Renato G. Mazzolini

Big science, little news: science coverage in the Italian daily press, 1946-1997

This article reports on a content analysis of science coverage by the leading Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, over a period of fifty years. Results show an expansion of such coverage over time, although it was increasingly “institutionalized” in new sections devoted to science and medicine. The typical science story can be described as dealing with biomedical issues, referring to a geographical context outside Italy, relying on uncontested scientific expertise and presenting the consequences of science activity in a positive fashion. However, deeper analysis suggests the presence of a marked dualism between two distinct journalistic genres: (1) “science-popularization,” which is characteristic of special sections, overwhelmingly dominated by biomedical topics, depicting science as straightforward, consensual, and bringing improvement to peoples lives; and (2) “science as news,” dealing more frequently with other fields such as the physical sciences, paying closer attention to controversy and to the harmful consequences of scientific enterprise. A comparison with similar studies in other countries is also presented.

Visitors to Florence's R. Museum of Physics and Natural History from September 1784 to October 1785

ABSTRACT The paper provides the main results obtained from the statistical analysis of one of the four surviving eighteenth-century registers of visitors to Florences R. Museum of Physics and Natural History and shows that the largest number of visitors were subjects of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and that many women also visited the museum.

Bildnisse mit Berg: Goethe und Alexander von Humboldt

ZusammenfassungSowohl von Alexander von Humboldt als von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe existiert ein Altersportrait, das sie in anachronistischer Weise vor der Kulisse eines Berges zeigt, der fruh in ihrer personlichen und wissenschaftlichen Laufbahn eine wichtige Rolle gespielt hatte. Fur Goethes war dies der Vesuv, fu Humboldt der Chimborazo. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die zahlreichen konzeptionellen und formalen Parallelen der beiden Gemalde, die es wahrscheinlich machen, dass das Goethe-Bildnis als Vorbild fur das Humboldt-Portrait diente. AbstractBoth Alexander von Humboldt and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have been portrayed in their later years anachronistically before the background of a mountain that had been of high significance in their earlier biography and carreer. For Goethe this was the Vesuvio, and for Humboldt the Chimborazo. This paper examines the numerous conceptual and formal parallels between the two paintings which make it probable that the Goethe portrait served as a blueprint for the portrait of Humboldt.

Science Against the Unbelievers the Correspondence of Bonnet and Needham, 1760-1780

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), protestant de Geneve, issu de huguenots venus de France en 1572 et le pretre catholique anglais John Turberville Needham (1713-1781) echangerent des lettres pendant vingt ans, dont 53 survivent (26 de Bonnet, 27 de Needham). Bien que consacres tous deux aux sciences naturelles, notamment a la biologie, ils traitent dans leurs lettres les principaux problemes de leur epoque, sur les plans philosophique, religieux et politique. Tous deux sont opposes au mouvement philosophique des Lumieres et veulent promouvoir une science et une philosophie dans un cadre religieux, en opposition directe aux incroyants. Edition des lettres, toutes en francais

Adam Gottlob Schirach’s Experiments on Bees

In the 1760s Adam Gottlob Schirach, pastor in Kleinbautzen in Upper Lausatia, undertook a number of experiments, now mostly forgotten, to discover a new method of producing “artificial hives” to increase honey and wax production. These experiments led Schirach to the conclusion that young worker honeybees’ larvae could develop into queen’s larvae and finally into queens if they were suitably housed and fed. At the time this was a new and daring interpretation; and, as is often the case in the history of science, various ad hoc theories were produced to account for a newly discovered phenomenon. Before exploring the significance of Schirach’s experiments, it seems appropriate to outline the general state of the literature on bees in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.