Francesco Bianchini: A Promising Novel Source on the Global Scope of Science Teaching in Early Modern Rome

Francesco Bianchini was an important scientist and high prelate active in Rome at the end of the seventeenth century. As a scientist, he gained the respect of the international scientific community with his astronomical observation, which earned him admission to the Royal Society and the Académie des Sciences. In this article, thanks to the analysis of Bianchini’s unpublished writings, I will show that the delay in introducing the new science in Rome depended on a precise political strategy adopted by the Catholic Church, which was otherwise no stranger to the adoption of experimental science in other regions to pursue different objectives. Bianchini’s pragmatic and versatile approach to the use of science teaching to secure cultural dominance allows us to explain certain discrepancies in the interpretation of the relationships between universities, academies, and colleges in early modern Europe.