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The ornithopters of Grimaldi, Morris, and Desforges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Clive Hart
Clive Hart*
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Extract

Some interest was aroused in the middle of the eighteenth century when an Italian visitor to London exhibited a colourful flying machine which he promised to demonstrate. A full but comparatively little known report was published by the triweekly Whitehall Evening-Post in the issue dated 3rd-5th October 1751. Soon after its appearance, another Italian plagiarised it, sending a translation to a friend in Italy in the form of a letter, dated 18th October 1751, which purports to be an eye-witness account. This may have been published in Venice in the same year, as a fly sheet. In 1752 the letter and the flying machine were mentioned in a collection of noteworthy events, and in 1753 it was given cursory attention by Clemente Baroni Cavalcabò, in his famous book about the inability of demons to carry men through the air, The celebrated art historian Francesco Milizia included a brief summary in his biography of Paolo Guidotti, the painter and would-be aeronaut, and more recently the plagiarised text has been noticed by Italian historians of aviation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 85 , Issue 847 , September 1981 , pp. 307 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1981 

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References

1. The Whitehall Evening-Post; Or, London Intelligencer, 882, 3rd-5th October, 1751, p 1. A note at the head of the column states that ‘The following Article is taken from one of our Daily Papers’. I have not yet identified the source.Google Scholar
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15. News reports in the Annoncesoften appeared two or three weeks after the events. Failing to notice the sequence of dates, some earlier commentators on Desforges have given garbled accounts. The first of these appeared in issue 43 of the Parisian journal Affiches, annonces, et avis divers(21st October 1772) p 172, which summarised and briefly discussed Desforges’ first published announcement. According to the Affiches, Desforges undertook the demonstration flight after the subscription money had been put up by a gentleman of Lyons. In a variant account, Gérard (pp 41-2) says that the money was offered by a number of citizens of Lyons. As far as I can determine, this story, which is inconsistent with the known facts-, is an apocryphal embellishment. (The Afficheswent on to summarise Desforges’ second announcement in issue 44, 28th October 1772, pp 175–76.)Google Scholar
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