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Nuncius 32 (2017) 709–773
brill.com/nun
Documenta inedita
∵
Gaspare Berti’s Legacy
The ‘Mathematicalls’ in Baroque Rome
Federica Favino*
Università di Roma La Sapienza
federica.favino@uniroma1.it
Abstract
Documentation regarding the practical mathematicians in the early modern age is as
rare as it is precious. In fact, where it exists, it permits us to document the culture
of mathematics at a time of strong interchanges between the ‘artisan epistemology’
and erudite scientific culture. This paper will present a complete edition of the post-
mortem inventory of the Roman mathematician Gaspare Berti (1601–1643), which was
discovered among the notary papers of the Roman Court of Auditor Camerae. This
document is of great interest, both generally and in particular. On the one hand,
it sheds light on a figure who has remained unknown for centuries, except for his
pioneering work on the vacuum in the early 17th century. On the other hand, thanks
to an exceptional wealth of details, through the inventory we are given a deeper look
* Some of the research results presented in this text were discussed at the conference: Sci-
ence, Innovation, Institutions. Annual Congress of the Italian Society of History of Science,
Fondazione Marconi-Sasso Marconi (Bologna), 15 to 17 September. I wish to thank all the
conference participants for comments. Thanks to Joseph Connors for his encouragement,
bibliographical support and suggestions, as well as to Renata Ago, Maria Conforti, Elena
Canadelli, Marta Stefani, Luca Tonetti, Cristiano Zanetti and the anonymous Nuncius reader
for their helpful comments and editorial advice. Flavia Bruni provided help in analyzing the
inventory list of books and Luisa Miglio advice on the criteria to be adopted in the editing of
the document. My gratitude goes to both.
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from within at the ‘trading zone’ between practical and theoretical mathematics in
the particular context of Baroque Rome. This almost photographic documentation
contextualizes the lively world of practical mathematics, allowing comparison with the
‘big narrative’ of its alleged decline after Galileo’s condemnation.
Keywords
mathematical practitioners – Gaspare Berti – mathematical libraries
1 Introduction
Early modern practical mathematicians were a group of professionals who
are very difficult to document.1 Even when they were the creators of material
projects and designs of excellence, the scarcity of ego-documents concerning
their lives relegates them to the anonymity which usually defines most techni-
cians and craftsmen in the eyes of historians. This void in the records is all the
more deplorable because, working as they did in the “trading zones in which
1 Since being coined by Eva G.R. Taylor (The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart
England [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954]), the “mathematical practitioner”
has been a useful label for historians, even if often ill-defined. As an introduction, see:
Mario Biagioli, “The Social Status of Italian Mathematicians, 1450–1600,” History of Science,
1989, 27:41–95; Jim Bennett, “The Challenge of Practical Mathematics,” in Science, Culture
and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe, edited by Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo L. Rossi, Mau-
rice Slawinski (Manchester, New York: Manchester University, 1991), pp. 176–190; Stephen
Johnston, “The Identity of the Mathematical Practitioner in 16th-century England,” in Der
‘mathematicus’: Zur Entwicklung und Bedeutung einer neuen Berufsgruppe in der Zeit Ger-
hard Mercators, Duisburger Mercator-Studien, Vol. 4, edited by Irmgard Hantsche (Bochum:
Universitätsverlag Brockmeyer, 1996), pp. 93–118; Jim Bennett, “Knowing and Doing in the
Sixteenth Century: What Were Instruments For?,” British Journal for the History of Science,
2003, 36/2:129–150; Alexander Marr, Between Raphael and Galileo: Mutio Oddi and the Math-
ematical Culture of Late Renaissance Italy (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press,
2011). In general I would agree with the definition put forth by Adam Mosley: “Practical
mathematics […] is clearly the right term to use of the mathematical tradition focused on
instruments and the solving of problems in mensuration, surveying, time-finding, naviga-
tion and similar fields […]” (“Early Modern Cosmography: Fine’s Sphaera Mundi in Con-
tent and Context,” in The Worlds of Oronce Fine: Mathematics, Instruments, and Print in
Renaissance France, edited by Alexander Marr [Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2009], pp. 114–136:
131).
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artisans and other practitioners […] and learned men […] engaged in substan-
tive communication and shared their respective expertise,” particularly in the
field of mathematics, they were the protagonists of the cultural developments
“that helped to bring about the ‘new sciences.’”2
For the above reasons, we believe it is particularly important to publish this
valuable post-mortem inventory concerning the Roman mathematician Gas-
pare Berti (1601–1643). This document is exceptional for reasons both specific
and general. First, it casts a clear light on a figure who, in the mainstream of
the history of science, has until now been unknown except for his pioneer-
ing experiments on the vacuum in the early 1640s, which were made known
in 1936 by Cornelis de Waard. Given his relative obscurity it seems appropriate
to include in the introduction a biographical sketch of Berti’s life drawn up on
the basis of other recently discovered documents.
More in general, the inventory presents a great quantity and wide variety
of material – objects, instruments, even books – which make it a unique body
of evidence regarding the intimate world of the Renaissance ‘mathematicalls.’
Moreover, Berti’s case provides a good vantage point to try and gain an insight
into this kind of culture in the specific context of Early-modern Rome. At the
time, Rome was a unique place in the world because of the social dynamics
produced by the presence of the Holy Seat of St. Peter, but also because of the
cultural challenges posed (even to mathematics) by the presence of so many
important vestiges of the past.3 Adding to the interest of this document is the
fact that it traces not only a chapter of history that is almost contemporary to
the history of the Academy of the Lincei (and of Galileo, an eminent Lyncean),
but also the history of the Roman Jesuit school of Christopher Clavius and
of the other cultural institutions that formed the very particular polycentric
system of the city, albeit observed at a moment following the demise of its main
protagonists.
2 Pamela Long, “Trading Zones in Early Modern Europe,” in “Focus: Bridging Concepts: Con-
necting and Globalizing History of Science, History of Technology, and Economic History,”
edited by Karel Davids, special issue, Isis, 2015, 106:840–847, p. 841.
3 Elisa Andretta, Federica Favino, “Scientific and Medical Knowledge in Early Modern Roman
Society,” in A Companion to Early Modern Rome: 1492–1712, edited by Pamela M. Jones, Barbara
Wisch, Simon Ditchfield (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
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2 Gaspare Berti: An Evanescent Figure
For historians of science, the mathematician Gaspare Berti has been an elusive
figure.4 What is well known is his leading role in carrying out experimental
investigations to demonstrate the existence of the vacuum in nature. In col-
laboration with Raffaello Magiotti, a member of the ‘triumvirate’ of Galileo’s
disciples living in Rome during the years 1630–1640, he is supposed to have
been among the first vacuists (if not the very first) to look at the issue of veri-
fying what Galileo suggested in his Discorsi (1630) regarding the possibility of
disproving the existence of the horror vacui.5 In particular, he would have been
the artisan who made the huge lead siphon almost 22 braccia high that was
set up, it would appear, in his home courtyard. This artifact would have been
devised in order to test (and if possible refute) Galileo’s predictions about the
maximum height to which water could be raised by suction (established by the
scientist as 18 braccia, that is approximately 11 metres). The objective of inves-
tigating empty space itself was only secondary.
The use of the conditional tense is mandatory, since the descriptions of these
events as well as information on Berti’s interpretation of them, lie only in a
handful of reports written by those who witnessed or were promptly informed
of them (Magiotti himself, the Jesuits Athanasius Kircher and Niccolò Zucchi,
the Frenchman Minim Emmanuel Maignan). On the one hand, the date of the
experiments is itself uncertain. They are supposed to have been conducted
after copies of Galileo’s Discorsi arrived in Rome in 1638 and before Galileo’s
death on 8 April 1642; most likely in the latter part of 1641.6 On the other
4 See Stillman Drake, “Gasparo Berti,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. ii (New York:
C. Scribner’s Sons, 1970), pp. 83–84: 83. The key work on Berti as a scientist still remains
Cornelis de Waard, L’ experience barométrique: Ses antecédents et ses explications (Thouars:
Imprimerie Nouvelle, 1936), pp. 101–110.
5 Besides de Waard, see also William E. Knowles Middleton, “The Place of Torricelli in the
History of the Barometer,” Isis, 1963, 54/1:11–28; Id., The History of the Barometer (Baltimore,
Md.: Hopkins Press, 1964), and more recently the virtual exhibition Horror vacui? The Dis-
covery of the Weight of Air, and the Existence of the Vacuum. A Tribute to Evangelista Torricelli,
on the Museo Galileo web-site: http://www.imss.fi.it/vuoto/indice.html (accessed 20 January
2017). On Magiotti and the “roman triumvirate,” see Maurizio Torrini, “Due galileiani a Roma:
Raffaello Magiotti e Antonio Nardi,” in La scuola galileiana: prospettive di ricerca. Atti del con-
vegno di studio di Santa Margherita Ligure, 26–28 ottobre 1978 (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1979),
pp. 53–88; Il diavolo e il diavoletto: Raffaello Magiotti, uno scienziato di Montevarchi alla corte
di Galileo (Città di Castello: Sograte, 1997).
6 De Waard, L’ experience barométrique (cit. note 4), p. 104; Knowles Middleton, “The Place of
Torricelli” (cit. note 5), p. 17.
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hand, all four accounts of Berti’s experiments (by Magiotti, Maignan, Zucchi
and Kircher) were written long after the events, and moreover two of them by
Jesuits who had their minds made up in advance about the impossibility of a
vacuum.
Berti’s sudden disappearance from the city and from the learned exchange
of correspondence within the Republic of Letters only thickened the mystery
surrounding him. Occurring, as it was supposed, between July 1643 and January
1644, Berti’s vanishing from the scene has been attributed to his sudden death
or perhaps to an unexpected move to another town.7 In fact, only an unpre-
dictable event could reasonably explain why he was prevented from accepting
the chair as lecturer in mathematics at the University La Sapienza that Pope
Urban viii himself had assigned to him soon after the death of another inno-
vator, Benedetto Castelli.8
The almost total lack of first-hand literary and material evidence regarding
Berti has been a key factor in determining his historiographical (mis)fortune;
yet this is not a sufficient explanation. As has already been noted, by choosing
Torricelli “as the starting point for research on the vacuum, historians of science
have associated the development of experimental physics with the heritage of
Galileo,” and failed to give just weight to the role of Counter-Reformation Rome
as a major scientific center.9 The process of re-evaluating the scientific activity
in early modern Rome is currently well on track,10 and even the research
done in Rome on the vacuum in the 1640s has been examined by various
scholars.11 Nevertheless, on the whole it can be said that the figure of the Roman
7 Drake, “Gasparo Berti” (cit. note 4), p. 83.
8 Federica Favino, “Matematiche e matematici alla Sapienza tra ‘500 e ‘600: un’introdu-
zione,” in Roma e la scienza, secoli xvi–xx, edited by Antonella Romano, special issue,
Roma moderna e contemporanea, 1999, 7/3:395–420, pp. 401–402; Ead., “Matematica e
matematici alla Sapienza romana, xvii–xviii secolo,” Mélanges de L’Ecole française de
Rome. Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines, 2004, 116/2:423–469, pp. 435–436.
9 Antonella Romano, “Mathematics and Philosophy at Trinità dei Monti: Emmanuel Maig-
nan and his Legacy between Rome and France,” in Conflicting Duties: Science, Medicine and
Religion in Rome, 1550–1750, edited by Maria Pia Donato, Jill Kraye (London: The Warburg
Institute; Turin: Nino Aragno Editore, 2009), pp. 157–180: 166–167. But see already Knowles
Middleton, “The Place of Torricelli” (cit. note 5), p. 11.
10 See, at least, Federica Favino, La filosofia naturale di Giovanni Ciampoli (Firenze:
L.S. Olschki, 2015); Elisa Andretta, Roma medica: anatomie d’un système médical au 16.
Siècle (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2011); Donato, Kraye (eds.), Conflicting Duties
(cit. note 9); Antonella Romano (ed.), Rome et la science moderne: Entre Renaissance et
Lumières (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2008).
11 Michael John Gorman, “Jesuit Explorations of the Torricellian Space: Carp-bladders and
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mathematician Gaspare Berti – a professional adept at multi-tasking, indeed
nothing less than a late Renaissance polymath, a ‘hybrid expert’ who possessed
both artisanal know-how and book learning, similar to Oronce Finé, Muzio
Oddi and Egnazio Danti, to mention just a few examples12 – continues to suffer
from the indifference of historiographers, despite the fact that individuals like
him were perhaps much more representative of the mathematical culture of
the period than the exceptional figures which historians have tended to focus
on.
Last but not least, the sheer diversity of Berti’s activity demands research by
scholars working in fields that are distinct today, but were certainly not so in the
late Renaissance. Historians of architecture for instance, know Berti because of
his documented relationships with Francesco Borromini. In 1642 the famous
architect asked him to build a large model of the Casa dei Filippini and after
Berti’s death Borromini acquired a manuscript commentary by Celso Cittadini
on Pirro Ligorio’s Delle antichità e paradossi that had originally belonged to the
mathematician.13
To historian of classical archaeology, for their part, Berti is known for his
collaboration with the architect Francesco Contini on the most important
scholarly archaeological project to be conducted in 17th-century Rome: Roma
sotterranea by Antonio Bosio, which provided a description of the entire net-
work of ancient Roman catacombs. As is well known, after Bosio’s death in 1629
Cardinal Francesco Barberini commissioned the Oratorian priest Giovanni Sev-
erano, a reknowned scholar of early Christian Rome and an intimate friend
of Bosio, to review and amplify his unfinished work. Together with Barberini,
Severano chose some experts to collaborate with him in supplementing the
Sulphurous Fumes,” Mélanges de L’Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée mod-
ernes et contemporaines, 1994, 106/1:7–32; Antonella Romano, “Les Jésuites dans la cul-
ture scientifique romaine (1630–1660),” in Francesco Borromini. Atti del convegno inter-
nazionale, Roma, 13–15 gennaio 2000, edited by Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Elisabeth
Sladek (Milano: Electa, 2000), pp. 237–243; Ead., “Mathematics and Philosophy” (cit.
note 9). Slightly outdated, but still useful, Claudio Costantini, Baliani e i Gesuiti: anno-
tazioni in margine alla corrispondenza del Baliani con Gio Luigi Confalonieri e Orazio Grassi
(Firenze: Giunti Barbera, 1969).
12 On the term “hybrid expert,” see Ursula Klein, “The Laboratory Challenge: Some Revisions
of the Standard View of Early Modern Experimentation,” Isis, 2008, 99:769–782, pp. 779–
782.
13 Joseph Connors, “Virtuoso Architecture in Cassiano’s Rome,” in Cassiano Dal Pozzo’s Paper
Museum, Vol. ii, Quaderni Puteani 3, conference proceedings (London, 14–15 December
1989), edited by Jennifer Montagu (Ivrea: Olivetti, 1992), pp. 27–28 (with a complete list of
secondary sources).
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graphic and iconographic material gathered and produced by Bosio, in order to
prepare the work for publication.14 Among these experts were Berti and Con-
tini;15 in particular, they were commissioned to survey and to draw plans of all
the sites represented in the maps placed at the end of volume 3, the outcome of
a “heroic quest, and of great architectural significance.”16 Under difficult con-
ditions (debris, landslides, water, wild animals, even brigands) they surveyed
tunnels for dozens kilometres. Although they had to rely on makeshift and
sometimes empirical instruments, they realized hypogeum maps of excellent
graphic quality that were truthful, accurate and characterized by groundbreak-
ing graphic conventions.17
3 Dal Pozzo’s Clientele
Another rich source of information about Berti may be found in the correspon-
dence of Cassiano dal Pozzo. This is hardly surprising, given the prominent role
played by Cassiano in Rome’s aristocratic and intellectual life during the mid-
dle part of the 17th century. A member of the Academy of the Lincei since 1622
and heir to the material and scientific patrimony of Prince Federico Cesi (the
founder of the Academy), he continued to support and encourage the activity
of the Linceans long after Prince’s death.18 Chief Chamberlain in the household
14 An abbreviated list of important works on Bosio and his Roma sotterranea should include:
Simon Ditchfield, “Text Before Trowel: Antonio Bosio’s ‘Roma sotterranea’ revisited,” in
The Church Retrospective. Papers Read at the 1995 Summer Meeting and the 1996 Winter
Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by Robert Norman Swanson (Wood-
bridge, Suffolk, uk; Rochester, ny: The Society, in association with the Boydell Press, 1997),
pp. 343–360; Massimiliano Ghilardi, Subterranea civitas. Quattro studi sulle catacombe
romane dal medioevo all’età moderna (Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 2003); Id., Propaganda
controriformista e uso apologetico delle catacombe romane, in Gli arsenali della Fede. Tre
saggi su apologia e propaganda delle catacombe romane (da Gregorio xiii a Pio ix) (Roma:
Aracne, 2006), pp. 48–53; Ingo Herklotz, “Antonio Bosio e Giovanni Severano. Precisazioni
su una collaborazione,” Studi Romani, 2008, 56:233–248.
15 Massimiliano Ghilardi, “Ut exitum reperirent, signis notabant loca. La nascita della car-
tografia di Roma sotterranea Cristiana,” in Piante di Roma dal Rinascimento ai Catasti,
edited by Mario Bevilacqua, Marcello Fagiolo (Roma: Artemide, 2012), pp. 168–181.
16 Ibid., p. 173.
17 Ibid., pp. 173–176, with figures of maps by Berti and Contini.
18 For instance, the completion of the monumental work Tesoro Messicano (1651). See Maria
Eugenia Cadeddu, Marco Guardo (eds.), Il tesoro messicano: libri e saperi tra Europa
e Nuovo mondo (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 2013); Sul Tesoro messicano e su alcuni disegni
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of Cardinal Francesco Barberini from 1623, he extended his patronage to the
artists, scientists, learned men and philosophers of the day, as is documented
by his correspondence.19 In large part, these ties were linked to his activities as
a connoisseur and collector, in particular the assembling of his Paper museum,
the exceptional collection of more than 7,000 watercolors, drawings and prints
that he amassed, together with his brother Carlo Antonio, from 1618 until his
death.20
Sources show that during the decade 1630–1640 Berti was involved with
several overlapping intellectual networks that crossed at Cassiano’s studio; in
any case it is clear that he remained firmly committed to the generous system
of patronage exercised by his fellow Lincean. In a letter dated 17 March 1633,
for instance, Berti asked Cassiano to act as a mediator between himself and
the collector’s patron, the Cardinal Barberini.
Ill.mo Sig.re et P.ron mio sempre Oss.mo
L’altro giorno mi scordai dire a V.S. Ill.ma come stando io a Tivoli nella
Villa Adriana viddi molti pezzi di colonne cavate da un tivolese, quale le
ha vendute ad uno scarpellino di Roma chiamasi Giovanni Pagni, et ha
speranza trovarne molte poiché ho in animo di far cavare, et è verisimile
che vi siano di belle pietre, e forsi anco statue per vedersi in detto luogo
le ruine e vestigij di un bellissimo tempio con molte nicchie, e musaichi.
Le colonne cavate sin hora, sono di marmo bianco, gentile assai, e fino, e
sarebbero ottime per far statue, poiche sono dieci palmi in circa di circon-
ferenza, e di lunghezza di palmi otto, e nove, e forsi se ne troveranno delle
maggiori, però se fossero cose a proposito per il S.r Card.l P.rone, bastarebbe
un monimo avviso che si mandasse al Contini, o al governatore che fareb-
bero trattenere. E per fine faccio riverenza a V.S. Ill.ma. Dalli Cemeteri di
Calisto a S. Sebastiano ne quali credo trattenermi sino al martedi santo.21
del Museo cartaceo di Cassiano dal Pozzo, scritti di Sabina Brevaglieri, Luigi Guerrini,
Francesco Solinas (Roma: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 2007).
19 Anna Nicolò, Il carteggio di Cassiano Dal Pozzo: catalogo (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 1991).
20 David Freedberg, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo (Ivrea: Olivetti, 1993); Francesco
Solinas (ed.), I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo
(1588–1657) (Roma: De Luca, 2001). On the British Academy Research Project for the
publication of a catalogue raisonné of the Paper Museum see http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/
research/research-projects/paper-museum-cassiano-dal-pozzo/catalogue-raisonn
%C3%A9 (accessed 1 March 2017).
21 Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, ms. Dal Pozzo vi (4),
c. 67r.
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This letter has already been used to determine exactly when Francesco
Contini and his collaborators were engaged in surveying and mapping the first
Roman Imperial site of the Villa Adriana for Francesco Barberini.22 Moreover,
it leaves no doubt as to the valuable extra services that a man in Berti’s position
could provide to the eminent ‘patron in chief’ and art collector; for example,
the procurement of pure white marble. “La più proporzionata matteria che
possa trovarsi per fare statue,” white marble in Rome at the time was so rare
and expensive that it had to be purchased from the quarries of Carrara and
aristocratic families resorted to salvaging blocks and statues of antique marble
and storing them in their warehouses.23 To acquire it for free for his patron
earned him ‘credit’ that could be claimed whenever appropriate.
Three years later the correspondence between Cassiano and Nicolas Fabris
de Peiresc in 1636 portrays Berti still at the center of the same triangle: Barberini
in the background as the main commissioner, and Cassiano as the broker of
Berti’s learned relationships. The occasion was the drawing made by Berti to
illustrate the lunar eclipse observed in Rome in late August 1635. Francesco
Barberini recommended him to Peiresc and Gassendi in Aix-en-Provence as
the author of the best observations made in Rome, in his view comparable with
22 Ingo Herklotz, Cassiano dal Pozzo und die Archäologie des 17. Jahrhunderts (Munich:
Hirmer, 1999), pp. 131 and note; Id., “Cassiano and the Christian Tradition”, in Cassiano dal
Pozzo’s Paper Museum, Vol. i (Ivrea: Olivetti, 1992), pp. 31–48: 32 and notes. It was wrongly
supposed for centuries that the first plan of that site was drawn by Pirro Ligorio in the mid-
dle of 16th century, but has now been ascertained that it was Contini who made the first
map of the site of Villa Adriana, which was published in his Adriani Caesaris immanem
in Tyburtino Villam … (Roma, 1668). See Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti, Villa Adriana in Pirro
Ligorio e Francesco Contini (Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1973); Ead., Villa Adri-
ana: il sogno di un imperatore (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2001).
23 Jennifer Montagu, La scultura barocca romana. Un’industria dell’arte (Torino: Allemandi,
1991 [1989]), pp. 21–47: 21. The passage cited by Montagu is from Orfeo Boselli, Osservazioni
della scoltura antica, edited by Phoebe D. Weil (Firenze: spes, 1978). According to Mon-
tagu, the Barberini family had a warehouse that included ancient marbles. They were
mainly used for the restoration of classical statues (pp. 200–201). See also the more recent
study, Fabrizio Federici, “Marmi da scolpire e marmi lavorati tra Roma e le Apuane nella
seconda metà del Seicento,” in Tre cardinali e un monumento. Viaggio nella Roma del Sei-
cento tra devozione e arte, edited by Maria Giulia Barberini, Cristiano Giometti (Roma:
Campisano Editore, 2014), pp. 85–102. It should be noted that 1633 was the only year –
between 1624 and 1644 – in which Francesco Barberini did not hold the governorship of
Tivoli, a strategic position for his aim to acquire the Villa d’Este (Victor Plahte Tschudi,
Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe [Cambridge, ma:
Cambridge University Press, 2016], pp. 199–202).
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their own.24 Furthermore, via Cassiano in Rome, Peiresc and Gassendi sought
to acquire a copy of Berti’s reports on the lunar eclipse that took place on the
20th February 1636 and his calculation of the altitude of the sun at the time of
its meridian passage during that year’s solstices.25 With a view to calculating the
latitude of Marseille, Gassendi wanted to compare Berti’s measurements with
his own; however, it appears neither he nor Peiresc derived any satisfaction
from the two letters (both lost) received in these months from Berti.26
The affaire of his astronomical observations gave Berti a certain visibility at
court, so much so that a homonymous member of Cardinal Guidi di Bagno’s
family, a certain Domenico Berti, asked Gabriel Naudé to contact Cassiano and
pursue inquiries in order to ascertain whether there was a family relationship.27
In turn (presumably in response to a request from Cassiano), Berti drew up in
his own hand a description of his genealogy complete with the family crest –
“di rose stelle e monti” – where he stated that he was the descendant of a family
from Mantua transplanted in Rome seventy years before.28
4 A Kidnapping: A Clue
In truth, in 1636 Berti had already sought Cassiano’s help in return for services
rendered. This is shown by two unpublished letters preserved in the Dal Pozzo
24 Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Lettres de Peiresc aux frères Dupuy, 7 vols., publiées par
Philippe Tamizey De Larroque, Vol. 4 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1893), p. 582.
25 See the letters sent by Peiresc to Cassiano between December 1635 and April 1637: Nicolas
Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Lettres à Cassiano dal Pozzo (1626–1637), éditées et commentées
par Jean-Francois Lhote, Danielle Joyal (Clermont-Ferrand: Adosa, 1989), nos. 76–78, 80–
82, 84–86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94.
26 Peiresc to Cassiano, 5 June 1636: “La ringrazio delle schuse promesse al Signor Berti,
et vorrei ben ch’egli havesse voluto osservare costì l’altezza del Sole meridiano questo
prossimo solstitio, facendo conto il S.r Gassendo d’andarlo osservare a Marsiglia alcuni
giorni prima et doppo, con accuratezza, per farne la comparatione con quelle che vi
fece già due mille anni o poco meno il Pythoea Massiliense” (Ibid., no. 83, pp. 243–244).
Gassendi published the calculation of Marseille’s latitude in his letter to Vendelinus, De
solsticio massiliensi et eclipsii Lunae (1636). Berti wrote to Peiresc on March 1636 (see
Peiresc, Lettres [cit. note 26], no. 81) and on March 1637 (Ibid., no. 94).
27 Gabriel Naudé to Cassiano dal Pozzo, Rieti, 15 July; 1st, 24, 16 August 1636, in Biblioteca
dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Rome, ms. Dal Pozzo, Vol. xxxviii (35),
respectively cc. 46v, 52r, 53v, 54r.
28 Gaspare Berti to Cassiano dal Pozzo, from his home, 23 August 1636, Ibid., ms. Dal Pozzo,
Vol. vi (4), c. 70.
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archive that have been ignored until quite recently. Dated 7 and 12 May 1632,
respectively, they deal much more with the man than with the mathematician,
and this is probably the reason why up to now they have escaped scholars’
attention.29
Indeed, in the very same period as Galileo’s arrival in Rome to submit to
Urban viii his Dialogue on the tides, Berti was dealing with a much more private
matter: seeking to avoid criminal proceedings under the charge of kidnapping.
Based on study alongside juridical documents held in the State Archive of
Rome, the new letters may be framed as follows. In the spring of 1632 Cecilia
Furapani, a spinster (zitella), found herself alone at the age of 50 without
any surviving close family members and the sole heir to a fine family fortune.
The inheritance, however, was challenged by a greedy and ruthless brother-in-
law, Angelo Roncalli. Fearing for her life, she asked for the protection of her
nearest male relatives – that is Camillo Berti and his son, Gaspare. As could
be foreseen, her decision was strongly opposed by Roncalli, who appealed to
the ecclesiastical court presided over by the cardinal Vicary – which concerned
itself with moral cases30 – as well as to the Pope, in order to constrain Cecilia –
and her money with her – to return under his control, with the accusation that
Camillo and Gaspare Berti were guilty of holding his sister-in-law against her
will. After Roncalli filed his accusation and the court held its first proceedings,
as Dal Pozzo’s letters document, Berti was forced to take counter-steps, and
he asked his protector Cassiano Dal Pozzo to intercede with the Vicary on his
behalf. It appears from the notary acts that Dal Pozzo’s appeal was upheld
successfully. Roncalli was placed on trial for intent to defraud by one of the
many Roman courts, and in 1635 Cecilia could formally gain possession of her
inheritance and resume running her business with Camillo and Gasparo acting
as her attorneys.
Cecilia’s vicissitudes were commonplace in the 17th century for an unmar-
ried woman without any male protectors,31 but provide an exceptional clue for
the historian of science. By revealing the notary bureau that Berti’s family relied
on,32 it leads step by step straight to our mathematician’s door.
29 Federica Favino, “Gaspare Berti: Notes and Materials for a Biography,” in Renaissance
Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, edited by Machtelt Israels, Louis A. Waldman (Firenze:
L.S. Olschki, 2013), pp. 347–355. The edited letters may be found on pp. 353–355.
30 Laurie Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban viii (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1992), p. 50.
31 Angela Groppi, Conservatori della virtù. Donne recluse nella Roma dei Papi (Roma-Bari:
Laterza, 1994).
32 The notary office occupied an important and influential place in the legal system in
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When he suddenly died, on 23 August 1643, without the time to make his will
and put his papers in order, Gaspare Berti, aged 42 years,33 was living alone –
except for two servants – in Vicolo Savelli, in front of the Chiesa Nuova.34 By
that time his father, Camillo, with whom he had always lived, had left this
world at the venerable age of 84.35 Camillo was born in Mantua to Paolo Berti
and moved to Rome in 1567.36 When he was was already quite elderly, around
1600, he married a woman from a Roman family by the name of De Episcopis
(Cecilia’s maternal aunt), who must have died sometime before 1630 because
she is not mentioned in the legal documents regarding Cecilia’s case.
In 1629 Camillo retired after many years as the proprietor of a very successful
hat shop – “Alla testa d’oro” – situated in a rented house in Via del Pellegrino
right next to his home in the rione Parione, one of the districts with the highest
density of artisans, ateliers and shops in the city.37 Since Gaspare was busy
with his own profession and activities (aliisque impeditus negotiis), his father
sold the shop for the tidy sum of ca. 2,500 scudi, and this was certainly not
his only business interest. Thanks to his commercial activity, various legacies
and, perhaps, his wife’s dowry, when Camillo died he left a legacy that included
a small house close to St. Peter’s Basilica, a vineyard, another 10-petiarum
vineyard on a perpetual lease, and a credit of 400 scudi.38 Based on all the
parameters comprised in an “economical anthropology” of Baroque Rome,
he could undoubtedly be considered, if not a gentleman, at least a man of
independent means.39
Baroque Rome. Their archives constitute an invaluable source of information on early
modern Rome, which counted almost 50 notary bureaus and registered a high level of
bad faith in the dealings between individuals: see Renata Ago, Economia Barocca. Mercato
e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento (Roma: Donzelli, 1998), pp. 75–76; Laurie Nussdorfer,
Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press, 2009).
33 Archivio Storico del Vicariato, Rome, San Lorenzo in Damaso, Morti. 1591–1643, sub die
23 Augustus 1643: “D. Gaspar Bertus Romanus annorum 42 in domo conducta in Vico
Sabellorum in communione Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae animam Deo reddidit, receptis
omnibus sacramentis et eius corpus est se[pul]tus in Ecclesia S.M. in Vallicella die 24.”
34 Ibid., San Lorenzo in Damaso, Stati d’anime. 1641, f. 258r: “C.S. Gasparo Berti / C. Angelina
de Rosa anni 64 serva / C. Giovanni da Riete A. 30 ser[vito]re.”
35 Ibid., San Lorenzo in Damaso, Morti. 1591–1643, sub die 29 Martius 1639. Camillo was buried
in his parish church.
36 Gasparo Berti to Cassiano Dal Pozzo, 23 August 1626 (cit. note 28).
37 Ago, Economia barocca (cit. note 32), pp. 10–11.
38 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Notai Auditor Camerae, not. Raynaldus, vol. 6113, 1643, Sept. 2,
Inventarium heareditatis pro D.ae Veronicae Bertae.
39 Ago, Economia barocca (cit. note 32), pp. 10–11.
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Gasparo inherited from his father the social status of a well-off handicraft
and strong ties of blood. In the years 1637–1639, the Status Animarum registry
of the parish church of San Lorenzo in Damaso records the Berti family (father
and son) as part of a household headed by the “gentleman” Michele Papini –
the husband of Gaspare’s sister, Veronica – living in properties owned by Papini
in “Via del Pellegrino, a mano destra.”40 By 1641 the living arrangements seem
changed, however. Gaspare was living by himself in a 3-storey building con-
tiguous to Papini’s home, sharing with him the same courtyard. It was this very
courtyard that became renowned as the site where, according to all eyewitness
accounts, Berti performed his experiments on the vacuum.41 (see Fig. 2b)
This spatial proximity is also of interest because it tells us something about
the profession of land surveying and the social status of the surveyer in Baroque
Rome. Several scholars have noted that on the walls of the underground Roman
catacombs you may occasionally see Berti’s signature alongside that of a certain
Cesare Papini, whose name however is never mentioned in Roma sotterranea.42
Recently discovered archival documents show that Cesare was the brother
of Michele and that he was still alive in 1652.43 This matter deserves to be
further investigated, but the proof of the collaboration between Berti and
Papini is significant because it suggests that Gaspare Berti, who was the son
of a merchant and therefore a homo novus in the technical and scientific
professions, trained as a surveyor within the family circle or perhaps in turn
40 Archivio Storico del Vicariato, Rome, San Lorenzo in Damaso, Stati d’anime. 1637–38–39,
f. 138: “Casa Propria / C. Michel Papino anni 40 / C.S. Veronica moglie / C. Maddalena A. 11
/ C. flaminia A. 9 (figl[ia] dicti) / C.S. Cesare Papini Anni 35 / S. Geronimo Levisole A. 48
/ Maria dell’Abbadia Serva / C. Antonio / C. Camillo Berti Anni 84 / C.S. Gasparo Anni 35
fig[lio] / C. Cecilia forapane / C. Angelina da Pisa / C. Bassiano della Macia A. 35 / Tomasso
cuc[inie]ro.”
41 Berti’s home stood next to a house “del S.r Papini” and another where Papini lived with his
family: “S. Michele Papini / S. Veronica moglie / C. Maddalena anni 14 / C. Flaminia anni
12 (fig[lia]) / C.S. Cesare Papini fratello / C. Antonio da Tivoli Ser[vito]re / C. Vencenzo
Foschi cocchiero / C. Christina Viti Serva / C. Angelo Boro de Viterbo ser[vito]re” (Archivio
Storico del Vicariato, Rome, San Lorenzo in Damaso, Stati d’anime, 1641, f. 86r). The social
status of Papini can be measured in the number of his servants and by his title in the
sources, “perillustrissimus.”
42 Ghilardi, “Ut exitum reperirent” (cit. note 15), p. 171 and n. 73 (with mention of the authors
who drew attention to Papini’s signature).
43 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Rome, 30 Notai Capitolini, uff. 25, c. 416, 30 August 1654: Aperitio
testamenti Veronichae Bertae. In her last will (dated 19 August 1652), Veronica named as her
sole heir Maddalena, her elder daughter, who at the time was leaving and looking after her
father Michele and her uncle Cesare.
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passed down the profession to someone else in the same milieu, as was the
established custom at the time, in Rome and in Europe generally.44
5 Gaspare Berti ‘in camera’
Given this story, it is not surprising that in 1643 Gaspare’s sister Veronica
remained his sole heir. Since he did not have time to draw up a will, his sis-
ter had to ask her notary for a detailed inventory of the property she was to
inherit.45 For scholars, reading this inventory is equivalent to taking a guided
tour of Gaspare’s home. It allows us to stand in front of his writing desk
with the unbound copy of Antonio Bosio’s Roma sotterranea lying upon it,
to glance at his substantial library, to open the drawers in his studio, to go
down to the workshop in the courtyard and even to the cellar where he stored
his farm tools. Pending a more detailed analysis of all the items listed in
the inventory and their historical significance, certain considerations may be
made.
To continue with the “big narrative” of science in Baroque Rome, the docu-
ment allows us to refine certain details regarding the pre-history of the vacuum.
First of all, it pinpoints the precise location in the great capital city where the
proto- ‘flash academy’ assembled by Magiotti (or perhaps by Kircher), con-
ducted their experiments on the maximum level of water’s slope in pipes. Wit-
nesses unanimously report that, using ropes and wire, Berti fixed a lead syphon
to that outside wall of his own residence facing the courtyard, specifically to
the exterior wall of the stairwell that led to the upper rooms. This apparatus
is depicted in an engraving drawn by Kaspar Schott on the basis of Maignan’s
report and published in his Technica curiosa (1664) (see Fig. 1).
These reports are perfectly consistent with the layout of Berti’s dwelling as
mirrored in the inventory. Furthermore, Papini’s house is easily recognized in
the detail of the topographical map of Rome drawn by Giovan Battista Falda
between 1640 and 1678, not long after these events. It may be noted that Papini’s
house stood not far from the Chiesa Nuova dei Filippini – that is, the seat of
the group working on Roma sotterranea – and bordered the Palazzo di Sora,
44 Susanna Passigli, “La costruzione del “Catasto Alessandrino” (1660). Agrimensori, geo-
metri e periti misuratori,” in Piante di Roma dal Rinascimento ai Catasti, edited by Mario
Bevilacqua, Marcello Fagiolo (Roma: Artemide, 2012), pp. 370–392: 367.
45 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Notai Auditor Camerae, not. Raynaldus, vol. 6113, 1643 Sept. 2,
f. 563 ff.
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figure 1 Picture of the apparatus set up by Gaspare Berti in his home courtyard, based on
Emmanuel Maignan’s report
gaspar schott, technica curiosa, sive, mirabilia artis (würzburg:
1664) (fig. 11), courtesy of museo galileo, florence
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then the property of the Boncompagni family (and much altered since by the
opening of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele in 1899).46 (see Figs. 2a–2b)
Camillo’s death did not impoverish his family. According to the statement
made by Veronica before the notary Rainaldi when she requested an assess-
ment of her brother’s patrimony, in September 1643 he held various assets
in the form of long-term leases: a four-family house in the district of Borgo,
a vineyard on 2½ hectares of land outside the city, to the southwest (which
included a reed bed, a well, a water tank, and a modest country house with
various annexes), not to mention a 200-scudi credit from the sale of another
vineyard.47 The description of his house in Rome, and in particular the layout
of the rooms – in the light of studies on the material culture of Baroque Rome –
gives evidence of the economic well-being enjoyed by Berti and his family. As
an example, only in larger homes might you encounter rooms located on differ-
ent floors, as here, where the apartment in which Gaspar was living, extending
horizontally, was surmounted by an attic where the domestic service facilities,
including a kitchen, were located. The kitchen was another sign of social dis-
tinction, because in 17th-century Rome “being able to cook at home is almost
a luxury, available to a minority of people.”48 (see Figs. 3–4)
Furthermore, the arrangement of furnishings and objects testifies to the
division of the interior into separate spaces for specific functions, among them
the rooms where the lodger used to work.49 Reams of white paper (some of it
blank and some not) were scattered everywhere, but more significantly we find
a list of the contents of what seems to be a box of mathematical instruments in
46 Annamaria Barreca, Mariarita Minati, “Palazzo Sora in Rome,” Ricerche di storia dell’arte,
1987, 31:93–95. On the site where the Vallicella and the Chiesa Nuova were built, see Joseph
Connors, Borromini e l’Oratorio romano: stile e società (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1989 [1980]),
pp. 121–143.
47 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Notai Auditor Camarae, not. Raynaldus, Die Prima Septembris
1643, Aperitio haereditatis quondam Gasparis Berti, cc. 555r–556v.
48 Renata Ago, Il gusto delle cose. Una storia degli oggetti nella Roma del Seicento (Roma:
Donzelli, 2006), p. 63.
49 Joseph Connors has outlined the layout and contents of Borromini’s house based on the
post-mortem inventories of 1667 in “Borromini Behind Closed Doors,” in Festvortrag for the
Emeritierung of Elisabeth Kieven at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (7 October 2014). I thank Jo for
generously providing me with the text of his unpublished communication. On a satirical
project by the Dutch engineer Cornelis Mejier against the multiplication of specialized
spaces in the Roman palaces of late 17th century, see Id., “The One-Room Apartment of
Cornelis Mejier,” in Artistic Practices and Cultural Transfer in Early Modern Italy: Essays
in Honour of Deborah Howard, edited by Nebahat Avcıoğlu, Allison Sherman (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2015), pp. 45–64.
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figure 2a Nuova pianta et alzata della città di Roma con tutte le strade piazze et edifici […]
disegniata et intagliata da Gio. Battista Falda da Valduggia et date al pubblico da
Gio. Giacomo De Rossi dalle sue stampe in Roma alla Pace l’anno 1676 (Roma:
Danesi, [1979?]).
courtesy of the library of the fondazione marco besso, rome
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figure 2b Detail of the area around the Chiesa Nuova, where the house Papini was located
a small room on the first floor close to the hall, in the drawer of a walnut table.
This room may have been used for the preparation of drawings, while at least
two other rooms served as workshops (to construct instruments and models
and to engrave plates); one being on the upper floor near the kitchen – where
we find a small carpenter’s bench, an anvil, drills, scissors, metal offcuts and
foils to be engraved – and the other in the cellar where, in addition to a larger
carpenter’s table, anvil, nails, brackets and corrects, the inventory describes
a device for grinding stone, iron and glass. Also in the cellar were different
agricultural tools connected with the vineyard activities of Berti and his father.
Among the other items in the inventory were “a copper pot for boiling the must,
3 and a half bowls capacious,” as well as “many poles to support rows of vines,”
materials that could also have been used in the setting up of Berti’s experiment
to measure force of a vacuum.
The presence of a veritable workshop in Berti’s home seems to confirm
what has already been highlighted by other scholars; in the late 17th cen-
tury, Roman land surveyors could run an independent business even when
they were employed in an atelier, as in the case of Berti and Contini.50 Nor
can we rule out the possibility that Gaspare made and sold scientific instru-
ments at home. Several documentary sources provide evidence of his skill in
designing and constructing machinery and devices. The scale model for Bor-
50 Passigli, “La costruzione del ‘Catasto Alessandrino’” (cit. note 44), p. 373.
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figure 3 Hypotetical reconstruction of Gaspare Berti’s house: Plan of the apartment on the
piano nobile
drawings by arch. paola favino
romini’s Chiesa dei Filippini is only one example. In 1636 Cassiano pressingly
requested his expertise in order to evaluate the design and functioning of an
ancient sundial (scaphium antiquum) purchased by Francesco Barberini in the
antiques market, but whose authenticity was seriously questioned by Peiresc.51
It was Lucas Holstenius, the librarian at the Vatican and a very good friend
of Peiresc, who sketched the best description of Berti. Writing to Peiresc in
1636, he described Berti as “a most skilled man in mathematics, exceptionally
51 Peiresc, Lettres à Cassiano dal Pozzo (cit. note 24), p. 250. Peiresc described in detail
the sundial and the reasons for its malfunctioning to Ménestrier in a long letter dated
28 August 1636 (Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Lettres de Peiresc, 7 vols., publiées par
Philippe Tamizey De Larroque, Vol. 5 [Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1894], pp. 802–806).
On this episode, see Mark Jones (ed.), Why Fakes Matter: Essays on Problems of Authenticity
(London: published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press, 1992),
pp. 58, 163.
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figure 4 Hypotetical reconstruction of Gaspare Berti’s house: Plan of the apartment at attic
level
drawings by arch. paola favino
meticulous and scrupulous in his field … ‘hauturgos’ – a handyman, a man who
manufactures with his own hands – and ‘inginious’ (mechanicos).”52
6 Berti’s ‘Semiophores’
This is not the place to scrutinise the furniture, the clothing, the ornaments,
and the paintings that furnished Berti’s home, although they offer crucial
clues to his lifestyle and consumption patterns. For the moment, it should be
emphasized here that Berti’s status (the one he enjoyed, and more importantly
52 Connors, “Virtuoso Architecture” (cit. note 13), p. 28 and n. As Connors suggested, mekani-
cos was “the same term used by Procopius to describe Arthemius and Isidoros, the applied
mathematicians who built Hagia Sophia.”
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the one he aimed for) allowed him even to collect semiophores – that is, objects
whose use and exchange value is sacrificed to acquire prestige for the collector
and his family.53
In accordance with the aristocratic ideal of collecting as a public activity and
the humanistic concept of the museum as a meeting place for learned men,54
Berti’s collection of semiophores was displayed in the sala, that is, the first room
described in the inventory, the one that a visitor would first enter and probably
the largest room in the house. The paintings were relatively few in number (17
in all), less than average for Rome in this period; most of them were on religious
subjects and they tended to be displayed in the bedrooms.55
Instead, upon entering the sala the visitor’s attention must have been imme-
diately drawn to Berti’s fine collection of maps and etchings of the city of Rome.
Few identifying elements are provided in the inventory, but worth noting is a
series of four geographical maps drawn on old paper (one was a map of Africa
apparently much in need of repair), on the wall a map of Picardy and another
of the Duchy of Ferrara, two printed etchings (one depicting a battle and the
other a genre scene, probably the Fiera dell’Impruneta by Jacques Callot), and
three maps (or perhaps views) of Rome in clear view. In total more than 14 maps
and engravings were to be found in the first two rooms of the house – the liv-
ing room and the study – in which visitors were received. These works were
either placed on display on stands or on the walls, or conserved in drawers and
cabinets, some of them waiting to be restored. Completing Berti’s cartographic
collection and occupying pride of place in the sala were a pair of fairly large
(grandetti) standing globes – a celestial globe and a terrestrial globe – which
were kept covered with a cloth unless there were visitors.56
Maps were a rare occurrence in the collections of the middle class,57 but not
at all unusual amongst the Renaissance and proto-Baroque libraries and col-
53 Krzysztof Pomian, Tra il visibile e l’invisibile. La collezione, in Collezionisti, amatori e curiosi:
Parigi-Venezia, xvi–xviii Secolo (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1989), pp. 15–60.
54 Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Mod-
ern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 294.
55 According to Patrizia Cavazzini, around 1630 “ordinary collectors” would own around
twenty to thirty paintings (“Lesser Nobility and Other People of Means,” in Display of Art
in the Roman Palace, 1550–1750, edited by Gail Feigenbaum; with Francesco Freddolini [Los
Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2014], pp. 89–102: 93).
56 Quite obviously, for a practical mathematician like Berti globes were tools of the trade
as well as status symbols: see Elly Dekker, “Globes in Renaissance Europe,” in The History
of Cartography, Vol. 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, Part 1, edited by David
Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 135–172: 148.
57 Ago, Il gusto delle cose (cit. note 48), p. 151.
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lections of dignitaries and scholars, where they could be quite helpful when
“studying the present and the past, offering guidance for travelers, and provid-
ing edification.”58 At the same time they enhanced their owner’s status and
prestige.59 In Berti’s case, however, it is probable that these were objects to
which he had ready access for professional reasons. Indeed, all the evidence
leads to the conclusion that he belonged to the milieu of a profession con-
nected with the production of urban, geographic, and topographic maps, where
the differing roles of the inventor, the designer, the engraver and the publisher
overlapped and mingled.60 In support of this assumption, alongside the city
plans and maps of Rome (both modern and ancient, showing the city above and
underground), scattered throughout the apartment, there were also engraved
copperplates and brass plates, as well as a number of drawing tools among his
scientific instruments.
The ideal ‘box of mathematical instruments’ owned by Berti included tools
for draughtsmen and cartographers:61 sharpeners, rulers, set squares of various
thicknesses, plumb rules, several compasses of different lengths (some with
steel tips), 3 magnetic compasses and at least one instrument – perhaps a
polymeter – which was recognized as a topographical tool even by the secretary
who compiled the list.62 As proof of what has been said above, two other
58 George Tolias, “Maps in Renaissance Libraries and Collections,” in The History of Cartog-
raphy, Vol. 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, Part 1, edited by David Woodward
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 637–660: 653.
59 David Woodward, Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance: Makers, Distributors and
Consumers (London: The British Library, 1996), p. 85; Kees Zandvliet, Mapping for Money:
Maps, Plans and Topographic Paintings and their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion During
the 16th and 17th Centuries (Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International, 1998), pp. 210–212.
60 Woodward, Maps as Prints (cit. note 59). In particular, for Renaissance Rome: Jean-Marc
Besse, Pascal Dubourg-Glatigny, “Cartographier Rome au seizième siècle (1544–1599):
décrire et reconstituer,” in Rome et la science (cit. note 10), pp. 369–414; Jean-Marc Besse,
“The Birth of the Modern Atlas. Rome, Lafreri, Ortelius,” in Conflicting Duties (cit. note 10),
pp. 35–57.
61 To identify the instruments, I relied on the application Furor Mechanicus – Catalogo delle
invenzioni strumentali e meccaniche dall’antichità al xviii secolo, hosted on the Museo
Galileo website (http://www.museogalileo.it/partecipa/progettiwiki/furormechanicuscat
alogoinvenzioni.html) (accessed 7 April 2017).
62 According to Prina Ricotti, Contini (and therefore Berti as well) would have used the
Pretorian tablet to survey the site of the Villa Adriana (Prina Ricotti, Villa Adriana in Pirro
Ligorio [cit. note 22], p. 46; Ead., “Criptoportici e Gallerie sotterranee di Villa Adriana nella
loro tipologia e nelle loro funzioni,” in Les Cryptoportiques dans l’architecture romaine.
Colloque Rome 1972 [Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1973], pp. 219–
Nuncius 32 (2017) 709–773
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