Antonio M. Lorgna, mathematician and hydraulic engineer, in 1776 — as we learn from his letter of that year to the mathematician Malfatti — conceived the idea of providing scientists in Italy with a periodical journal in which from time to time they could publish the results of their work. This idea matured slowly and gradually in the mind of Lorgna, who was the first Italian to foresee the need for a united Italy and to work for its realization.


Lorgna mentions this possibility in another letter to his friend Malfatti, in 1769, and again in 1776, when he refers to a “Society of learned men, each of whom will write at least one article every two years, which will appear in a volume to be published under the title Atti liberi d’Italia”, adding that his aim was to “form an Academy of all Italian scientists”.

In 1781, Lorgna decided to invite the most outstanding scientists of his time to join him. He wrote to Alessandro Volta, to Lazzaro Spallanzani and to other scientists who did “such great honor to Italy” a letter which began with these words: “I have no doubt that we Italians, lacking a National Society of Science and Arts where we can present our works, are in a worse condition than all other nations”. In the same letter he added that the Academy which he wished to create was a “Free Association”, emphasizing that this “Association” “was not of any one State but of all of Italy” and that it was his aim to make “some day of separate man a body worthy of respect”, “a united body with patriotism as its only bond”. “Patriotism” for an Italy that would be no longer divided, but one and united.
Alessandro Volta, Lazzaro Spallanzani, Luigi Lagrange, Ruggero Boscovich and all the others approached replied enthusiastically to the proposal of Lorgna, who in all his letters always proclaimed the idea of Italian unity: “This is the first time that we see Italians united in science”. “How simple it is to govern this emerging organism of the Union of Italians, learned but divided, in a single body”. “The beautiful and glorious determination of the Italians finally to form a national scientific body after the long separation which threatened to keep the name of Italy in perpetual darkness”.

In 1782, Lorgna officially founded his Academy under the symbolic name of “Società Italiana” (Italian Society), calling on forty of the most famous scientists from every part of Italy to become members; these would then later elect their own successors.
Because of the number of its members, the Society from the very beginning came to be popularly known as “la Società dei XL” (The Society of the Forty).
In the same year, 1782, Lorgna published the first number of the Memorie of the Society, in the preface of which he expressed his patriotic ideas, stating that “the disadvantage of Italy is that its forces are divided” and that, in order to unite them, it is necessary “to begin, combining the knowledge and work of so many famous separate Italians” and “to rely on a motivating principle of men who were always active and often working with enthusiasm, i.e., the love of one’s country”. This country Lorgna calls the “Italian nation” and he predicted: “Dear gentlemen from beyond the mountains, just wait and in a few years you will see Italy in a different light. For the present it is enough that we are united”.


The seat of the Academy was to be near its President, and as Lorgna was from Verona, the first seat of the Academy was in Verona.
The “Italian Society” was an immediate success, and in a few years came to be considered the sole representativa of Italian science: Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, the foreign Academies from the French to the Russian and later the American established close relations with the “Italian Society”, which changed its name after Lorgna’s death to “Società Italiana delle Scienze detta dei XL” (Italian Society of Sciences known as the Forty).

The second President of the Society was the astronomer Antonio Cagnoli, who had lived for many years in Paris, where he was a pupil of Lalande, and had then moved to Verona in his native country. Here he established his own observatory, which was damaged during the bombardment of Verona in 1797 by Napoleon’s army.
On that occasion Cagnoli had the good fortune to meet General Bonaparte and informed him that the bombardment by the French cannons had seriously damaged his observatory and that as President of the “Italian Society” he was very concerned for the future of this society because of the war operations.
Napoleon asked for full details regarding the aims and purposes of this “Italian Society” and then assured Cagnoli that he needed not fear for its future. He offered to take society under his own personal protection and promised to reimburse Cagnoli for all the expense of rebuilding his observatory. Some time later he confirmed by letter what he had told Cagnoli in person and informed him that he had arranged for a financial contribution of ten thousand francs to the “Italian Society”.

It is well known that Napoleon was very much interested in scientific progress and very generous with help to scientists. One is therefore not surprised to learn of his immediate interest in the “Italian Society” — which was not just a metter of general interest and sympathy but a specific and political interest related to his objectives at that moment, i.e., the creation in Italy of a political state organization which, while defending the hegemony interests of France, could represent and unite the entire nation.

The “national” character of the “Italian Society” did not escape Napoleon, who immediately thought of using it for his own purposes; and so on October 26, 1797, nine days after the signing of the Treaty of Campoformio, he hastened — unknown to Cagnoli and the Forty — to sign a decree by which he transferred the “Italian Society” to Milan.
He made this transfer because, knowing that Verona would pass under Austrian rule, he wanted a national Italian Society that would have its seat in free and independent territory, such as, theoretically, the recently created Cisalpine Republic.
In spite of his protests, Cagnoli finally had to agree, and the “Italian Society of Sciences” was transferred to Milan as a national academy financed by the republican Government, and then to Modena — also in the Cisalpine Republic — where Cagnoli had been appointed by the Government as professor of “sublime mathematics” at the military academy founded there under the new Republic. When the Republic became the Kingdom of Italy, the Society continued to have the protection and the financing of the government, which ended only with the fall of Napoleon.


At the Congress of Vienna, Francis IV, Archduke of Austria and formed Duke of Modena, aspired to succeed Napoleon as King of Italy, but his hope did not materialize since Austria wanted to annex Lombardy. Francis IV was sent back to his Duchy of Modena, where he did not abandon his aspirations. From the beginning of his restoration he sought to expand his territories at the expense of his neighbors, and he plotted with everyone, even the Carbonari,1 in the hope of becoming the candidate for the crown of hypothetical Constitutional Kingdom of Italy.

In this ambitious program of his the “Italian Society of Sciences” could constitute a pawn in his game. Therefore he granted the Society his personal protection and financing, — without depriving it of its national Italian character and without trasforming it into an Academy of Modena or of Este — for with the presence of the “Italian Society of Sciences” Modena would become the seat of an “Italian” institution, the national center of “Italian scientists”, and to this center the Duke would assign the task of “keeping all of Italy informed” of the results and discoveries of foreign scientists in the field of physics and mathematics.

Thus the “Italian Society” remained in Modena until the Kingdom of Italy was established, and when Rome was proclaimed the capital of Italy the Society was transferred to Rome (1875).

The Italian Government recognized and financed the Italian Society of Sciences, which assumed the name and the function of the “National Academy of Sciences known as the Forty”, which then established national awards for Mathematic, Physics and Natural Sciences.

The works of the Society continued to be regularly; thus for two centuries they constitute the archives of the most outstanding Italian scientific achievement. The greatest scientists of Italy have been members of the Academy: from Volta to Marconi, from Spallanzani to Golgi, from Pacinotti to Fermi, from Avogadro to Natta, from Ruffini to Severi, from Cotugno to Castellani and to Amaldi, and that the Nobel Prize has been conferred on seven of its members: Marconi, Golgi, Fermi, Natta, Bovet, Rubbia and Levi-Montalcini.

Lorgna’s main purpose in creating the Italian Society was to emphasize, without political implications, the existence of an Italian scientific community, but he also had in mind, almost as if to stress the Italian nature of the XL, the appoinement of foreign members. The first rules of the Italian Society in fact provided for a class of twelve foreing members.
The first members elected included scientists of great renown, chosen with proportional geographic and disciplinary criteria: the German Achard, the Swiss Bonnet, the French Buffon, the Dutch Camper, the Spanish Campomanes, the Austrian De Borne, the American Franklin, the Danish Muller, the Lithuanian Narvoysz, the Russian Pallas, the British Priestley and the Swedish Scheele.

For two centuries they were succeeded by scientists from all over the world, representing the most prestigious names in world science, from Condorcet, who wrote of his esteem for the unusual structure of the Academy, to Einstein, who, on the occasion of his election in 1925, expressed his gratitude to the Italian members Ricci-Curbastro and Levi-Civita for having with their works made possible his work on relativity.

The cordial relationship between the Italian Society and its foreign members is apparent from the letters, which are still preserved in the Academy’s archives, from Ampère, Arago, De Candolle, Berzelius, Cuvier, Davis, Faraday, Humboldt and Liebig.

Another point of contact with the foreign scientific world is the Matteucci Medal for Physics, which, unlike the Medal of the XL for Mathematics and Physical and Natural Sciences, is not limited by rule to an Italian scientist; it has often distinguished the work of outstanding foreign scientists, among whom we might mention Lord Kelvin, Victor Regnault, Thomas A. Edison, A. Hertz, Werner Heisemberg, who represent well known schools that have left an indelible mark in the history of scientific progress.

Mention should also be made of two great scientists who, on the occasion of the Centenary of the atomic laws, were awarded with the Avogadro Medal: Sir Cyril Hinshelwood and Linus Pauling.

The beginning of relations with foreign scientific academies can be said to have coincided with the very birth of the Italian Society, through an immediate exchange of its Journals with other academies all over the world, such as the Royal Society of London (1822), the Petrograd Academy of Science (1822), and the Royal Academy of Science of Paris (1833). An important moment of the international collaboration of the Academy was the meeting, held in September 1982, on the occasion of the Bicentenary, attended by the Presidents or the Representatives of 40 Academies and Scientific Institutions from all over the World, and 10 from Italy.

This meeting in a new spirit made possible a better collaboration between the Academies on several specific topics, as the reduction of nuclear weapons and the cooperation in the scientific development of the Third World Countries.

Under this optic the role of foreign members of the Academy a great importance in the activity and in the international relationship of the Academy.

At presente the foreign members represent also new continents and their scientific communities.
To this must be added the continuous contact with the Academies of countries from which our Academy receives important material in exchange for its own publications.