Travels

Prior to his appointment as Prefect of the Botanical Garden, Marsili makes trips and sojourns in Italy and abroad, which enables him to deepen his studies, get in touch with important intellectuals and contemporary scientists and enrich his book collection.

We follow his steps through letters to friends and what friends write about him:

1751

Pontebba 15/1/1751, letter (MS. 620 v. 5 n. 107) of Marsili to Gennari in which he reports that he has gone to stay with his uncle to escape the black humours of Venice. The words for his native country are not enthusiastic: "immortal muds from these countries, rain, wind, cold, snow", "Food, gaming and the tankard make up the delights of the place".

Pontebba 4/2/1751, letter from Marsili to Gennari (MS. 620 v. 5 n. 120) which shows the drawing of a Roman tombstone found in Gemona.

Pontebba 20/2/1751 letter from Marsili to Gennari (MS: 620 v. 5 n. 126) with the request for a book for the bookseller Battaglia, "Le passetemps royal de Versailles ou les amours secrets de Louis XIV with Madame de Maintenon", a pamphlet by Pierre Lenoble, printed in Cologne by Pierre Marteau in 1695, with subsequent editions. According to some, authors and typographical notes are false (see the Princeton University Library).

Venice 13/4/1751 letter from Gennari to Antonio Maria Borromeo in Padova which reports that Marsili has returned from Pontebba "fat and stocky", but that in a few days he is back to his old self and has a big nose.

From August 1751 to April 1752 letters from Marsili to Gennari from Padova and from Venice (MS. 620 v. 5 and 6).

1752

Padua 26/3/1752 letter from Marsili to Gennari (MS. 620 v. 6 n. 21): "last night a mischief was made... we had a good meal and drank out of duty..."

Bologna 11/7/1752 letter from Marsili to Gennari (MS. 620 v. 6 n. 52) in which he announces that he is about to leave for Florence.

1752–1753 from August 1752 to June 1753 letters from Marsili to Gennari from Florence and from Impruneta on his studies and research on some books (MS. 620 v. 6).

1753

1753 from November Marsili writes to Gennari from Venice (MS. 620 v. 6).

1754

Venice 6/15/1754 letter from Marsili to Gennari in which he informs him that he is preparing to go to France (MS. 620 v. 7 n. 20).

Paris 0/9/1754 letter from Marsili to Sebastiano Coi (MS. 680) in which he writes that he is bored, that in Paris they don't like foreigners, that "the French are a bunch of crazy people with no brains and no heart" and "the city is substantial only for its size and number of inhabitants."

Padua10/20/1754 letter from Gennari to the abbot Giovanni Nani in Venice: Marsili is "grim and discontented to have taken a trip to Paris where the grandeurs so magnified by us are as imaginary as the gardens of Alcina; blessing the Italians and Italy, and that generally the French seem to him a race of madmen and blockheads."

1755

Paris 10/1/1755 letter from Marsili to Gennari, writing that he has been in Paris for a year and a half and is about to go to London. (MS. 620 v. 7 n. 45) He is in Paris "with little profit and no pleasure" and plans to buy books in London and then sell them on his return.

1757

London January 1757, dedication of Philip Miller to Marsili on a volume (Padua's Botanical Garden Library O.f.81).

London 20/2/1757 letter of Marsili to Gennari: "I bought a lot of books both in Paris and London... and now I feel as though it will be a thousand years before I am home and can order and enjoy them in peace among my relatives and friends. I am tired and bored of traveling and even if London is excellent and very useful for scholarly people... it is preferable to any other city in the world for freedom and for the sanctity and respect of the law"; despite having friends among the English literati, he writes that "the English are rather wild at home and do not love and do not esteem the stranger". He plans to return to Italy - "the most beautiful country in the world" - in three or four months, through Holland and southern France, arriving in Rome and Naples and then withdraw to Venice to be a doctor (MS. 620 v. 7 n. 156).

London 22/7/1757 letter from Marsili to Gennari with notes on book purchases for himself and others (MS. 620 v. 7 n. 181).

1758

London 1/09/1758 letter from Marsili to Gennari announcing his return to Italy (MS. 620 v. 8 n. 61).

The letter of Giovanni Marsili from London dated 11 September 1758 (courtesy of the Biblioteca Antica del Seminario Vescovile di Padova)

Leyden 25/9/1758 dedication of D. van Royen to Marsili on a volume (Padua's Botanical Garden Library APL.427).

Paris 10/10/1758 dedicated to Marsili of the Count of Caylus on one volume (Padua's Botanical Garden Library APL.568).

1759

Padua 31/1/1759 Letter from Gennari to the abbot Domenico Salvagnini in Palermo: Marsili calls on Gennari and has "returned from the Vintner as he left; that is, without bringing with him any defect of those nations which he has lived with for a such a very long time: something unusual in our travellers."