Alle fonti della storiografia scientifica: il caso dell’‘Archivio Vallisneri’

The consideration of extent and capillarity of relationships in the Republic of Letters has been dramatically modified by copying with networks of correspondences. This paper will focus on the well-known case of Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730). This celebrated representative of the Galilean experimentalism was indeed the mover of an impressive web, which his correspondence allows to examine at a level rarely achieved in the history of modern science. The present contribution will illustrate the main features of “Vallisneri Archive”, i.e. the material collection and the inventory on line of over 12,000 letters (in reproduction). Particular attention will be paid to many aspects of the integration of “Vallisneri Archive” in current international projects, as well as in a (virtually) unified system, that would enable networks to be searched from the whole World Wide Web.