La tradizione galileiana nei progetti editoriali della stamperia granducale di Firenze (1713-1723)

This essay will examine the first collection on the motion of waters, produced by the followers of Galileo, which was published in Florence in 1723, by focusing on the cultural background that lays behind the publication of this important work. The three volumes were prepared by Tommaso Buonaventuri, who served as director and editor of the printing works of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from 1713 to 1723. Among his collaborators on this project were the men of letters Giovanni Gaetano Bottari and Benedetto Bresciani, and the mathematician Guido Grandi. Buonaventuri played a leading role in intellectual circles during the first two decades of the eighteenth century, promoting many initiatives, such as the publication of the Lezioni Torricelliane, by Evangelista Torricelli and a new edition of Galileo's Opere. The collection of essays on the motion of waters belongs to a branch of research that directly derived from the Galilean tradition and will be examined in this light. The first volume contains works by Galileo himself, his former students Vincenzo Viviani, Benedetto Castelli, and others who were directly inspired by their studies and by their approach to doing science, including Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Geminiano Montanari and Famiano Michelini. The second volume contains Guido Grandi's hydraulic works, while the third volume is almost entirely devoted to hydraulic papers about the river Reno.