By the middle of the seventeenth century the Copernican revolution had brought about a fundamental change in the attitude to nature. The Aristotelian universe of matter with mysterious ‘qualities’ which gave objects desires and tendencies was under sustained attack. Unsettling scientific views were increasingly gaining a hold on the human mind and the firm association between religious belief, moral principles and the traditional scheme of nature was shaken. It had become increasingly popular to ask ‘how’ things happened and to demand and provide mathematical exposition and experimental confirmation. Two factors principally encouraged this change: the formation of scientific academies and the development of scientific instruments. In the seventeenth century, the tide of Copernican revolution had flowed past the universities of Europe which were dominated by the Church and did not provide the freedom of inquiry that is taken for granted in universities today. So it fell, instead, to the scientific academies to provide the needed encouragement, support and a forum for communication, essential for dissemination of new results and ideas. The first organisation that could be considered a scientific academy was the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of the Lynx-eyed, the lynx symbolising the sharp eye of science). The society was founded in Rome in 1603 by Duke Federigo Cesi who combined his wealth and curiosity to set up a forum independent of ecclesiastical and university control or prejudice. The Academy was international from its beginning – one of its first charter members being Dutch. The academy members could add the title ‘Lyncean’ after their name on any literary work they published. This society had frequent meetings at which the members discussed the results of their individual experiments.