Scienza e letteratura nella cultura italiana del Settecento

The volume collects the proceedings of the conference held in Bologna in the Spring of 1982. The basic assumption of the conference, confirmed by the results of the presented research, is that the cultural history of the modern age, and of the age of enlightenment in particular, cannot be understood through an abstract separation of the disciplines. A meaningful link connects the literary production with the scientific one and it is precisely this relationship that demands a productive interconnection, sometimes problematic, which is the very structure of the cultural institutions. At the heart of the collected contributions is the problem of the circulation of knowledge and of the scientific transmission and dissemination, through academical debates, scientific correspondence, correspondence, periodical press, collections, publishing activities. Biographical profiles, study programs, travel reports and diaries, different literary genres, combine to trace the profile and to document the authority of the Academy of Sciences of Bologna and of the Marsili Institute in the European debate of the age of enlightenment.