Accademia dei Fisiocritici Onlus Siena

The March 17, 1691 in the library of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Pirro Maria Gabbrielli, Professor of Medicine and Botany at the university of Siena, together with some students, those living at the Academy of Sciences of Siena with the intention of offering a experimental interpretation of the physical world this Aristotelian choice that was within the European scientific and cultural renewal. For Academic coined the term "Fisiocritici", fusing the Greek words physis (nature) and criticos (judges), to emphasize that the purpose of scientists adhering to the Academy was to "scrutinize and investigate the secrets of nature and judgment almost as judges thrown back by the natural sciences that is false in order to better learn what is true. " The touchstone by which we distinguish the gold and silver real from the fake ones became the emblem of the new institution, while the words were chosen motto "quod veris possit win false 'taken from De rerum natura of Lucretius Carus, Latin poet and philosopher who lived in the first century after Christ. Moved the seat in a hall of the House of Wisdom (1694), the first years were very dynamic, both in the presentation of "memories", and with the construction of scientific equipment. Academics reproduced in fact a machine to demonstrate the existence of the void and worked to public demonstrations appreciated. Subsequently devised the '"heliometer fisiocritico", a complex dial for measuring time and for astronomical observations. The life of the Academy had ups and downs, with periods of great activity and periods of torpor, as conditioned by political events. In the second half of the eighteenth century there was a new period of hard work, and it was possible to publish the Acts, which collected communications held in public sessions. The political events of the late eighteenth and an earthquake that caused significant damage to the seat of the Academy, it limited the activities, which resumed only after moving to its present location (1816). After a period of economic difficulties, the academic life was revived with vigor, the new site was built and a new sundial in the middle of the nineteenth century was formed a section of land. With the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, the life of the Academy stabilized in a co-existence with the University, to which he gave in use for some local Colleges and the land he owned to the Botanical Garden. During the nineteenth century was a remarkable development, through various donations, the Museum of Natural History. In the first half of the twentieth century was the prevailing medical and biological activities that allowed the Academy to win a place in medical sciences at the same time to the emerging Italian Medical Faculty of Siena. An effort was the recovery in the post-war period: the publication of the proceedings was the only activity. With the establishment of the University Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences (1963) and the subsequent development of natural sciences, the Academy revived back to its original spirit, reopening its museum and continuously organizing cultural events.