Nuncius (journal)

Nuncius (journal)
Title	Nuncius
Discipline	History of Science, History of Art
Language	English, Italian
Publisher	Brill (until 2022), Cespri/Edizioni Scientifiche (various)
Country	Italy / Netherlands
Frequency	Biannual
History	1966–present

Contents

Nuncius (journal) is a specialized peer-reviewed periodical devoted to the history of science and the interface between science and art, with origins in Italian scholarship and an international editorial presence. Founded in the 1960s, the journal has published research on figures such as Galileo Galilei, Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Battista Venturi, Evangelista Torricelli and institutions like the Accademia dei Lincei, attracting contributions from historians affiliated with University of Padua, University of Pisa, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Oxford and Harvard University. It functions as a venue for archival studies drawing on collections such as the Vatican Library, the British Library, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

History

Nuncius began in 1966 amid renewed interest in the early modern period marked by scholarship on Niccolò Machiavelli-era patronage networks, debates influenced by work on Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the rise of historians studying the Scientific Revolution such as Thomas Kuhn, Pierre Duhem, George Sarton, and I. Bernard Cohen. Early issues featured archival reports tied to collections at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, and the Royal Society Archives, while cultivating ties to centers like the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza and the Museo Galileo. Editorial leadership drew on Italian scholars who had trained with figures associated with University of Bologna and Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and international board members from University of Cambridge, Princeton University, Yale University, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

The journal emphasizes studies of material culture, manuscript transmission, instrument making, and visual sources, engaging topics such as astronomical instruments associated with Giovanni Battista Riccioli, anatomical illustrations tied to Andreas Vesalius and Giorgio Vasari's accounts, cartography connected to Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, and correspondence networks exemplified by letters exchanged among Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Henry Oldenburg and Marin Mersenne. It publishes archival editions, critical commentaries on texts by Galileo Galilei and Evangelista Torricelli, studies of collections like the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci and the Science Museum, London, analyses of illustrations by Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger and work on institutions such as the Royal Society and the Académie des Sciences. Interdisciplinary pieces connect historians working with curators from the Louvre, linguists from University College London, philosophers influenced by René Descartes and Benedict de Spinoza, and conservators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nuncius operates with a double-blind peer review procedure overseen by an international editorial board including scholars from University of Leiden, University of Chicago, Columbia University, University of Toronto and Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Issues are thematic or miscellany, occasionally publishing special issues on topics such as early modern optics tied to Isaac Newton and Kepler or botanical illustration linked to Carl Linnaeus and Ulisse Aldrovandi. The journal has been available in both Italian and English, with digital distribution coordinated with academic libraries such as the Bodleian Libraries, the Bibliothèques de Paris, and the Library of Congress; print runs were historically produced by publishers located in Florence, Amsterdam and Leiden. Editorial workflows have included partnerships with scholarly societies like the History of Science Society and the European Society for the History of Science.

Nuncius is indexed in bibliographic services and citation indices that catalog humanities scholarship alongside specialized databases serving historians at institutions like the Max Planck Digital Library, the HathiTrust Digital Library, and major university library catalogs such as those of Harvard University, University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Its articles are cited in monographs and edited volumes published by presses including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Brill, Routledge and Springer, and its impact is reflected in cross-references within works on the Scientific Revolution, early modern intellectual networks, and the history of scientific instruments documented by curators at the Science Museum, London and the Museo Galileo.

The journal has published influential pieces on Galileo’s trial drawing on documents from the Archivio di Stato di Firenze and the Vatican Library, archival editions of correspondence involving Christiaan Huygens and Robert Hooke, and studies of instrument makers such as Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio and Eustachio Divini. Seminal articles have revised readings of primary sources connected to Johannes Kepler and the transmission of Ptolemy's geography, while other contributions reassessed the role of patrons like the Medici and the Habsburgs in scientific patronage. The journal has also featured interdisciplinary case studies involving the Uffizi Galleries, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, conservation science from the Getty Conservation Institute, and catalogues of collections held by the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza.

Over its decades of publication, articles from the journal have been cited in award-winning books honored by prizes such as the Dexter Prize, the Sarton Medal and national history of science awards; contributors have received fellowships from institutions including the Guggenheim Foundation, the British Academy, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the European Research Council and the Max Planck Society. Special issues have been recognized at international conferences hosted by the History of Science Society and the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology, and individual essays have informed exhibitions at the Museo Galileo, the Science Museum, London and the Vatican Museums.

Category:History of science journals