in London in 1660, one of the objectives of its founders was to set up a scientific communications network. During its first years of existence the Society tried to initiate a complex system of diffusion of information and ideas. Oldenburg's prolific international correspondence, the publication of Philosophical Transactions and repeated petitions for scientific correspondence from all over Europe are just a few examples of the latitudinarian spirit of the Royal Society's founders. However, this attempt to open intellectual frontiers was destined to be continuously hampered by the various political, religious and cultural situations that characterized European history at the time.

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