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Taking Newton on tour: the scientific travels of Martin Folkes, 1733–1735

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2017

ANNA MARIE ROOS
ANNA MARIE ROOS*
Affiliation:
University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN6 7TS, UK. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Martin Folkes (1690–1754) was Newton's protégé, an English antiquary, mathematician, numismatist and astronomer who would in the latter part of his career become simultaneously president of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. Folkes took a Grand Tour from March 1733 to September 1735, recording the Italian leg of his journey from Padua to Rome in his journal. This paper examines Folkes's travel diary to analyse his Freemasonry, his intellectual development as a Newtonian and his scientific peregrination. It shows how, in this latter area, how he used metrology to understand not only the aesthetics but also the engineering principles of antique buildings and artefacts, as well as their context and place in the Italian landscape. Using Folkes's diary, his account book of his journey in the Norwich archives, and his correspondence with other natural philosophers such as Francesco Algarotti (1712–1764), Anders Celsius (1701–1744) and Abbé Antonio Schinella Conti (1667–1749), this paper will also demonstrate to what extent Folkes's journey established his reputation as an international broker of Newtonianism, as well as the overall primacy of English scientific instrumentation to Italian virtuosi.

Type
Research Article
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The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 569 - 601
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Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2017 

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References

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101 Ferrone, op. cit. (76), p. 99.

102 Ferrone, op. cit. (76), p. 99.

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104 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 38r.

105 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 38r.

106 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 38r.

107 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), ff. 39r–40r, italics added.

108 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 44r.

109 Pietro Antonio Michelotti to John Machin, 6 October 1733, EL/M3/32, Royal Society Library. Michelotti noted, ‘I have often understood from that most noble and intelligent gentleman Mr. Martin Folkes, a man furnished with every kind of virtue, who is still staying with me, that you have the most clear-sighted opinions in respect of the disciplines of mathematics and physics (in which I too take enormous delight)’. Folkes appended a letter of introduction for Michelotti to Machin to this piece of correspondence.

110 Folkes nominated Riva by letter on 1 October 1733 as a fellow of the Royal Society, as a ‘Person of great Modesty and knowledge in his way and Author of Several Works, which he hath given me to be presented to the Society, one of which is a dissertation on certain fiery Meteors, that have lately appeared and done a pretty deal of Mischief. He is likewise strongly recommended by the Marquis Poleni and Dr Michaelotty’. Riva was elected on 24 January 1733/4. See EC/1733/07, the Royal Society, London. The dissertation that was mentioned was ‘an account of some surprizing Meteors appearing from time to time in the Province of Trevegiana (in the dominions of Venice) described and explained by Signor Ludovico Riva in his Miscellanies in Latin’, read to the Royal Society on 5 December 1734; see Register Book Original, RBO/19/5, the Royal Society, London.

111 U1590_C21_6a, Stanhope Papers, Kent County Archives.

112 For a comprehensive biography of Cocchi see Guerrini, Luigi, Antonio Cocchi naturalista e filosofo, Florence: Polistampa, 2002 Google Scholar; Cocchi and Folkes also were both Freemasons, and Cocchi later became master of the Florentine Lodge. See Hans, Nicholas, ‘The masonic lodge in Florence in the eighteenth century’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (1958) 61, pp. 109–112 Google Scholar. Folkes's son also would attend several meetings at the Royal Society when he returned from England, as a means of furthering his education.

113 In a letter to Walpole, Mann recalled speaking with Folkes, and the editor speculated that Mann and Folkes may have met in Italy. Indeed they did. Horace Mann to Horace Walpole, Horace Walpole's Correspondence, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, online edn, 19 April 1777, vol. 24, pp. 289–290 n. 3Google Scholar, http://images.library.yale.edu/hwcorrespondence/default.asp, accessed 2 November 2016.

114 Casini, op. cit. (63), p. 220. See also Cassini, Paolo, Hypotheses Non Fingo: Tra Newton E Kant, Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2006, p. 108 Google Scholar.

115 Cocchi to Folkes, 3 March 1736, MS/790/26, Royal Society Library.

116 Folkes had a pervasive interest in games of chance and was presented with probability calculations about the game of whist from George Lewis Scott, 25 April 1744, MS 250/26, Royal Society Library.

117 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 39r. Martinelli owned a Hauksbee-type air pump which was bought by the Republic of Venice in 1738–1739 for the new chair of experimental philosophy at the university; the pump was used by Giovanni Poleni for his lectures on experimental philosophy. See Brundtland, Terje, ‘Francis Hauksbee and his air pump’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society (2012) 66, pp. 1–20, 15Google Scholar. The pump is still extant at the Museo di Storia della Fisica in Padua. For Stanhope and Folkes see Bellhouse, David, ‘Lord Stanhope's papers on the doctrine of chances’, History of Mathematics (2007) 34, pp. 173–186 Google Scholar.

118 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 42r.

119 Record of the reading of Celsius's book is in the Register Book Original, RBO/16/57, Royal Society Library; see also Celsius, Anders, ‘Observations of the Aurora Borealis Made in England by Andr. Celsius, F.R.S. and Secr. R.S. of Upsal in Sweden’, Philosophical Transactions (1735) 39(441), pp. 241–244 Google Scholar.

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125 Terrall, op. cit. (122), p. 137. In his letter to Celsius, Maupertuis indicated that he wished for a model of James Bradley's instrument for observing the transits of fixed stars as well as Graham's astronomical pendulum clock. See extract of a letter from Pierre Maupertuis, dated Paris, 22 November 1735, to Andreas Celsius, EL/M3/24, Royal Society Library, London.

126 Bradley, James, ‘A Letter from the Reverent Mr. James Bradley Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and F.R.S. to Dr Edmond Halley Astonom. Reg. &c. giving an Account of a new discovered Motion of the Fix'd Stars’, Philosophical Transactions (1727–1728) 35, pp. 637–661 Google Scholar.

127 Journal Book Original 13 (1720-26), 8 December 1720, JB0/13/18, Royal Society Library, London.

128 Byrom, op. cit. (8), vol. 1, p. 109: 1725. ‘Tuesday, 6th April … to Paul's Church Yard, where Mr. Leycester and I went, Mr. Graham, Foulkes, Sloan, Glover, Montagu … There was a Lodge of Freemasons in the room over us, where Mr. Foulkes, who is Deputy Grand Master, was till he came to us’.

129 Anders Celsius, ‘“Lapis Maltadensis”: transcription and translation of a runic inscription on the Malsta stone in Rogsta, Hälsingland, Sweden by Prof. Anders Celsius, Hon. FSA’, Society of Antiquaries of London Minute Book (SAL), SAL/MS/264 B, vol. 2, p. 309, Society of Antiquaries Library, London. See also Jansson, S., The Runes of Sweden, London: Phoneix House, 1962, pp. 79–80 Google Scholar.

130 Celsius, Anders, ‘An Explanation of the Runic Characters of Helsingland’, Philosophical Transactions (1737/8) 40(7–13), pp. 7–13, 13Google Scholar. Celsius wrote, ‘if we suppose Frumunt (the creator of the monument) to have been thirty years of Age when he erected this Monument for his Father, and, with Sir Isaac Newton, allow thirty Years for each Generation, we shall find three hundred and thirty Years from the Death of Fifiulsi to the Birth of Fidrasiv, who is the Stock of these Generations’.

131 SAL Minute Book, SAL/MS/264 B, vol. 2, pp. 164–165, Society of Antiquaries Library, London.

132 MS 790/21, letter from Celsius to Folkes, 3 December 1736, Royal Society Library, London.

133 Sorrenson, op. cit. (123), p. 214.

134 A star's declination changes gradually due to precession of the equinoxes and annual parallax. Bradley's stellar aberration was due to another phenomenon, that of nutation.

135 MS 790/21, letter from Celsius to Folkes, 3 December 1736, Royal Society Library, London.

136 Obligeante lettre; that is to say, a letter that was helpful and pleasant to the reader, Maupertuis.

137 The French word ouvrage is generally a ‘work’ but it could be also a book, a work of art or architecture, or any sort of work that was undertaken.

138 This is et de périls in the letter, where périls would rather mean ‘risks’ instead of the general translation into ‘peril’ because Maupertuis in his letter is generally referring to difficulties and trouble regarding his discoveries.

139 ‘Astronomer’ is written with a capital A in French in the original letter.

140 Letter from Pierre Maupertuis to Martin Folkes, 26 July 1738, MS 790/42, Royal Society Library.

141 Maupertuis to Folkes, op. cit. (140).

142 Folkes, ‘Journey from Venice to Rome’, op. cit. (1), f. 98v. This was noted by Lippincott, Kristen, ‘A chapter in the Nachleben of the Farnese Atlas: Martin Folkes's globe’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (2011) 74, pp. 281–299, 287Google Scholar; Society of Antiquaries Minute Book, vol. 2, pp. 201–202.

143 Schaefer, B.E., ‘The epoch of the constellations on the Farnese atlas and their origin in Hipparchus’ lost catalogue’, Journal for the History of Astronomy (2005) 36, pp. 167–196, 196Google Scholar.

144 Royal Society Journal Book, copy, xx, p. 184. This comment about genius was from the address Folkes gave when presenting the Copley Medal to Harrison. See Bennett, Jim, ‘James Short and John Harrison: personal genius and public knowledge’, Science Museum Journal (Autumn 2014) 2 Google Scholar, at http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/140209.

145 Martin Folkes, letters and papers, Decade 1, vol. 10A, 5 – December 1745 to 1 May 1746, MS no 479, Royal Society Library, pp. 1–33. For an approachable treatment of Ulloa's voyage see Ferreiro, Larrie D., Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World, New York: Basic Books, 2013 Google Scholar; see also de Solano, Francisco, Don Antonio de Ulloa: Paradigma del Marino Cientifico de la Ilustacion Española, Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1990 Google Scholar, which has a nice description of Ulloa's mineralogical work and discovery of platinum.

146 Folkes, letters and papers, op. cit. (145), pp. 30–31.

147 Folkes, letters and papers, op. cit. (145), p. 1. Ulloa published his account in his Relación histórica del viaje a la América Meridional, 4 vols., Madrid, 1748 Google Scholar. See de Solano, op. cit. (145), pp. 335–336, for a discussion of Ulloa's editions.

148 The portrait's provenance is by descent from the sitter with the family of the ffolkes Baronets at Hillington Hall in Norfolk, and was acquired by Christopher Foley FSA for his private collection. See Farrer, Edmund (ed.), Portraits in Norfolk Houses, Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1929, vol. 1, pp. 245 Google Scholar et seq., sub Hillington Hall; Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London: HMSO, 1977, p. 77 and 77Google Scholar n., sub ‘Iconography’ of Martin Folkes.

149 Sorrenson, op. cit. (123); see also Rousseau, George, The Notorious John Hill: A Man Destroyed by Ambition in the Age of Celebrity, Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2012 Google Scholar.

150 Feingold, Mordechai, ‘Confabulatory life’, in Omodeo, P.D. and Freidrich, K. (eds.), Duncan Liddel (1561–1613): Networks of Polymathy and the Northern European Renaissance, Leiden, Brill, 2016, pp. 22–34 Google Scholar.

151 Guerlac, Henry, Newton on the Continent, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981, p. 46 Google Scholar.