Scientific literature

The Polytechnic

Periodical founded in 1839 in Milan thanks to the agreement between Father Ottavio Ferrario, director of the Fatebenefratelli Pharmacy and chemistry expert, Professor Giovan Battista Menini, who had the initial idea for the newspaper, and Carlo Cattaneo.

The latter, having matured after years of intense collaboration the break with the editorial group of Francesco Lampato, eager to find a context in which to realise his programs, decides to approach the two scholars, who shortly before had obtained a licence from the government. Not much is known precisely about the original plan of the first founders, except that Menini chose the name of the newspaper, and that its physiognomy is such as to encourage Cattaneo to join the enterprise. He does, however, set conditions, since he obtains that he be granted full interference in the "Politecnico", that is, complete responsibility for the newspaper, which thus becomes a purely Cattaneo work, taking on the burden of administration, losses and profits, and promising in exchange to pay six hundred Austrian lire annually to Menini and Ferrario, who would later exempt him from all payments. With the publication of the Manifesto, which, although written by Cattaneo, appears to be signed by the two original founders, the first series was announced, printed until the end of 1843 by Luigi Pirola and for 1844 by Giuseppe Chiusi. Issue I, dated January 1839, was published in April of the same year. In the text, reproduced as a preface to volume I, corresponding to the first semester, Cattaneo enunciates his programme for a modern, civilly committed journalism, and indicates as the fundamental intention of the periodical that of providing readers with "the most prompt knowledge of that part of truth which from the arduous regions of Science can easily be brought to fertilise the field of Practice, and grow as a support and comfort to common prosperity and civil coexistence". In the belief that "every science, even the most speculative, must sooner or later, even from its most arid branches, produce some unexpected fruit for human society", the newspaper acts as an interpreter and mediator between the world of specialists and the public, "between the contemplations of the few and the habits of the many". The background within which the cultural proposal is inserted is the Lombard situation, in which "the need to promote [...] every kind of industry is now all too evident". Aware of the level reached by agriculture which "persevering for twenty centuries" has brought the region to a degree of "incomparable fertility", and of the need for transformations in the manufacturing sector, Cattaneo places the "Politecnico" at the service of "that industrial spirit which for some time has been busy propagating the use of fossil fuels, the newest methods of lighting, and the first drafts of studies on railways", seen as "weak signs of that new industrial life, without which the densely populated population of these provinces could no longer maintain its envied prosperity". Interpreting the concept of art in the broadest and most comprehensive sense, as "application of human knowledge to the uses of the most cultured coexistence", the monthly magazine places itself at the point of mediation between research and social life, offering contributions that, depending on their extension and nature, are grouped in the issues in "Original Memories", "Magazine", i.e. reviews, and "News", which Cattaneo would have liked to be "a forest". As for the topics examined, the attention for the applicative sides of knowledge and the dual interest in the arts "daughters of the mathematical and physical sciences" and in the "immense apparatus of social art, on which nations sometimes flourish without knowing how" are underlined; other strands are those of the "Mental Arts", in which man can "make himself a study of the intimate part of himself", and of the "Fine Arts". The fields of intervention of the newspaper find in the note ...

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GENERAL TREATISE OF PHYSICS EDITED BY THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL MOLECULES AND CRYSTALS

First edition.

Author: ENRICO FERMI

Location: Published in 1934 by Zanichelli

Hardback with editorial cloth cover with titles on the front and spine, dimensions approximately 16 x 24 cm, 303 pages. From the summary: 1. Molecules - 2. Crystals - 3. The statistics of quantum theory.

Excellent example.

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