Catalogo della corrispondenza degli Astronomi di Brera, 1726-1799 by Agnese Mandrino; GuidoTagliaferri; Pasquale TucciReview by: Giorgia Foderà SerioIsis, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 130-131Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/234458 .

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130 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 79: 1: 296 (1988)

* Bibliographical Tools

Leonard C. Bruno. The Tradition of Sci- ence: Landmarks of Western Science in the Collections of the Library of Congress. xi + 350 pp., illus., bibl., index. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1987. $30.

Leonard Bruno's goal in The Tradition of Science is to provide a personal account of the "landmarks" in the history of science held by the Library of Congress. He is careful to specify that this book is neither a complete survey of the library's scientific collections nor an attempt to paint the his- torical or bibliographical canvas of the his- tory of science anew. Instead, it is intended to be a "bibliographical essay," a "friendly journey," or simply "one person's trip through the Library's collection of Western scientific treasures." Bruno describes him- self as a "generalist" and clearly aims for the reader who is generally interested in the subject matter and perhaps mildly scientifi- cally literate.

Many aspects of this book deserve praise. It is a handsome volume, reason- ably priced, with a bibliography that could be very useful for instructors cobbling up a course or readers interested in a quick dip into the primary literature. As a reader's guide, it swiftly summarizes individual books and accomplishments in clear prose. Unfortunately, the chapters are divided ac- cording to the rubrics of academic depart- ments in our century, not chronologically or by coherent historical traditions; as a re- sult the selection and arrangement of these categories hides important relationships be- tween texts and ideas. Astronomy and physics are the bookends of the piece, with all the sciences of living things, chemistry, geology, and mathematics between them, and there are no categories corresponding to natural philosophy or mixed mathemat- ics, groupings that might have filled or at least bridged a few gaps. To give but one example of the problems this causes, an uninitiated reader must be patient and have a good memory to discover that something can be learned by comparing the science in Newton's Principia and Opticks, which are treated in different chapters separated by hundreds of pages. (The author is also trapped in the Procrustean bed of this scheme; he repeats parts of his discussion of the Principia the second time around.)

It would be unfair to criticize this book too harshly for Bruno's failure to bring in

much of the recent history of science. He asks that the book not be judged strictly as history, and it seems fair to respect this wish. What ends up being so disappointing is that he has passed up an ideal opportu- nity to give us something new on the inter- actions between printing and science or on the nature of the scientific publication as artifact. General readers, historians of science, and book people would have wel- comed fresh insights and details on these topics, whether in the form of specific re- marks on copies held at the Library of Congress or general conclusions about in- novations and innovators in the printing of the book of nature. I for one hope that Bruno decides someday to turn his talents to these topics.

HENRY LOWOOD

Agnese Mandrino; Guido Tagliaferri; Pas- quale Tucci (Editors). Catalogo della corri- spondenza degli Astronomi di Brera, 1726-1799. (Istituto di Fisica Generale Ap- plicata, Storia della Fisica, 1.) 426 pp., app., indexes. Milan: Universitai degli Studi di Milano, 1986. (Paper.) (Available to in- stitutions on an exchange basis.)

The Brera Astronomical Observatory is located in the southeast wing of the Brera palace, which, from 1571, housed the Je- suit's Collegio di Brera. Around 1760 the fathers decided to build an observatory on the premises so that they could profitably continue their astronomical observations. Many people were involved in this project; among these, Father Ruggero Boscovich was certainly the most influential and the one who has to be credited for the design and the realization of the new observatory, which was completed in 1765.

In more than two centuries of life, a con- siderable number of documents of various kinds have been accumulating in the obser- vatory archives. These materials may be roughly grouped into documents related to the life of the observatory as an institution (approximately 4,000 folios), scientific cor- respondence (approximately 15,000 folios), and manuscripts and printed papers of var- ious kinds and from various epochs. All of these materials bear witness to the scien- tific and cultural life of this venerable insti- tution and form an invaluable resource for scholars in the history of science.

Unfortunately, so far they have been very difficult of access, mainly because of

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 79: 1: 296 (1988) 131

the lack of a modern inventory and of a place where they could be organized and consulted. As far as I know, the last serious attempt to catalogue these papers was made by G. V. Schiaparelli (1835-1910), whose deep interest in the history of as- tronomy is witnessed by his many publica- tions in the field.

My own experience of doing research in the Brera archives in the early 1980s was both very exciting and rather sad. Through the courtesy of the former director, Aldo Kranjc, I was introduced into a medium- sized room completely filled, from floor to ceiling, with old folders, packages of docu- ments dating from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, celestial and terres- trial maps and globes, and volumes of manuscript papers, including the only ex- tant copy of Giuseppe Piazzi's original ob- servations. This was, in a word, a "treasure room" where one could expect to find any- thing. The excitement of finding so much "new" material was balanced, however, by the sadness of my feeling that, under the circumstances, something relevant to my research would almost certainly escape my attention, and by my further realization that, at the time, nothing was being done to preserve this precious material and make it available to scholars.

The initiative of Guido Tagliaferri, of the Sezione di Storia della Fisica dell'Istituto di Fisica Generale Applicata (University of Milan), and collaborators to undertake the work of reordering and cataloguing the ar- chives of the Brera Observatory is there- fore highly laudable and much needed.

This volume, Catalogo della corrispon- denza degli Astronomi di Brera, 1726- 1799, is apparently the first of a series intended to list all the correspondence pre- served in the Brera archives. The book contains a foreword by the authors, in- structions for users, the catalogue itself, in- dexes of the letter writers, the recipients, and the cities of posting, brief biographies of the correspondents, a bibliography, and an appendix that lists the folders from which the letters have been extracted.

The catalogue itself contains 1,333 en- tries, mainly letters to and from the "Brera astronomers": Boscovich, A. Cag- noli, F. Carlini, A. De Cesaris, L. La- grange, B. Oriani, F. Reggio. It also con- tains a number of letters between third parties, almost all of whom are somehow connected with the Brera Observatory.

The letters are arranged alphabetically

according to the name of the sender and, for each sender, by date. A synopsis of the content of each letter is provided. In their foreword the editors state that although the synopsis is "obviously a very subjective one . . . , the names of the persons cited in the letters have been inserted" as a first step toward analyzing the content of the letters. Unfortunately, not all the names have been inserted, as can be easily ascer- tained by consulting printed versions of the letters. Moreover, after their brief and clear instructions for using the catalogue, the ed- itors list seven works in which part of the correspondence has been published (p. 11). This list is apparently not an exhaustive one (I have right on my desk a volume of the Effemeridi Astronomiche di Milano per l'anno 1863, not included in the list, in which a few letters from the Brera archives are published), and its usefulness would have been greatly enhanced by the indica- tion of which letters are published where.

The brief biographies of the correspon- dents inserted at the end of the volume are useful for tracing the whereabouts of minor personages; however, the quantity of infor- mation provided strongly reflects the edi- tors' ideas about how well known each per- son is. It is otherwise very difficult to explain why, for example, Jerome de La- lande is granted only one word-"Astron- omer"-while Franz X. von Zach needs seven and a half lines.

A few misprints, usually easily detect- able by the careful reader, appear here and there, as is almost inevitable in works of this kind. However, I will conclude with a curiosity: page 248, no. 858, lists a letter by L. Lagrange to F. Cavalli (?), dated 01-29- 1766. The synopsis reads: "Father La- grange writes on thermometers, barome- ters, and on a hydrometric machine made by Father Angelo Secchi. Sketches." I must confess that I am puzzled!

GIORGIA FODERIA SERIO

George D. Tselos; Colleen Wickey (Com- pilers). A Guide to Archives and Manu- script Collections in the History of Chemis- try and Chemical Technology. (Center for History of Chemistry Publication, 7.) viii + 198 pp., illus., indexes. Philadelphia: Center for History of Chemistry, 1987. $7.50 (paper).

One healthy phenomenon that has ac- companied the maturation of the history of science as a field has been the proliferation

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