Martin Folkes (1690-1754)
Martin Folkes (1690-1754)

Author: Anna Marie Roos

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 0192565656

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Martin Folkes (1690-1754): Newtonian, Antiquary, Connoisseur is a cultural and intellectual biography of the only President of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. Sir Isaac Newton's protégé, astronomer, mathematician, freemason, art connoisseur, Voltaire's friend and Hogarth's patron, his was an intellectually vibrant world. Folkes was possibly the best-connected natural philosopher and antiquary of his age, an epitome of Enlightenment sociability, and yet he was a surprisingly neglected figure, the long shadow of Newton eclipsing his brilliant disciple. A complex figure, Folkes edited Newton's posthumous works in biblical chronology, yet was a religious skeptic and one of the first members of the gentry to marry an actress. His interests were multidisciplinary, from his authorship of the first complete history of the English coinage, to works concerning ancient architecture, statistical probability, and astronomy. Rich archival material, including Folkes's travel diary, correspondence, and his library and art collections permit reconstruction through Folkes's eyes of what it was like to be a collector and patron, a Masonic freethinker, and antiquarian and virtuoso in the days before 'science' became sub-specialised. Folkes's virtuosic sensibility and possible role in the unification of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society tells against the historiographical assumption that this was the age in which the 'two cultures' of the humanities and sciences split apart, never to be reunited. In Georgian England, antiquarianism and 'science' were considered largely part of the same endeavour.

The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry
The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry

Author: Ric Berman MA

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2022-01-01

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1802072314

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Following the appointment of its first aristocratic Grand Masters in the 1720s and in the wake of its connections to the scientific Enlightenment, 'Free and Accepted' Masonry became part of Britain's national profile and the largest and most influential of Britain's extensive clubs and societies. The organisation did not evolve naturally from the mediaeval guilds and religious orders that pre-dated it but was reconfigured radically by a largely self-appointed inner core at London's most influential lodge, the Horn Tavern. Freemasonry became a vehicle for the expression of their philosophical and political views, and the 'Craft' attracted an aspirational membership across the upper middling and gentry. Through an examination of previously unexplored primary documentation, Foundations contributes to an understanding of contemporary English political and social culture and explores how Freemasonry became a mechanism that promoted the interests of the Hanoverian establishment and connected the metropolitan and provincial elites. The book explores social networks centred on the aristocracy, parliament, the learned and professional societies, and the magistracy, and provides pen portraits of the key individuals who spread the Masonic message. Foundations and Schism (Sussex Academic, 2013), have been described as 'the most important books on English Freemasonry published in recent times', providing 'a precise, social context for the invention of English Freemasonry'. Berman's analysis throws a new and original light on the formation and development of what rapidly became a national and international phenomenon.

Literature and Science, 1660-1834, Part II vol 6
Literature and Science, 1660-1834, Part II vol 6

Author: Judith Hawley

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-28

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 104023254X

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This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

William Stukeley
William Stukeley

Author: David Boyd Haycock

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780851158648

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William Stukeley was the most renowned English antiquary of the 18th century. This study discusses his life and achievements which he shared with his illustrious friend Isaac Newton and with other natural philosophers, theologians and historians.

Science and Reading in the Eighteenth Century
Science and Reading in the Eighteenth Century

Author: Markman Ellis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-02-23

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1009217194

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Science and Reading in the Eighteenth Century studies the reading habits of a group of historians and science administrators known as the Hardwicke Circle. The research is based on an analysis of the reading recorded in the 'Weekly Letter', an unpublished private correspondence written from 1741 to 1766 between Thomas Birch (1705–1766), Secretary of the Royal Society, and Philip Yorke (1720–1790), later second earl of Hardwicke. Birch and Yorke were omnivorous, voracious, and active readers. The analysis uses the Weekly Letter to quantify the texts with which they engaged, and explores the role of reading in their intellectual life. The research argues that this evidence shows that, in the early 1750s, the Hardwicke Circle pivoted from a focus on early-modern British history to a new concern with the reform and renovation of British intellectual institutions, especially the Royal Society.

Measuring the New World
Measuring the New World

Author: Neil Safier

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-11-15

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 0226733564

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Prior to 1735, South America was terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the earth at the Equator. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission’s participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a “sacred fire” passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to observers in South America.By taking an innovative interdisciplinary look at the traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, this book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, as well as specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.

Goldfish
Goldfish

Author: Anna Marie Roos

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2019-09-15

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1789141702

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Living work of art, consumer commodity, scientific hero, and environmental menace: the humble goldfish is the ultimate human cultural artifact. A creature of supposedly little memory and a short lifespan, it has held universal appeal as a reservoir for human ideas and ideals. In ancient China, goldfish were saved from predators in acts of religious reverence and selectively bred for their glittering grace. In the East, they became the subject of exquisite art, regarded as living flowers that moved, while in the West, they became ubiquitous residents of the Victorian parlor. Cheap and eminently available, today they are bred by the millions for the growing domestic pet market, while also proving to be important to laboratory studies of perception, vision, and intelligence. In this illuminating homage to the goldfish, Anna Marie Roos blends art and science to trace the surprising and intriguing history of this much-loved animal, challenging our cultural preconceptions of a creature often thought to be common and disposable.