Carteggio tra Arcangelo Scacchi e Quintino Sella La questione dell’Accademia Nazionale

Abstract

The article reports 72 letters that make up the known correspondence between A. Scacchi and Q. Sella. Except one, all letters are kept at the Fondazione Sella onlus (Biella). The most important topic discussed in the correspondence concerns the different opinions on the plan to unify the Lincei and XL academies and on the co-option of some new academic members, e.g. Strüver and Darwin. The second important topic deals with Scacchi’s scientific research on the following topics: 1) the morphological properties of crystals that he called polyhedry and polysymmetry; 2) vesbium, a hypothetical new chemical element component of the mineral vesbina; 3) a sample of sellaite (iron fluoride) identified as a new molybdate; 3) fluor-rich volcanos.