Fortunato Vinacessi wrote Letter L-348 of 1698-11-27 to Leeuwenhoek, enclosing letters from Italy about protecting gunpowder from the effects of water
This letter is known only by reference in another source. It was written in French.
Vinaccesi wrote to Leeuwenhoek, enclosing a letter from sent from Parma to Antonio Magliabechi about four experiments to protect gunpowder from the effects of water and fire. He also enclosed letters on the same subject from Tuscany, Milan, and Turin.
Fortunato Nicola Vinaccesi (1631-1713) was an Italian linguist who also constructed optical devices. Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) was a Venetian Franciscan friar, cosmographer, and cartographer known for his atlases and globes. Cosimo III de’ Medici (1642-1723) was grand duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723. His chief bomber is not identified, nor is Fernando Baldes. The governors of Milan at the time were Diego Dávila Mesía y Guzmán from 1691 to 1698 and Prince Charles Henri de Lorraine-Vaudémont from 1698 to 1706.
Peter Rabus, editor of Boekzaal van Europe, regularly published books news from Italy, usually excerpts of letters from Antonio Magliabechi to L. See Letter L-250 of May 1695.
Boekzaal van Europe for January and February 1699, p. 185
Enclosed in a French letter from Mr. Fortunato Vinaccesi, from Brescia on the 27th of November 1698 to Mr. A. van Leeuwenhoek, was the printout of an Italian letter, sent from Parma to Mr. A. Magliabecchi on the 21st of October of the same year, stating four special experiments, to preserve sacks of gunpowder against water and fire, which the Franciscan Father Vincenzo Coronelli, geographer of the Venetian State, made for the Grand Duke of Florence, in addition to the testimony of the reported Grand Duke’s chief bomber, with more a Spanish letter from Monsieur Fernando Baldes, Governor of Milan, to the aforementioned Coronelli, and at last a new tidings, also on the subject as before, written from Turin.
