The New International Encyclopædia/Lincei, Accademia dei

LINCEI, lē̇n-chā′ē̇, Accademia dei. A celebrated Italian learned society, founded at Rimini in 1603 by Federigo Cesi, son of the Duke of Acqua Sparta, for the purpose of fostering the study of the physical sciences. The name lincei or lynxes is supposed to have been adopted as an expression of the members' belief in the possibility of piercing the depths of scientific truth. Though it numbered among its members such men as Galileo and Stelluti, the society languished after 1630 and gradually died away. Restored in 1745 by Giovanni Branchi, it passed once more out of existence. It was revived for a second time toward the end of the eighteenth century, but was of little real importance till the occupation of Rome by the Italian troops in 1870, when it became what it has remained to the present day, one of the principal associations in Italy for the advancement of science and scholarship. As reorganized in 1870, it is divided into a royal and a Papal section.