Newtonianism and information control in Rome at the wake of the eighteenth century

This paper offers an opportunity to ponder the way the Catholic Church and its methods of information control reshaped, and paradoxically even enabled, the dissemination and practice of science in early modern Italy. Focusing on the activities of Newtonian scholars operating in Rome in the First half of the eighteenth century - especially the Celestine monk Celestino Galiani (1681-1753) and prelate Francesco Bianchini (1662-1729) - I will argue that major contributions to the spread of Newtonianism in Italy came from individuals operating within the Church, acting more-or-less independently from the Church's oversight. These scholars realized they were witnessing an inexorable transition and that the medieval scholastic cosmology and physics could not survive. In order to rescue the Church - and to avoid further embarrassment, especially after the Galileo Affair - renewal was needed. Counterintuitively, the dissemination of Italian Newtonianism was largely a Catholic effort.