Taking Newton on Tour

The Grand Tour Travel Diary of Martin Folkes (1690-1754)
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-916931-19-0
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 45, 296 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 172 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 771 g

Reihe: Hakluyt Society Third Series

This volume provides a critical edition of an exceptional example of the 'Scientific Grand Tour' taken by Martin Folkes. Martin Folkes (1690-1754) was Newton's protégé, antiquary, mathematician, and the only simultaneous president of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. In 1733-5, he went on Grand Tour as a scientific ambassador for the Royal Society, demonstrating Newtonian optics to Italian virtuosi. He also measured ancient and Renaissance buildings to understand past architectural engineering and design. His 97-page illustrated diary (in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, shelfmark MS Eng. misc.c.444) also challenges the long-standing, mistaken impression among scholars that the Royal Society was in decline in the eighteenth century. Analysing Folkes's activities abroad and creating an edition from this source tracing his Italian route provides a novel reading of Newtonianism and the purpose of the Grand Tour as a vehicle for scientific research and statesmanship.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roos, Anna Marie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Seestreitkräfte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

CONTENTS

List of Maps and Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction and Provenance of the Diary

2. The Historiography of Folkes's Tour

3. Taking Newton on Tour

4. Cartography, Metrology and Antiquarian Science

5. Rome

6. Afterword: A Wife and a Life: Folkes's Tour and Lucretia Bradshaw

7. Editorial Conventions

THE TRAVEL DIARY OF MARTIN FOLKES 1

APPENDICES

A. Martin Folkes's Itinerary

B. Venetian Coinage, 1700-1800

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Über Autor(innen)

Roos, Anna Marie
Dr Anna Marie Roos FLS FSA FRHistS is Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Lincoln. She is the recipient of the John Thackray Medal and the Gideon de Laune Medal for her scientific and historical work.