Melchisédech Thévenot

Melchisédech Thévenot , or Melchisédec Thévenot (* around 1620, † October 29, 1692 in Issy ) was a French naturalist and writer . He is known as the inventor of the spirit level and the author of the first French treatise on the art of swimming . He also worked as a cartographer , orientalist and diplomat . In his collection of travelogues, he brought together everything that an educated European of the 17th century could know about the world.

Life

Thévenot's origins are shrouded in mystery and his educational path is unknown. Because of his Hebrew first name Melchizedech, it was assumed that he was of Jewish descent. It is possible that he came from a Huguenot family , since his original baptismal name apparently was Nicolas. Accordingly, he would have received his second name in honor of a maternal grandfather, a certain Melchisédech Garnier († 1637), "avocat" des Parlements in Paris. This could explain, at least in part, the origin of his considerable private fortune. Allegedly, Thévenot spoke English, Greek, Latin and Hebrew as well as several oriental languages, including Arabic and Turkish. That is why he is often confused with his nephew, Jean de Thévenot , a traveler to the Orient . (The illustration in Gerrit Lindeboom's edition of the correspondence between Thevenot and Jan Swammerdam shows the nephew, not the uncle. No portrait of Melchisédech has survived.)

It is known, however, that Thévenot worked as the French envoy in Genoa in 1647 , later in Rome , where he took part in the conclave for the election of Pope Alexander VII in 1655 . In the 1660s, his house in Issy became the meeting point for a group of scientists who helped found the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1666 . He maintained a lively correspondence with many important scientists of his time, such as Christiaan Huygens and Henry Oldenburg . In the winter of 1665, Niels Stensen dissected a human brain in front of an interested audience in his house. In 1684 Thévenot was appointed director of the royal library of Louis XIV in Paris , and a year later a member of the academy.

plant

Thévenot's own scientific work is extensive. He studied astronomy , physics (especially the phenomenon of magnetism ), mathematics and medicine . Between 1658 and 1661 he undertook hydromechanical experiments with the siphon and the capillary effect . He recommended the use of lemon juice against a number of diseases, as well as emetic roots against dysentery .

Shortly before February 2, 1661, Thévenot invented the tubular level , which he filled with alcohol, mounted on a stone ruler and equipped with an optical lens . The date can almost certainly be deduced from his correspondence with Huygens. A little later he shared his invention with other scientists, such as Robert Hooke in London and Vincenzo Viviani in Florence . Incidentally, there is evidence that Huygens and Hooke later claimed the introduction of the spirit level for themselves, if only in their own countries. Since Adrien Auzout suggested to the Academy as early as 1666 that such spirit levels should be carried on their expedition to Madagascar , it can be assumed that they were in general use before the beginning of the 18th century.

Thévenot also took part in the compilation of texts by Confucius , which appeared in 1687 under the title Sinarum Philosophus . In a letter from 1692 Leibniz jokingly compared him, because of his versatility, with Briareos , a monster of Greek mythology, with a hundred arms and fifty heads.

Travel reports

Map of "New Holland" drawn by Melchisédech Thévenot

Descriptions of expeditions were one of Thévenot's passions. By the end of his life he owned 290 manuscripts, which were inventoried in 1692 and bought by the royal library in 1712. Between 1663 and 1672 he published his Relation de divers voyages curieux ("Report on various strange journeys"). In addition to a small number of excerpts by ancient authors, such as Kosmas Indicopleustes , there are abridged or complete versions of (partly unpublished) travel reports from the period between 1449 and 1672, to Russia, the Crimea, the Tatars and China , Formosa, India, Persia, Arabia, the Holy Land, Siam, Bengal, Borneo, the Philippines, Japan, Egypt, Black Africa and America. The whole consists of 55 booklets, which are combined in four richly illustrated volumes. The engravings show the flora and fauna of the countries, their costumes and customs, representations of the Chinese characters , cuneiform and Mandaean script , as well as geographical maps, some of which were drawn by Thévenot himself. There are several editions of each volume, the content of which varies. Voltaire , Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron de l'Aulne , Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach , Charles de Brosses , John Locke , William Beckford and Thévenot's friend Antoine Galland , the translator of the stories from the Arabian Nights , had their own copies.

The art of swimming

"Swimming with your face turned to the sky". Illustration from L'Art de Nager by Thévenot

Thévenot's Art de nager was published in Paris in 1696 and was translated into English in 1699. Benjamin Franklin , an avid swimmer in his youth and inventor of the flippers , was among his readers. During the 18th century the book was reissued twice in France, each time supplemented with treatises on the history of swimming and everything related to it. From this book, the French gradually learned to swim, with the breast style being preferred for a long time.

The authors of the Encyclopédie , however, treated the book from above. They accused Thévenot of mere summing up of earlier authors, such as his claim that humans could naturally swim if only they could overcome their fear of water. Obviously he took over the illustrations of the swimming book from Everard Digby without comment, copied his theories and also the swimming style from Nikolaus Wynmann .

literature

• Trevor McClaughlin: Sur les reports entre la Compagnie de Thévenot et l'Académie royale des sciences . In: Revue d'histoire des sciences , Vol. 28, No. 3, 1975, pp. 235-242.
• Nicholas Dew: Reading travels in the culture of curiosity: Thévenot's collection of voyages . In: Journal of Early Modern History , Vol. 10, No. 1-2, 2006, pp. 39-59.
• Anthony J. Turner: Melchisédech Thévenot, the bubble level, and the artificial horizon . In: Nuncius: annali di storia della scienzia , Vol. 7, No. 1, 1992, pp. 131-145.

Works

Some of the author's works have already been digitized and are freely available, including:

• Relations de divers voyages curieux: qui n'ont point esté publiées ou qui ont esté traduites d'Hacluyt, de Purchas et d'autres voyageurs anglois, hollandois, portugais, allemands, espagnols, et de quelques persans, arabes, & autres auteurs orientaux , Edition of 1663
• Recueil de voyages de Mr Thevenot dedié au roy , edition of 1681
• L 'Art de nager, avec des avis pour se baigner utilement, précédé d'une dissertation où l'on développe la science des Anciens dans l'art de nager ... et l'utilité du bain, soit en santé, soit en maladie ... par Thevenot… Quatrieme edition… suivie de la Dissertation sur les bains des Orientaux , edition of 1782
• Relations de divers voyages curieux: qui n'ont point esté publiées ou qui ont esté traduites d'Hacluyt, de Purchas et d'autres voyageurs anglois, hollandois, portugais, alemands, espagnols, et de quelques persans, arabes, & autres autheurs orientaux , Edition of 1672 , 1683

Web links

• Robert A. Hatch: The Scientific Revolution, Westfall Catalog, Scientific Community (English), contains a bibliography and sources on Thevenot.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rudolf Wolf : On the history of the tubular dragonfly.
2. ^ Gilbert Govi: Recherches historiques sur l'invention du niveau a bulle d'air.
3. ^ Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, letter to Pellison-Fontanier , March 28, 1692.
4. ↑ Article Nager in the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers , 1758.