Il natural desiderio di sapere - Pontifical Academy of Sciences

FEDERICO CESI, THE FIRST ACADEMY, AND UMBRIA 63And in the first draft of the Tabulae phytosophicae, as mentioned earlierthe unfinished encyclopedia of nature, Cesi notes, referring to whathe affectionately calls ‘our Umbrian meads’,But that land which, for much honor of plants and grace of culture,for its general configuration of rivers, of mountains and allof its oil, sprinkled with cities, castles, villas, farmhouses, resplendentwith distinguished, admirable spectacles of Nature and Art,is the famous valley of Umbria which, stretching from Perugia toAssisi and Foligno, comes to a close at Spoleto, over whose middlepart, facing the aged Propertian Bevagna, dominate the holidaylands of my family, in such a way that, on days of great light, wecan measure and capture it all in our gaze. 88And this place, here so admirably described, had an influence on the culturaland sentimental education of Federico Cesi, on his idea of rich andopen research, grounded in dialogue and communication, in the carefulobservation of nature. 89What we are proposing here already receives initial and immediatesupport from a simple reflection on the roots of the House of Cesi, in aword on the Umbrian origins of this glorious family. 90 Although in fact theCesi achieved their period of greatest splendor from the middle of the1400s for approximately the next two centuries, in Rome and in the orbitof the Papal court, through the accumulation of offices – some five membersof the family were raised to the office of cardinal – of benefices, properties,the creation of residences in Rome and Lazio, participation in theconstruction of churches and the decoration of family chapels in some ofthe most important churches in Rome, the institution of ties, by way of ashrewd marriage policy, with the major families of the time (Orsini,Colonna, Caetani, Borromeo etc.) the Cesi actually take their name fromtheir place of origin, that is, from the small Umbrian center situatedbetween Terni and Acquasparta. The Chitani or Equitani of Cesi, wereone of the few Umbrian families who, transplanted to Rome in the 1400s,88 F. Cesi, Tabulae phytosophicae (ed. R. Pirotta), Roma 1904, tav. 9, p. 37.89 Ibid.; also D. Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx, Chicago 2002, p. 66, 69.90 The following presentation is based on the synthetic but precise: G. Sapori, I Cesi eil Palazzo di Acquasparta, in G. Sapori, C. Vinti, L. Conti, Il Palazzo Cesi di Acquasparta e larivoluzione scientifica lincea, Perugia 1992, pp. 17-38. On this question see, in addiiton topreviously cited sources, also: E. Martinori, Genealogia e cronistoria di una grande famigliaumbro-romana: i Cesi. Con introduzione e appendice di Giuseppe Gabrieli, Roma 1931.