Taking Newton On Tour

The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754).

Edited by Anna Marie Roos. 

Hakluyt Society, Series III Volume 45, 2025

ISBN 978-1-916-93119-0

Volume 45 in the Hakluyt Society Third Series is Taking Newton On Tour. The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754). This a critical edition of an exceptional example of the ‘Scientific Grand Tour’ taken by Martin Folkes. Martin Folkes (1690-1754) was Newton’s protégé, antiquary, mathematician, and the only simultaneous president of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. In 1733-5, he went on Grand Tour as a scientific ambassador for the Royal Society, demonstrating Newtonian optics to Italian virtuosi. He also measured ancient and Renaissance buildings to understand past architectural engineering and design. His 97-page illustrated diary (in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, shelfmark MS Eng. misc.c.444) also challenges the long-standing, mistaken impression among scholars that the Royal Society was in decline in the eighteenth century. Analysing Folkes’s activities abroad and creating an edition from this source tracing his Italian route provides a novel reading of Newtonianism and the purpose of the Grand Tour as a vehicle for scientific research and statesmanship.

Published price £135. Distributed free to Hakluyt Society members as part of their two volume allowance for the year 2025. Society members can buy in print and print on demand volumes at a significant discount. Join the Hakluyt Society.