La Luce (1698) by Giovanni Michele Milani – A Final Attempt at Reconciling Atomism and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Rome?

In the poem La Luce, composed in 1685 and dedicated to Christina of Sweden, Giovanni Michele Milani propounds a mechanical and vitalist (meta-)physics of light that complies with Christian tenets by adopting a peculiar version of Democritean atomism. His lecture for the Roman Simposiaci Academy indicates the extent of Milani’s dissatisfaction with Aristotelian philosophy. While he attended the Physico-mathematical Academy and the heterodox Congresso medico romano, he nevertheless, signed La Luce – published posthumously in 1698 with a preface by Francesco Redi – as “Accademico Umorista.” When we examine La Luce together with some excerpts of the unpublished work of Milani’s friend and fellow member of this literary institution – the Dialoghi eruditi by Giuseppe Giusto Guaccimanni  – we are presented with an interesting cultural scenario. It would seem that some Umoristi might have joined the Queen in the effort to devise a Christian experimental philosophy which was open to alchemy. The posthumous publication of the poem may well have been triggered by the rivalry between the Umoristi and the Academy of the Arcadia.

Redi is evoked as the "Tuscan Hermes" ("Tosco Ermete," Stanza 24, v. 9), Galileo Galilei, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, and Marcello Malpighi are explicitly credited for their contribution to the new science whence the Canzone derived its inspiration.
How Milani came up with his project, why the work was published with the unsigned preface of a scientist like Redi, and what was at stake for Christina's alchemical interests are the questions that will be scrutinized in this paper.4 I will first trace Milani's criticism of Aristotelian philosophy back to an unpublished academic discourse which he recited in the Simposiaci Academy (section 2); the essay shows a constructive revision of Aristotle's physics in a conscious historiographical perspective while suggesting atomism as the preferred alternative. I will then (section 3) address the poem La Luce to give an account of the peculiar atomistic system conceived by Milani. I will explore the context in which La Luce was produced and its connections with the Roman academic milieu (section 4), with special focus on the Queen of Sweden's alchemical pursuits (section 5). Finally (section 6), I will also argue for the Umorista Giuseppe Giusto Guaccimanni (1652-1715), Milani's close friend, as being the editor of La Luce. Aristotle is taken to prison and confined to the dungeon of Privation, where he is given only morsels of Prime Matter so that he may realise how it is of no substance and yet hard to digest. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor delves into the details of his criminal record. He finds first the accusations moved against Aristotle by Cicero in the De natura deorum (I,13.33). To begin with, the Stagyrite attributes the divine nature only to the intellect but then identifies God with the world. Further, he maintains that the universal motion of the world must be preserved by something else which revolves contrariwise; and sometimes he divinises the celestial fire, even if this is only a part of the world, the whole of which he had previously identified with God.9 This great confusion about the First Cause was what caused Aristotle's expulsion from Athens by Eurymedon, who accused him of impiety.10 The officer then unearths an unsigned memorial containing material for further accusations, amongst which was the claim that Aristotle reckoned that each soul was mortal. This indeed was later attested by Avempace, Alfarabi, Pomponazzi and, more recently, by the Neapolitan physician Lucantonio Porzio (1639-1724).11 There were also several complaints from ancient philosophers claiming to have been misinterpreted by Aristotle in his De anima and his Ethica. The mathematician Euclid of Megara protested that Aristotle affirmed, in the Metaphysica (1444a31-1004b), that mathematical demonstrations have no final cause, "as if it was no sufficient purpose in itself to know the nature of the abstract quantity through many propositions linked to one another, so that we may accord the senses to the intellect, since everything is constituted in numero, pondere et mensura [Book of Wisdom, 11,21]."12 It was 9 The criticism related by Cicero comes from Velleius, an Epicurean. On this disputed passage, see Abraham P. Bos, "A Double Theology in Aristotle De Philosophia Fr. 26 Ross," in idem, Cosmic and Meta-Cosmic Theology in Aristotle's Lost Dialogues (Leiden-New York, 1989), 185-200. 10 Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, V, 5. 11 A disciple of Tommaso Cornelio in Naples, Porzio taught medicine and anatomy at La Sapienza University in Rome from 1670 till 1684. After teaching in Venice and in Vienna, he went back to his hometown. A fellow of the Neapolitan Academy of the Investiganti, and, together with his friend Borelli, a member of the Physico-mathematical Academy in Rome, he attended the Royal Academy of Christina of Sweden. As an expert chemist devoted to mechanical philosophy, Porzio was also affiliated to the Accademia Reale Napoletana founded in Naples in 1698; see Alessandro Dini, Filosofia della natura, medicina, religione: Lucantonio Porzio (1639-1724) (Milan, 1985). 12 "V'era un accusa d'Euclide Megarense, il quale si era opposto a quel passo nel 3° della Metafisica al 2° capo, ove Aristotele per compiacere ad Aristippo e Cirenaico sofisti che disprezzavano le matematiche s'era indotto a dire che le dimostrazioni di tali scienze non abbiano causa finale, quasi che non sia sufficiente fine obiettivo il conoscere per mezzo di tante proposizioni concatenate la natura della quantità astratta per poter poi regolare Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 also found that Democritus, Anaxagoras, Epicurus and others had filed a sort of class action. They railed against Aristotle for having excluded the atoms, indivisible components, from every mixt by saying that, divested of quantity or not, they were imperceptible since they lacked the parts through which they may link to one another, he then invented the Prime Matter, which was as imperceptible as any punctum given that, not being extended according to its essence, it should have no parts; but then he made it infinitely divisible. To affirm this is no different than maintaining that the compound may be resolved in its own parts, which from the division do not acquire their essence but [do acquire] separation from one another, as the separation takes place only in what is actually in the compound. Therefore, if any extended thing is divisible ad infinitum, this thing needs to be made of infinite parts united together.13 Truth be told, these philosophers also claimed that their infinite atoms were always united in the compound and did not exist separately; hence -Milani intercedes -Aristotle may just have wanted to make fun of these atomists by reasserting their opinion through different concepts. But the officer has not finished scrutinising the Stagyrite's criminal records and finds also one complaint filed by Telesio against the three principles of Aristotelian physics. In fact, of Privation, which is the first, Aristotle himself says that it is nothing; the second, the Prime Matter, he equals to nothing stating that non est quid, nec quale neque quantum; of the third, the Form, he says that it cannot be without the other two, namely without what does not exist; which is simply ridiculous.14 il sensibile con l'intelligibile, essendo il tutto costituito in numero, pondere et mensura" (Milani, Aristotele prigione, BAV, Vat. lat. 15118, 23-24). All translations of Milani's texts are mine. 13 "Democrito, Anassagora, Epicuro et altri filosofi per far poca spesa nella lite s'erano uniti insieme e l'avevano incolpato che avendo esso escluso gli atomi componenti indivisibili da ogni misto dicendo che, spogliati o vestiti di quantità, erano impercettibili, non avendo parti mediante le quali possano l'uno all'altro unirsi, abbia poi inventata la materia prima, cosa impercettibile al pari di ogni punto medesimo, mentre ella secondo la sua essenza non ha parte alcuna non essendo quanta, e ponendola poi divisibile in infinito; questo non è altro che dire il composto potersi disciogliere nelle parti che ha in se stesso, le quali dalla divisione non acquistano essenza ma separazione l'una dall'altra, facendosi la divisione solo in tutto ciò che de fatto è nel composto; adunque se la divisione è possibile in infinito luoco d'ogni cosa quanta questa viene ad essere d'infinite parti unite tra di loro" (ibid., 24-25). 14 For Telesio's refutation of the Aristotelian principles, see De rerum natura iuxta propria principia (Naples, 1586), 76-86.

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Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 All this amounts to enough evidence for Aristotle's case to be brought to the attention of Apollo, the chief of Parnassus, but a boisterous brawl forestalls his pronouncement. Some mathematicians and philosophers, ancient and moderns, are now scuffling with a battalion of Peripatetics. What follows is a fantastical heroicomical fight. Averroes defends himself with a piece of solid incorruptible sky, but Tycho manages to break it and make it fluid, showing his achronic Mars under the sky of the Sun, which could not be possible were the skies solid. A rather lost Ptolemy, clinging to his Quadripartitum, is pelted with stones thrown at him by Kepler until the volume slips from his hands and falls into pieces together with its epicycles. Aristarchus of Samos and Philolaus, the disciple of Pythagoras, ask Copernicus to help them move the Earth and roll it over the Aristotelians who had been mocking them all along, but they are prevented from doing so by its gravity. Searching for him in vain, Simplicius is surprised to learn that Aristotle was generally deemed a boastful and arrogant man; a malignity surely spread by Galileo "as that Florentine had been persecuting him long since and had discredited him already in front of a fair share of the experts of these things."15 So, when Galileo, strolling along amiably with Giovan Battista della Porta, happens to cough in passing near Simplicius, the latter, forgetting that the scientist is now blind, believes he did so to scorn him. Hence, he starts savagely beating poor Galileo, who is promptly rescued by Sagredo and other friends. For comedic effect, Milani here allows Aristotle's unfortunate partisan to avenge himself for the setup in Galileo's Dialogo (Florence, 1632), where Simplicius's simplistic arguments in favour of the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system are overruled by Sagredo (and Salviati).
News of the brawl, meanwhile, is relayed to Apollo. Blaming it on the Stagyrite, notorious for his haughtiness in castigating all other philosophical sects, the chief of Mount Parnassus decides to call him to trial. After an introductory pompous harangue by Porphyry, which elicits no response from Apollo apart from yawning, Aristotle takes up his own defence. For a start, he explains the nature of the celestial globe on account of which he was arrested. He had simply adopted it in place of the bronze sphere he used to keep in his hands when falling asleep, so that he would be wakened by the noise of it dropping on the floor.16 He simply wanted to have the battered object repaired when he was invited to join a session of the Academy of the Simposiaci. was informed of the celestial novelties brought about by the observations of Copernicus and Galileo -novelties that echoed the system of Aristarchus which he, Aristotle, had brutally dismissed. But then, feeling unwell because of the supper the Simposiaci had been serving him -namely, "atoms in broth" and some "fluid ether, chillier than snow" -he had left in the middle of the night, using the globe as a lantern to guide his steps. As for the other accusations, Aristotle acquits himself by stating that many of his 408 works, as recorded by Laertius, were never recovered, while a great many acephalous treatises had been wrongly attributed to him. This, he says, accounts for the contradictions noted in his works. Moreover, he claims that many readers had ventured upon his writings without knowledge of the Greek language, and were thus given to trusting misleading translations, in the same way as had been the case with the works of Averroes The description of Aristotle's trial offers an insight into the Simposiaci's determination to redress the balance between the Peripatetic tradition and their obvious penchant for atomism. If the fleeting allusion to Aristotle's impiety might raise an eyebrow when considering that the Scholastics had made of him a pillar of theology, there is no outright dismissal of the validity of the Stagyrite's philosophy in the Simposiaci assessment. With a profound historiographical awareness, Milani gives due consideration to the lacunae in the extant corpus of Aristotelian philosophy, the apographs, the unfaithful translations, and even to ignorance of the Greek language amongst Aristotle's commentators. Despite these extenuating circumstances, the confrontation with both antiquity and modernity leaves Aristotle's cosmology in shreds and shows 17 "Per quello finalmente che spetta alle mie opinioni non ha da importare agli altri se io abbia errato o no perché io la credo a mio modo et ho scritto per mia soddisfazione a quelli che vogliono leggere l'opere mie, né ho mai preteso di proibire agli altri di specular cose nove, anzi tutti ammiro e lodo e mi dispiace solo d'essere dispreggiato da quelli che sono venuti a cose fatte a spacciarsi da filosofi" (ibid., 45-46).

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Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 how the principles of his physics (privation, matter, and form) sadly amount to nothing. Note, however, that Milani does not seek to position himself as a champion of the experimental philosophy. Instead, he comes across as a defender of the legitimacy of solutions that have turned out to be more successful at explaining observed phenomena.18 In this view, Tycho's geo-heliocentric system is as acceptable as the heliocentric cosmos of Galileo and Kepler, but atomism as a substitute theory of matter stands unrivalled. Equally apparent is Milani's concern for matching physics (of the atoms) with mathematics -the quotation from the Book of Wisdom even grants this convergence in principlealong the lines of what had been one of Galileo's preoccupations.19 To devise a philosophical system apt to embody this reconciliation is precisely what Milani attempts in the poem La Luce, where light opens the way to a Christian mathematico-physical atomism.

3
La Luce or the Architectural Nature of Light The best introduction to Milani's philosophical system is provided by Redi's address to the reader, which functions as a preface to the poem. I shall describe this text before examining a few passages of the poem and giving a summary of its content. According to Redi, Milani went for a revised Democritean atomism, which, thanks to a different explanation of motion, is not incompatible with Christian faith.20 As we shall see, not only do the Scriptures themselves affirm that light 18 The introduction to the discourse is particularly telling in this respect. Milani wonders why so many people engaged in science, and yet so few reached perfection in their scientific pursuits. The answer he finds is the abundance of two kinds of intellectual profiles, both equally detrimental to scientific research: those who insult the revered schools of Athens but are unworthy even to accost them from afar; and those who subject themselves to the authority of the ancient philosophers, thus enslaving the truth to their ipse dixit (ibid., 17). 19 In is willed by God in matter, but by explicitly accepting the dogma of Creation one may avoid attributing motion to atoms ab aeterno. Redi points out that Milani sides with "the new better Schools" in maintaining that "all operations of nature are produced in a mechanical way."21 He credits Milani for having eliminated all abstract metaphysical principles from the domain of natural enquiries, since they are of no use to "medicine or to other professions necessary to the comfort of our life, which require the precise comprehension of the material parts by which mechanical motions take place in nature."22 Milani builds his system on "the first material components in which all the compounds are dissolved"; it is irrelevant whether they should be called "atoms or corpuscles," provided that we understand by them "the first particles that came into being."23 It is by their bumping into one another -by their union, separation, and different configurations -that the change happens that we call generation.24 Now, continues Redi, these operations require motion, and motion needs a first natural cause, which Milani finds in heat -that is, nothing other than light itself.25 In fact, he claims that "the Sun, and the light spreading from it in a most vast sphere, is but one and the same body."26 The Sun should then 21 "Primieramente dunque l' Autore in questo luogo suppone colle nuove Scuole migliori, che tutte le operazioni della natura si faccino per via mecanica e perciò, volendo egli trattare le materie fisiche, non si fondò su i principi metafisici, che conosciamo per sola opera dello intelletto, estraendo la forma dalla materia nel modo appunto, che si astrae la bianchezza dal latte, e la formalità dell'acqua dal ghiaccio; percioché tal forma di conoscere appartiene al mondo intellegibile, il quale è totalmente diverso dal mondo sensibile, secondo gli insegnamenti del divino Platone" (ibid., [3][4] "[…] perché queste operazioni che si fanno con moto, suppongono per necessità un movente naturale, egli attribuisce la origine di ogni moto al calore, che crede essere il medesimo, che la luce, spiegandone l'azione mecanica in questo modo" (ibid., [5]). 26 "Considera egli il Sole insieme con tutta la sua luce sparsa in vastissima sfera, come se fosse tutto un sol corpo, nel di cui mezzo sia la parte più densa di lui, che propiamente chiamiamo Sole, ed intorno al medesimo si stenda la parte più tenue, e rara, la quale Iovine Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 be conceived as a concentrated light, or heat, residing at the centre of a much broader sphere of rarefied light, or heat. To elucidate this notion, Redi resorts to the Galilean metaphor of the grain of musk spreading its scent.27 The Sun is therefore the origin of motion in that it continually pushes out light, which, hitting matter all around, causes changes in nature. Even the planets are taken to their respective "seats," or orbits, by the impulse of the light; the same light that keeps them in motion, and will do so for as long as shall be ordained by the divine decree. The Earth, by contrast, obeys special divine laws and is placed at the centre of the universe according to the Tychonic system.28 The advantage of adopting Milani's physics, concludes Redi, is that it allows us to acquire "a most universal and simple principle for all motions, without having to resort neither to occult and imagined virtues, nor to a motion inherent to atoms ab aeterno."29 Redi's brief outline presents us with several implications, some of which emerge from the poem, while others are touched upon by Milani himself in the commentary (the Annotazioni) which follows the poem. Firstly, the universe seems to be indefinite, not infinite, however immense it may be. Second, being the source of both heat and light, the Sun is also associated with fire; in Milani's system there is no place for the elemental spheres and, consequently, neither for the loci naturales. Third, Milani lays out a gnoseology based purely on mechanical principles: our sense organs perceive by contact, and the results of these impressions vary according to the difference in shape of the particular congregations of the atoms constituting the bodies, so that "virtues and qualities are just a figment of the intellect."30 chiamiamo luce, nel modo appunto, che un grano di muschio spande intorno a sé in giro una parte più tenue di se stesso, ch'è l'odore" (ibid. "In questo gran corpo adunque fatto di Sole, e di luce suppone l' Autore essere stati immessi tutti i corpi più vicini a lui: e perché il Sole spinge fuori di sé quella sua parte tenue (come fa il corpo odoroso il suo odore) suppone ancora, che la luce nell'essere spinta , urtando per necessità tutto ciò, che incontra, possa cagionare non solo i moti a noi famigliari della mutazione delle cose, che succede per insinuazione, ch'essa fa di se stessa ne' corpi, ma che possa ancora aver trasportato i pianeti a' loro siti, e che (eccettuatane la terra, che ha leggi precise) possa aver dato da principio il moto, che noi vediamo, a que' globi, che intorno al Sole (secondo Ticone) si aggirano, e che ancora glielo mantenga, e sia per mantenerglielo fino a nuova disposizione di Dio" ( Carefully omitted by Redi, but dutifully affirmed in the poem and in the Annotazioni, is Milani's belief in the existence of vacuum, necessary to explain motion.31 Milani mostly calls it vano, by this meaning the empty space in which God called the world into existence.
Everything was in nothing, or rather in everything, Because only God existed, Who, having the power and the will, kept it in his bosom. He willed the World into existence, and as an immense fruit Of that high decree the World came out To replenish a most vast empty space. What appeared at first Was a confused undigested mass And the Sun showed not, as it did not yet exist.32 The notion of an "empty space" clarifies that the world's coming into being is, at the same time, a coming into place. This emptiness is both the vacuum among the planets and the interspersed vacuum between the atoms, trapped within bodies. Indeed, "for change to happen, some spaces had to remain empty of bodies, so that by their giving way could be made room for motion."33 There is only one occurrence of the Italian term vuoto (vacuum) in the whole poem. The passage where this occurs pertains to a description of how light impresses the rotatory and revolutionary motions on the celestial globes, namely by hitting their uneven shapes, making them pivot around themselves, and pushing them laterally so that they circle around the Sun. Here Milani affirms that light hits the planets reaching them through "the immense vacuum": Those globes then, formed of many masses, Did not remain perfectly smooth But with protrusions all around them. Thus, when the first impetus had ceased Which carried them away to sojourn farther or nearer, 31 "Necessità del vacuo" (ibid., 39: with reference to Stanza 3 We may thus conceive of the world as inscribed into an immense sphere of radiating light; it takes shape in an empty space by the action of the light, which also manifests it to our senses. Light moves in all directions from the Sun with a rectilinear motion, so steadily that its rays appear almost "motionless."35 The void too, at a macroscopic and at a microscopic level, is, so to speak, revealed by the light, which can traverse it. Thus, Milani's void, or emptiness, is always full of immaterial light. Another critical aspect clarified by Milani in the Annotazioni concerns the difference between light and matter: the atoms of light are active (in motion), the atoms of matter are passive (at rest).36 Milani seems also to imply that the atoms of light are homogeneous and weightless, while the atoms of matterthough equally imperceptible -come in various weights and shapes. These differences are triggered by the presence or absence of motion in the particles. The issue is apparent when Milani describes the formation of the Sun, the planets, and the stars: The Sun was not there, not because its great fire Had not been created, But rather because it was mixed and dispersed in that mass [i.e., the original chaotic mass of the universe]. The other atoms compressed its forces With their own weight, and blocked its place, So, it [the Sun] shook vigorously the Universe. Finally, the parts gave in a little, Those of various shape and weight, Of which the World is made and into which it is dissolved. 34 "Que' globi di più masse allor formati / Non ben tersi restaro, / Ma co' le prominenze a loro intorno; / E perciò que' primi impeti cessati, / Che più o meno lontani li portaro / Secondo il vario impulso a far soggiorno, / La luce quel riparo / Di monti urtando per l'immenso voto, / Gli spinse, e spinge ognor con doppio moto" (ibid., Stanza 66). 35 "Così la luce scorre […] / che la sua forza dal sol sempre deriva, / Che mantien le sue linee rette e immote" (ibid., Stanza 76, v. 1, vv. 5-6).
Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 The atoms of the Sun, separated from the others, Congregated from here and there Thanks to that innate love of those akin, By which we see them often collected together. Free, at last, and set to move in circles, They form spheres that remain, all wrapped up. Such shape they took by a desire, If desire is, what is called sympathy, Genius, appetite, love, force of the stars.37 Another notion that Milani evokes here to explain the spherical shape of planets and stars is that of "sympathy" or "love," which suggest for the first time a very different background than that of proper mechanical philosophy. Indeed, "sympathy" did not disappear altogether from early modern philosophers' texts.38 Milani, though, probably had in mind the appetentia naturalis partium, which Copernicus speaks of when accounting for the spherical form of stars and planets.39 But he may also have retained the Neoplatonic notion of the World-Soul, which Kepler used in his early work to describe the role of the Sun (anima motrix) in laying out his new cosmos.40 In two passages of the poem, in fact, Milani compares the light, which is at its utmost density in the Sun, to 37 "Non v'era il Sol, non già perché non fosse / Creato il suo gran foco, / Ma misto in quella massa era, e disperso. / Gli altri atomi premean le sue gran posse / Col peso loro, e gli impediano il loco, / Ond'ei forte crollar fea l'Universo. / Cedero al fine un poco / Le parti varie di figura e pondo / In cui si scioglie e di cui è fatto il Mondo. // Gli atomi allor del Sol dagli altri sciolti / Di qua di là s'uniro / Con quell'innato amor ch'i simil hanno, / Per cui spesso vedianli in lor raccolti. / Quando liberi son, postisi in giro / Sfere formar, che avvolte in se si stanno. / Tai le forma un desiro, / Se desir è, che simpatia s'appella, / Genio, appetenza, amor, forza di stella" (ibid., Stanzas 10-11 the soul that reaches everywhere to animate the world.41 But Milani seems to link this notion also to Kepler's explanation of gravity, imperfect though it was, since the only further occurrence of "love" in the poem concerns the laws of falling bodies (Stanza 62, see infra).42 Be that as it may, in Milani's system, only light is endowed with motion. Any attraction, or "love," therefore stems from the action of the particles of light, either purely among themselves or through the matter with which they are co-mingled. It is now time to examine the poem as a whole and to look more closely at how Milani's system unfolds as a cosmogony, a gnoseology, and an epistemology after the example of Lucretius' De rerum natura. 43 In the proemial verses, having first claimed to follow in the footsteps of Empedocles, Milani wishes he could show to Alexander the Great the "new worlds" that had appeared through "the fragile crystal" of Galileo, and how Aristotle "lost the path of nature" (Stanzas 3-4).44 Even more, he wishes he could introduce Alexander to Christina of Sweden, who chose to renounce her Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 kingdom instead of conquering new ones. Milani, in fact, dedicates La Luce to her, the golden soul who brushed off the rust of the present iron age from "recalcitrant Latium." Just as the Greek painter Apelles, when accomplishing his creative work, took inspiration from the most refined models, so God crafted Christina's soul using the most precious virtues from the most beautiful archetypal ideas; or, perhaps God enriched those very ideas with the many virtues of Christina, such as He had wanted to see united in a unique wondrous creature (Stanzas 5-8).45 Shortly thereafter, Milani starts with his own account of Creation. As we have already heard, "everything was in nothingness, or rather in everything, since only God existed." Then, by God's will, the world came out to replenish a vast empty space. At first, it was just a confused, undigested mass that hid the Sun, which was dispersed and mixed to the rest. But slowly the atoms of the Sun united, by the innate love that makes the similar attract the similar, and shook the other parts or atoms, that are of different weights and figures, and into which the world ultimately resolves. This happened to the Sun, as well as to the stars (Stanzas 9-11).
Having attained to the form of a sphere, which results from the mutual love of its parts, the atoms of the Sun concentrate in a fire that starts erupting light. It is light that carries away the dissimilar particles, "tiny masses, unknown to human senses," until they congregate into bigger, perceptible bodies.46 Qualities now arise such as rare or dense, hard or soft, which do not exist as such (by innate virtue) but depend on the shape of the particles (round, obtuse, acute) and on the amount of empty space between them. Motion allows for the generation of all things in the world, whose corruptibility proceeds nonetheless from the "eternal seeds" of the atoms (Stanzas 12-14).47 Hence, it is not chance that rules the world. Or, at least, chance is willed by God who is the only creator. But there is no chance in God. The idea that there could be chance in God is a fiction of our weak intellect which strives to 45 "E qual sarà, che tegna / Sì eccelse doti? Ecco il Guerrier s'inchina / Al nome grande. È l'immortal Cristina. // O del secol di ferro Anima d'oro, / La ruggine incallita / Dal Lazio neghittoso ognor ritogli. / Qui solo a l'ombra tua trovan ristoro / L'arti più degne, e al tuo favore han vita, / E le Muse smarrite in grembo accogli. / D'alto saper fornita / Se a più gran Saggi ognor tu fosti amica, / Dicalo il Tebro, anzi l'Europa il dica. // Non so, se allora che l'eterno Apelle / L'alte idee gloriose / Per l'opre grandi di crear compio, / Le virtù sparte ne l'idee più belle / Raccolse, e tua grand'alma ei ne compose, / O se di tue virtù l'altre arricchio. / So ben ch'egli dispose / Che tutte in te fossero in un vedute, / E ne sbandì ciò che non è virtute" (Milani, La Luce, Stanza 5, vv. 7-9, Stanzas 6-7). 46 "Picciole masse, ignote al senso umano" (ibid., Stanza 12). 47 "E l'immortal tesoro / Così prodotto fu de' semi eterni, / Da cui i simili sempre uscir discerni" (ibid., Stanza 14).

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Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 understand through the quest for causes, however unclear to us those may be. And it does not make any sense to ask what God was doing before Creation or whether the world is eternal. In fact, unlike us, God is not subject to time. And the world is eternal only if we consider it in the continuous flux of its configuration (Stanzas 15-17). Human knowledge proceeds from imagination which receives the simulacra of things from the senses. That is why God is beyond our grasp and why we can only know Him by faith. As for the world, we can merely know the effects whose first cause escapes us. The great Book of Nature nevertheless shows us God's providence through the order He wills everywhere. Since our understanding cannot go beyond our senses, we cannot affirm that God dwells in a state of eternal leisure or that He loathes taking care of us mortals. Those doubts arise because we look for truth following the wrong path, as truth for us can only be attained by what we see and try at first hand (Stanzas 18-22).48 These being the boundaries of human knowledge, men are left to spy into the works of nature so as to reproduce them. After many centuries, the genius of Democritus has only recently returned. France and Britain cleared the path for him, but now Italy also embraced him thanks to the "Tuscan Hermes", alias Francesco Redi.49 Indeed, Tuscany bears the primacy, having given birth to Galileo, who "made the atoms known and the stars nearer" -with microscope and telescope -thereby delivering us from the occult influences of the skies.50 48 "Dal sentiero del vero il ver si cerca, / Che con l'occhio e la man solo si merca" (ibid., Stanza 22). Here Milani is in agreement with Redi's teachings: "onde sempre più mi confermo nella mia antica opinione, che chi vuol ritrovare la verità, non bisogna cercarla a tavolino su' libri, ma fa di mestiere lavorar di propria mano, e veder le cose con gli occhi propri" (Redi to Jacopo He therefore restored us as "the authors of our destiny," having us reject the grounds of judiciary astrology (Stanzas 23-27).51 The superstition of divinatory astrology too, which assigns special influences to the planets, must now subside, considering that all celestial bodies were once united in one mass with the Earth. Only after the Sun started to burn, the dissimilar parts were pushed out by the impetus of its heat and they subsequently took the form of globes and were carried to their own seats. We do not know, however, whether the stars keep always a uniform distance from us. Some of them may well be planets, and even have other new stars around them, as does the Sun, or as it happens with Saturn and Jupiter. But the immense distance fails our sight and impairs our intellect (Stanzas 28-31).
The power of God is not diminished by this last observation, as some may claim. Should there be other peoples living somewhere in the outer space, this would contribute to God's glory. And these peoples might even be dearer to Him if they did not sin as Adam had done. Truth be told, something similar happened already with the discovery of new lands and of new peoples inhabiting the Earth, who were completely unknown to us before. Even the antipodes were deemed impossible, and wrongly so. In fact, God is under no obligation to reveal anything to us. Let's take the example of Andrea Cesalpino, who first discovered the circulation of the blood.52 Some may ask: if God wants us to serve Him, why should He give us only at some point the means to preserve our life such as the knowledge of blood circulation? But how could we ever come to judge God's judgement? (Stanzas 32-36).
God's will is unfathomable, but what He chose not to disclose to us may become known to us in time. He revealed to us faith, religion, and morals, while "the order, the essence and the motion of bodies and nature" He left to our senses and reason to discover.53 Nature is always similar to herself so that, if we spy on her thoroughly with our senses, our reason may get to grasp the hidden laws of her architecture, the eternal mechanism of motion and mass. There is no place for occult virtues or qualities, but only for bodies and movement, atoms and light. Light is also what manifests to us the marvels of the world without there being any need for supposing that images actually detach themselves from the bodies to meet our eyes (Stanzas 37-41). Vision is produced by the reflection of the light on the surface of bodies. Different colours are the effect of the reflection of the light on an object that is projected on the internal membrane (retina) of our eyes. Reflection at different angles, via the nearly infinite facets of opaque bodies, is responsible for different colours. Sight is produced by the contact with the eyes of the cones of light. All of our senses perceive by contact. So does the hearing through agitated air, so does the olfaction or the taste through the motions that titillate the nares or the palate; similarly, our nerves perceive through the pressure of touch. Again, light becomes the architect of the world in that it reflects via the many surfaces of opaque beings. The more numerous its facets, the more luminous the body we perceive. But from a lucid and polished body (like a mirror), light is reflected in straight lines, pure and unmixed, and goes back to its source (Stanzas 42-48).54 Light truly animates the world as it strikes the Earth at different angles during the year, allowing the various seasons when the soil is made sterile or fruitful. When its rays are more direct, they enter the void spaces interspersed within the lumps of earth. Pushing and pressing, they concentrate "the humour in the seeds" and cause changes in the asset of the parts; minerals and vegetables are then generated.55 In an instant, light reaches these parts so far removed from the Sun and its speed is the proof that light is the motor of the universe. Indeed, light also moves the stars nearby and it is redundant to suppose a mover who drags them, or a soul who animates them (Stanzas 49-52).56 54 The theory abolishing the distinction between stable colours and apparent colours is taken from Descartes (Météores, 1637) and Gassendi (Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogeni Laertii, 1649; also, Syntagma philosophicum, 1658=Opera I, 435B Milani dismisses here both the Aristotelian prime mover and Plato's mystical cosmology (especially in the Timaeus), although we have seen that light itself is described at times as a sort of World-Soul, concentrated in the Sun and dispersed in the whole universe.
Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 Light is, in itself, sufficient to create everything from chaos. In the beginning, light, which is also heat and fire, forced out matter, in the way a fountain artificially pushes water upwards. No wonder that light has the power to hurl away weighty parts, as we see that fire does in the eruptions of volcanos such as Vesuvius or Etna. And weighty parts could not naturally be inclined anywhere, because there is no natural centre for them.57 When light gave them an impulse, they resisted motion while they could bear it; when they could resist no longer, light threw them away from the Sun and forced them together, pressing them from the sides. Just as an impetuous torrent, when invading a field, first jolts whatever it encounters and then, at length, wave after wave, reunites everything in one big womb; such is the work of light (Stanzas 53-56).
God bestowed motion only to the atoms of the Sun. The other atoms He created all inert, at rest. If a body moves, that depends on the light imprisoned inside it. At the beginning, when all atoms were mixed in a great chaotic mass, light pushed out matter so as to form the stars and the planets; but some light remained trapped among their weighty parts. This trapped light is alimented by the rays of the Sun, just as happens to the Earth. So, the inert atoms were forced to move against their weight; only when their weight equalled the impulse of motion impressed upon them, would they stop and take their respective seats in the universe (Stanzas 57-59).
Milani next invokes Archimedes, Galileo and Borelli to attest to the veracity of what he is about to proclaim and to assist him further in his explanation of motions. He addresses the difference in the specific weights of bodies of equal mass as being the result of the difference in the amount of empty space within these bodies. In "the great mass where hard and fluid bodies are immersed and mixed" (La Luce, Annotazioni, 44) -that is, in the continuum -the weightier body prevails on the lighter which is cast out; but this does not proceed from a natural rectilinear motion of the atoms downwards, because in this case it should happen differently at the antipodes. Again, Milani suggests that the phenomenon is an effect of a sort of love, but offers nothing further on the question on this occasion.58 However, in the vacuum the weightier body does not prevail over the lighter one (Stanzas 60-63).
A body does not move unless it is moved. If the external impulse to move overcomes its gravity, the body moves; it stops when the impulse stops. These laws are at play since Creation when light carried the celestial bodies to their respective seats; their places were determined when their resistance to motion 57 The loci naturales are therefore denied.

Iovine
Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 equalled the impulse to move that they received by the light. Then, hitting these imperfect globes by taking advantage of their unevenness (celestial bodies are not perfectly plain nor polished), light made them revolve constantly around their own axes and, as a consequence, around the Sun. These celestial bodies cannot fall down nor abandon their orbits since they are kept in place by the constant action of the light, while their weight makes their parts always adherent to one another. Finally, Milani turns to the theory of relative motions, quoting the famous example, from Galileo, of the boat (Stanzas 64-71).
At last, Milani confronts some potential objections. How can light, which is so rarefied, move the celestial globes? Just as air can move the sails of a boat, any small force can move big bodies if the latter have vast surfaces and are suspended, so that their weight is less resistant to motion. But why does the Sun never fade, and how do bodies preserve themselves from being consumed? All bodies have a sphere around them, that some call a "flower," like a scent, to protect them from the loss of their own atoms by the encounter with other forces.59 As for the Sun, emitted light always goes back to the Sun by reflection, but Milani frankly admits that the compensation for the continual loss of light would be too little. Thus, he tentatively suggests that light may circulate in the universe such as blood does in the human body, as clearly shown by Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) (after Cesalpino). Likewise, the lymph circulates through a plant, and water circulates across the earth so that rivers always return to the sea (Stanzas 73-78).
One might ask why the Moon and the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn do not move around the Sun, as do the other celestial globes. Their matter parts were left outside in the formation of the globe around which they revolve, so they started their revolutionary motion only at a later stage, from where they first arrived as a result of the motion first impressed upon them by the light. They preserve this motion as any moving body in the vacuum, where there is no resistance to motion. Also, they are hit by the light reflected by the celestial bodies around which they revolve. This explains why they move constantly around in their orbit, kept in equilibrium by two different impressed motions. Such being the laws of the cosmos, the Earth too should orbit around the Sun as do the other planets, but this is forbidden by the "high bans" of God (Stanzas 79-82).60 59 The hint is to Gassendi's flos materiae. Finally, Milani takes his leave of the reader commenting that poetry is confined to the verisimilar. Therefore, he does not purport to have told the truth but only to have recounted the fictions of his mind (Stanza 83).
We can see that Milani's atomistic physics is based ultimately upon the three principles -matter, motion, and void. But motion is replaced by light, which is constituted by atoms of a special kind; contrary to the atoms of matter, the atoms of light are homogeneous, and they have no mass (nor weight, or gravity). Now, searching for a possible source of Milani's notion of the atoms of light, Galileo comes to mind. In Il Saggiatore (Rome, 1623), Galileo had quizzically sketched a somewhat blurry difference between the fiery minima and the atoms of light, and had argued that the indivisible atoms of light were the "ultimate resolution of matter."61 Fifteen years later, in the Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, he pressed the issue on mathematical grounds: he maintained that everything is constituted by infinite indivisible atoms and infinitesimal voids, and implicitly equated atoms to indivisible points, allowing for mathematical descriptions of physical phenomena. Nonetheless, apart from denying the instantaneous propagation of light which he now believed to possess a measurable speed, every hint to light as the ultimate resolution of beings is abandoned in the Discorsi. According to Redondi, the indivisible atoms of light to which Galileo referred in Il Saggiatore merely served to ease his transition to a mathematical physics.62 While claiming the identity between heat and light, Milani might have chosen a sort of compromise. The particles of various "shape and weight, of which the world is made and into which it is dissolved" (Stanza 10, vv. 7-8) are unequivocally those of matter. But, without the motion impressed upon them by the atoms of light, the particles of matter could not have even emerged from the chaotic mass of the beginning. Also, light is necessary to account for the generation, corruption, and dissolution of bodies. Hence, it could still be true that light, or heat, is the last "resolution" of beings, in the sense that it is their "last solvent" -a notion that speaks directly to the chemist -while the premises for a mathematical physics of abstract quantities are not overturned.
Milani's atomism, moreover, has the advantage of being naturally compatible with Christian faith: any change triggered by light is ultimately willed by God, and providence is part of Creation insofar as light is an architectural force that God Himself called into existence as such. In this perspective, Creation itself, in which void is inherent, becomes almost a strategic asset to 61 Galileo the peculiar atomism of light devised by Milani. That Earth stays at the centre of the cosmos is the only dogma that Milani accepts by faith but, thanks to the Tychonic solution he adopts, his renouncement of heliocentrism is a small price to pay for the many principles of mechanical physics that he manages to salvage and reconcile with Christian religion. On the other hand, Milani does not address theological issues such as the threat to the eucharistic miracle posed by the denial of substantial forms, or the diminishing of God's omnipotence that might be implied by the existence of the void (although this concern could be overlooked, as void is actually full of immaterial light). Paradoxically, Milani's sidestepping of these issues might be understood as an affirmation of faith, since faith and reason have scopes that are different, but not opposite. In this respect, by proposing a physics that is also a metaphysics of light, Milani appears to successfully provide the new philosophers with a working compromise with religion when it came to inquiring into nature's wondrous architecture. 4

Among the novatores: Redi's Friends, Lorenzo di Tommaso and the Congresso medico romano
In January 1685, Redi offered sincere congratulations to Milani; in the Canzone, he had created a work so erudite and sound in explaining certain of the "most difficult issues, and the most uneasy in philosophy," while plying them to the laws of the rhymes, that the physician had read it several times with his friends in Pisa.63 Those friends were some prominent Italian natural philosophers belonging to the Galilean school, and professors at the university This is evidence of the attention that Milani's work received among the novatores, but the part played by Redi was indeed decisive. Acclaimed as the "Tuscan Hermes" (Stanza 24, v. 9), Redi had encouraged Milani from the start to accomplish his Canzone, and he did so perhaps out of a desire for more publicity in select Roman circles. In 1684 Queen Christina of Sweden had granted Redi an association to her Academy, in the hope of attracting the scientist to her court in Rome  poem under Redi's orders.72 Here, he also claims to have thrown away the drafts of two other unsatisfactory poems on philosophical matters: one was on "the natural motions of the bodies and on the impulses from which I believe things are born in each globe"; the other concerned "man." Perhaps Milani wanted to further explore the topic of generation and corruption from a mechanical perspective and to deal also with the critical question of the immortality of the human soul, possibly from the angle suggested by Gassendi's work on this question. But one can only guess. What is certain is that Milani's contact with Redi was established through a physician from Messina, Lorenzo di Tommaso (also Tommasi, Tomassi, de Tomasi, de Tomasso), who after many years in Rome moved to Florence, probably to secure for his son Giovanni a place under Redi's protection and guidance.73 In Rome, this medical doctor was a great advocate of Redi's 72 Milani to Redi, Rome, 15 December 1685: "Quando le giungerà se averà tempo da perdere in leggerla, si compiaccia ricordarsi delle mie proteste che non hanno abilità, né per poesia né per filosofia, di compir l'altezza che hanno preso, e se vi saranno di molti errori nel dire e nella sentenza li scusi, perché l'ho commessi di suo ordine, cioè con proseguirla a sua persuasione, che per altro non mi sarei posto a tale impresa, sì come ho strappati tutti gli abbozzi che avevo fatti per altre due simili canzoni, una che pensavo di poter fare sopra li moti naturali de' gravi e degl'impulsi dai quali credo che nascano tutte le cose in ciascun globo, e l'altra sopra l'uomo, e me ne ritiro perché questa non è riuscita a proposito" (BML, MS Redi 214, fol. 264r-v). 73 The whole correspondence between Redi and Milani is interspersed with news concerning di Tommaso, father and son. The involvement of Lorenzo and Giovanni di Tommaso with La Luce emerges after the poem's conclusion, in a passage of the Annotazioni concerning the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Against the common opinion that credited this discovery to William Harvey, Milani attributes it instead to Andrea Cesalpino, just as Lorenzo di Tommaso had taught him. He then describes Lorenzo as the paragon of the experimental philosopher. Lorenzo had performed "a most perfect anatomy of the most secret things of the human body, governed by a profound mathematical science and, besides a perfect philosophy, he possessed an unspeakable erudition"; over the course of thirty years, he had read, day and night, all kinds of books, old and new, and "had verified each truth against the experiences of others, which he had repeated, and with other experiments conceived and performed by himself."75 Milani hopes to say more in the future to credit Lorenzo's knowledge, and even, with the assistance of Giovanni, to publish some of the "secrets of nature" discovered by the elder di Tommaso.76 Unfortunately, this never happened, and no further information on Lorenzo and Giovanni di Tommaso's work is left to us, except for some scattered but relevant elements.
Lorenzo participated in the sessions of the Congresso medico romano, the medical academy with a penchant for Lucretian atomism and Cartesian mechanical philosophy promoted by Girolamo Brasavola since early 1680s. The Congresso was hosted in his home, and was later to be put to trial by the Accademia Esperimentale, che ella con tanta gloria ha aperta nella sua nobilissima Casa, egli vi si farà onore" ( Together with Brasavola, he gave also the following lectures: "Whether the seed is generated in the testicles or in the prostate," "Whether fat may nourish in the absence of food"; two other lectures -"On the causes of hereditary diseases" and "On an unheard of vomit of blood and worms" -he pronounced alone (the translations are mine); see the Congresso medico romano, Angelo Pierleoni, heard Lorenzo di Tommaso speak very highly of Redi and, thanks to the introduction of his son Giovanni, was finally able to offer his services to the scientist.81 Moreover, we can link Lorenzo di Tommaso directly to Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, whose posthumous publication (financed by the Queen of Sweden) of the De motu animalium (2 vols., Rome, 1680-1681) was greatly inspirational to the members of the Congresso. In his testament, Borelli left a sum of money to Lorenzo di Tommaso as a payment for the medical treatment he and Lucantonio Porzio had given to him on his deathbed.82 The friendship between Borelli and Lorenzo had begun in Messina where both attended to the edition of the works of Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) on Archimedes and were in close contact with Malpighi.83 These Maurolico manuscripts had been given to 81 Pierleoni to Redi, Rome, 4 August 1685: "Mi rappresentò la fortuna negli anni passati qui in Roma di poter sentire lungo tempo la viva voce del fu Sig. Lorenzo de Tomasso messinese, che con dimostrar chiaramente il nuovo sistema medico, ch'egli con lungo studio, and risky political manoeuvre in which Borelli had participated, no doubt through Christina of Sweden's network -made of Lorenzo di Tommaso a welcome party in the Queen's circle in Rome. Borelli was a member of the Royal Academy of the Queen and of the Physico-mathematical Academy of Giovanni Giustino Ciampini. Perhaps Lorenzo di Tommaso himself had also frequented these institutions, but he certainly was a member of the Congresso medico romano, as we have seen. And there is no doubt that Milani was privy to all these erudite conversations.

An Alchemical Reading: Giuseppe Giusto Guaccimannni, the Umoristi and Christina of Sweden
Rome was an effervescent milieu for the elaboration and the spreading of atomistic and corpuscularian theories in the seventeenth century, especially in combination with medical practice; all of this offers the proper context for Milani's La Luce.87 Roman academies were hotbeds of debate and confrontation over the new science. Among them, a special place belonged to Ciampini's Academy founded in 1677 and to the circle gathered around the Royal Academy opened by Christina of Sweden in 1674. But we must not forget the "academy in print" that was the Giornale de' Letterati, a publication begun in 1668 under the care of Francesco Nazari, philosophy professor at La Sapienza, that featured Ciampini as a prominent member of the editorial board. 88 Favouring the new ideas in science, the Giornale split in two in 1675, when Nazari started his own publication under the same name, leaving Ciampini and his party to lead the other. The break-up might be attributed to the cautiousness embraced by Ciampini following the appearance, on 2 December 1673, of a circular wherein the Inquisition prohibited any publication concerning atomism.89 Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 However, a couple of years after Nazari's secession, Ciampini started his own Academy under the protection and, presumably, the financial aid of the Queen. This Academy was founded with the ambition of resuming the Cimento's programme. 90 Because these topics remained confined to private circles of scholars and consortia of professional practitioners, with no attempt at carrying out a public reformation of philosophy, they were tolerated and even afforded a certain freedom in papal Rome. This was the case at least until 1690, when the Congresso medico romano was tried by the Inquisition for harbouring atheistic ideas and Democritean doctrines, and subsequently disbanded.91 This harsh fate may have been precipitated by the trial of the Neapolitan Inquisition against the "atheists" -a group of four young lawyers who had embraced the corpuscularian and mechanical philosophy -which had begun a couple of years earlier. 92 As animated as the discussions on the new science might have been in Rome in the last decades of the century, the Academy of the Umoristi hardly stands out in this regard, being essentially a literary institution. Closely associated with the Roman court, the Umoristi had nevertheless acquired an international renown since their foundation in 1600. But even when their celebrity came to challenge that of the Lincei -of which several Umoristi were also membersonly rarely did they tread the path of the scientific debate.93 In fact, the obvious common ground for Milani and Redi was poetry. As we have seen, the two became acquainted because Giovanni di Tommaso had sent a few sonnets by Iovine Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 Redi to Milani, "thinking," joked the latter, "that he was a poet just because he was a member of the Academy of the Umoristi."94 The Roman Academy was not unknown to Redi, who had participated in some sessions on several occasions when he was in Rome between 1650 and 1654. Just after his arrival in the city, confiding in Carlo Roberto Dati, Redi admitted that he was rather disappointed by his first experience with the Umoristi: the lecture had been "most ordinary" and the poems "most arch-ordinary"; thus, Redi concluded that the Florentine academies were not entirely out of the Umoristi's league.95 In any event, Redi's account, influenced by a certain Tuscan pride, did not discourage Dati from joining the Umoristi (if he was not already a member by this date).96 A few years later, Redi and Dati were to found the Cimento Academy (1657-1667) in Florence, a decisive institution for the pursuit of experimental 94 Milani to Redi, Rome, 4 August 1685: "Quindi io, che se bene dalle necessitose applicazioni legali sono impedito d'inoltrarmi ne' studi della vera filosofia di cui principalmente goderei, tuttavia qualche volta rubbo il tempo a me stesso per conversar con gli uomini di vera dottrina, o per goder leggendo delle loro virtuose fatiche, è già gran tempo che divenni ammiratore del gran merito di V.S. Illustrissima e desidero d'esser suo servitore e vie più me n'incogliono l'espressioni d'altissima stima che ne faceva con tutti la dolce memoria del Sig. Lorenzo de Tomasso, uomo appresso di chi ben lo conosceva et appresso di me specialmente di somma autorità per l'esperienza ch'ebbe sin che visse in Roma della sua fondata dottrina. Ma ecco che improvisamente il Sig. Giovanni figlio del medesimo (che gode la gran fortuna di sentirla in voce), credendomi poeta solo perché sono nel numero degli Academici Humoristi, mi mandò quattro sonetti di V.S. Illustrissima che hanno fatto giubilar di contento e me e li miei buoni e dotti amici in veder così ben maneggiata la vera maniera del comporre con dirsi graziosamente cose grandi, e con semplici parole com'è uso del presente volgo de' poeti. Et abbiamo concluso che a raggione Apollo fu appresso l'antichità re de' medici perché era gran poeta e re de' poeti perché era gran medico, udendosi che in V.S. Illustrissima sono così eminentemente unite quelle due altissime professioni" (BML, MS Redi 216, fols. 366v-367r endeavours, engaged in composing his own major unpublished work, the Dialoghi eruditi.101 In a 4-volume manuscript, these 42 fictional dialogues address, among other matters, the philosophical import of the Umoristi's literary activities. Guaccimanni affirms that their new ways in poetry were paralleled by their engagement in the new natural philosophy (although no other scientific production of the Academy apart from Milani's Canzone is known at present, either in poetry or prose).
The claim that the Umoristi were involved with experimental philosophy would hardly fit the institution as such, and is likely the result of the narrative that Guaccimanni intended to establish. He attributes to the Roman Academy an early adherence to atomism due to its Lucretian motto "REDIT AGMINE DULCI" (De rerum natura, VI, v. 637), and even alludes to the academic emblem, a cloud of vapours pouring sweet rain over the sea, as a shower of atoms (see infra). Achieved around 1610, after a two-year internal debate, the emblem was communicated in a discourse published in 1611 by Girolamo Aleandro, one of the Academy's legislators. Although Aleandro never mentions atomism, he invokes alchemical distillations to elucidate the symbolic meaning of the meteorological phenomenon represented in the emblem; the refinement of salt water into fresh water was a lively image of the beneficial transformation that the Umoristi were meant to receive when becoming members. Quite possibly, Aleandro was influenced by two treatises published in Rome by the Linceo Giovanni Battista della Porta and dedicated to the Lincei's prince Federico Cesi: De distillatione (1608) and De aëris transmutationibus (1610). The Discorso shows that Aleandro believed in the possibility that the skies and the sublunar world were made of the same matter, essentially water, according to the Scriptures.102 How far these ideas were rooted in the chemiletters of Guaccimanni  confused, passive matter, in a way that calls in alchemical operations as much as mechanical philosophy.
I will speak in confirmation of Your Majesty. Other than Light and Water, nothing else is exposed to us in the Book of the Holy Genesis: and Water and Light (or Fire) are the principles followed by many ancient philosophers. Whether that Fire be the Archeus, the World-Soul or anything similar, I know that this Fire was with the Primal Water, but it did not show as it lacked motion: Et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi. Nevertheless, Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas, which is the same as saying that there was Light but not in actu exercito in the earthly saline principles; or, as others want, motion had not yet agitated the earthly principle but pure (because this Earth we walk upon is not earth at all, but a sediment or a caput mortuum of the earth that flies above us Guerra. E questo amore e questo spirito, o desiderio, non fu altro che il moto; il quale non si può dir casuale per quelli che non vogliono questo moto perché la benedizione divina fece architettonico questo moto, lo fece dispositore, conservatore, fabbricatore e, compartivamente inteso, ancor distruttore del tutto. E però non si possono sentire quegli sciocchi i quali sentendo dir atomi e moto vogliono porre in riga d'atei tutti quelli che filosofarono sul moto e sulle particole, quasi che Iddio non avesse l'autorità di benedire il moto come benedì l'acque, la terra, la Luce […]. Del resto, ognuno sa che questo moto non è il caso, ma chiamasi il 'moto nella materia,' la quale mentre fu benedetta fu benedetto ancora il moto […]. E noi, quando discorriam del moto, discorriamo con la Maestà Vostra che sa che la natura ha un moto diverso da quello ch'è il correre sino a Ponte Molle il qual moto pose norma e regola a tutto […]. Credono essi sciocchi che Cartesio e Gassendo prima di porsi a scrivere non abbiano veduto duecento volte la filosofia scolastica aristotelica?" (Giuseppe Giusto Guaccimanni, Dialoghi eruditi, BNCR, MS Ges. 243, XII,[193][194][195][196]). and at a microscopic level, suggesting a way to harmonise astronomy, physics and biology through the principles of the mechanical philosophy. On the other, La Luce achieves this result within the Christian framework offered by the Book of Genesis, a text that traditionally attracted speculations in Hermetic and alchemical literature. By drawing an analogy, in the Dialoghi eruditi, between matter and primal water, and between motion and light/fire, Sheffer's passionate confirmation of the Queen's philosophy introduces a consideration of the idea of "Sulphur." This invites the readership to revisit those passages as treating of the two principles of alchemy: Light (Fire) and Water. These same two principles could also be approached as Sulphur and Mercury (or Alkali and Acid in a more chemistry-orientated nomenclature). Sheffer even speaks of the earth we walk upon as a sort of caput mortuum, an expression that defines the residue of alchemical operations, by contrast to a pure saline earth "that flies above us," which alludes to Salt, the third alchemical principle since Paracelsus. 108 As it happens, the erudite conversation staged by Guaccimanni proceeds on alchemical terms in dialogue XIII, when the Queen herself intervenes to elucidate a few lines of the Tabula smaragdina, considered the Ur-text of alchemical literature.109 In Hermes' Tablet I see all that Paracelsus once observed, that is to say a universal analogy of many professions, an analogy that veils many minds […]. Pater eius est Sol, Luna vero Mater, Ventus portavit in Utero suo; this is the analogy with the universal substance of the Sun and of Water, who are the father and the mother of all things; and Wind is the bosom or vehicle of the Air, through which the irradiations and corpuscles of the superior world insinuate themselves into the inferior world. This is a veil because it is an interpretation by analogy that our Tablet receives.110 Soon afterwards, counting on the assistance of the Paris professor and illustrious champion of Democritean atomism, Jean-Chrysostom Magnen (1590-1679), Christina explains another passage of the Tabula: Et sicut res omnes fuerunt ab uno meditatione unius, sic omnes res natae ab hac una re adaptatione. 111 The Queen claims that by the words meditatio and adaptatio one should understand "motion according to the modern philosophies of the atoms and corpuscles."112 As Guaccimanni portrays it, the Queen's goal was to combine alchemy and atomism, and to harmonise both with Christian doctrine. The Tabula smaragdina plays the interim role between the Book of Genesis, alchemically interpreted in the wake of the so-called philosophia mosaica, and modern mechanical philosophy.
An overview of the sources of this peculiar hermetico-alchemico-atomistic philosophy exceeds the scope of our present article, but we may certainly address a couple of influential works. One of the Queen's earliest encounters with a doctrine formulated along these lines may be traced back to the Consensus Hermetico-Mosaicus (1644) published under the pseudonym of Salomon Majus by the Lutheran Friedrich Menius (1593-1659) who, tried for heresy in Stockholm, had his life spared after public recantation by appealing to Christina.113 Additionally, the lecture staged by Guaccimanni might be analysed against Jan Baptista van Helmont's Ortus medicinae (Amsterdam, 1648; expanded, 1682). Van Helmont is indeed profusely mentioned in the Dialoghi eruditi, but this was in connection with the ridicule of his misconstrual of two Paracelsian notions: the Alchaest, the universal dissolvent capable of turning anything into water; and the Archeus, the agent residing in bodily organs and presiding over their functioning. Even though all the elements of the to Lucretius always needs a double seed (semper enim partus duplici de semine constat, IV, v. 1229), Bonarelli gives this explanation: moving across the expanded and infinite space, the luminous atoms grow in the vehicle of the air; and, upon entering the compounds, these corpuscles, previously universal and undifferentiated, and grown larger in the air, embrace the specified and particular corpuscles of this and that other compound, as it is necessary; thus, the marriage of male and female corpuscles is consummated.117 The active luminous male atoms and passive female atoms emerging from Guaccimanni's Dialoghi could be identified respectively with the atoms of light and the atoms of matter about which Milani provides his own comments in La Luce. Given the friendship between Milani and Guaccimanni, and their connection to Christina of Sweden, it is not far-fetched to suppose that their works depended on some sort of common philosophical foundation, as could well have been discussed within the Queen's entourage. Thus, besides Redi's concerns, Milani's La Luce might have tacitly served the alchemical doctrine expounded by Guaccimanni in his Dialoghi: namely, that the same universal principle (a sort of twofold semen alchemically speaking -with Salt mediating between Mercury and Sulphur -, or "motion in matter" in mechanical terms) is responsible for all generation in nature.

The Publication of La Luce and a Failed Pythagorean Transmigration
In August 1685, when Milani was still working on his poem, Guaccimanni addressed to Redi a sonnet under the telling title La trasmigrazione pitagorica ("the Pythagorean transmigration"). 118 He asserts here that a same spiritus Iovine Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 172-217 level, where a knife would prove grossly inaccurate. Besides, when collaborating with the Cimento, Redi had collected his laboratory experiments with the salts obtained from organic substances; his notes reveal him to have been an expert distiller and were published in the Giornale de' Letterati in 1674.124 Redi was perhaps less captivated than was the Queen by metaphysics and by the quest for an all-encompassing philosophical system as a framework for his experiments. Thus, the favour bestowed on La Luce was probably an effect of Redi's efforts to contribute to the Queen's endeavours (if not a clever way to excuse himself from further engagement). But this was not the case with Guaccimanni. In 1690 the Congresso medico romano was shut down. Worse still, Christina's own legacy was in danger, when claims upon it were made by the Arcadia Academy, founded in 1690 by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (a former Umorista) after the Queen's death. The Arcadia, of which Redi too became a member, proposed to revive a classical taste in poetry and endorsed a more conformist attitude towards knowledge. Yet, according to Guaccimanni, the institution rapaciously preyed upon the few remaining Umoristi who had been privy to the Hermetic doctrines and alchemical practice of the Queen.125 A precious allusion to these teachings having actually taken place surfaces in a discourse by the Umorista Michele Brugueres (1644-1722), an intimate friend of Guaccimanni's and Milani's, delivered at the Arcadia upon the anniversary of the Queen's death in 1691: I will not tell you again of when she explained the liquid nature of the skies, that we, silly, thought were made of bronze, and the regulated errors of the stars, of which each of us knew well the name but not the virtue and the influx. What should I say of the stupendous transmutation of metals that we derided at first but then, with the example of the acid that is so quick in coagulating milk, which is most liquid, we believed to be likely?126