Il natural desiderio di sapere - Pontifical Academy of Sciences

FEDERICO CESI, THE FIRST ACADEMY, AND UMBRIA 71ture death in 1630, he lovingly hosted his Lyncean companions, and ‘visitingand observing’ the surrounding environment, but also engaging in animateddiscussions in front of the fireplace – as happened during the memorablevisit of Galileo in 1624 – he meditates on the ideals of the Academyand scientifically organizes his research. With the aid of an ‘eyeglass’(microscope) made by Galileo himself, he conducts his zoological andbotanical investigations, without, however, being able to complete thestudies that were meant to lead to the realization of the grand project forthe encyclopedia Theatrum totius naturae.Giuseppe Gabrieli, the great historian of the first Academy, has this tosay about the love of Federico Cesi for the land of Umbria and for hishome in Acquasparta:He loved it greatly; it was there that he spent the most serene andleast tormented years of his life, attentive to family cares, agriculture,domestic economy, much more so to the study of botany, toscientific meditation, to the joyful contemplation of nature, to theactivities and the honor of his Academy. 99And in a letter to the Lyncean Johannes Faber, dated 17 April 1624,Johann Baptist Winther, physician to the Cesi family, expressed his feelingsabout the marvelous place surrounding the Palace of Acquaspartathat was home to the meditations of the Prince and his friends:The eminent site of the Palace, together with the indescribable lovelinessof the fertile green fields lying beneath it, terminating in beautifulmountains, seemed to me on first glance to resemble the wondrousElysian Fields celebrated by poets, or heavenly gardens towhose beauty no painter with mortal hand, even with the most curiousmixture of different colors, accompanied by the most exactingdiligence not only can add nothing but cannot even approach in anyway; [they] left me stunned with excess admiration, in such a waythat, already tired from admiring, though still not satiated by admiringAcquasparta, I admired that earthly paradise. 100Traces of this industrious activity and of the methodological, moral,and spiritual ideals that guided them, are visible in the mural paintings as99 Ibid., p. 187.100 J.B. Winther to Giovanni Faber, 17 April 1624, in Carteggio, p. 856. For the relationshipbetween Acquasparta, the Palace, and the Academy cf. G. Gabrieli, Umbriacesiana e lincea. Appunti per un itinerario linceografico, op. cit., pp. 187-190, but especiallyId., Galileo in Acquasparta, in ‘Atti Accademia d’Italia’, Mem. Mor., s. 7, III, 1942,pp. 1-28, now in Id., Contributi, pp. 195-221.