Beschreibung:

LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646-1716). Autograph letter signed ('Leibniz') to an unidentified recipient ('Monsieur', perhaps the editor of Le Journal des sçavans ), Hanover, 15 April 1709, in French, 2 pages, 8vo , on a bifolium (minor browning to edges, one small hole at lower margin).
LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646-1716). Autograph letter signed ('Leibniz') to an unidentified recipient ('Monsieur', perhaps the editor of Le Journal des sçavans ), Hanover, 15 April 1709, in French, 2 pages, 8vo , on a bifolium (minor browning to edges, one small hole at lower margin). SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NEWS, INCLUDING A REFERENCE TO NEWTON: Leibniz has been absent for several months, particularly in Berlin, where he had charged a suitable person to send the recipient literary news, along with two Italian books on the 'affaire de Commacchio'; apart from a few enclosures (not present) comprising 'quelques nouvelles literaires dont ces pays cy ou je me trouve sont asses steriles', Leibniz can send no further news that his recipient will not already have. He does wish however to take up an offer 'de faire inserer dans vôtre journal des savans ma reponse aux objections du R.P. dom Lami Benedictin ', which had been lost on a previous occasion. He will be happy to send (and to receive) any scientific news that comes his way -- he has heard that 'Une personne bien versée dans les Mathematiques s'est chargée de vouloir travailler sur les experiences des coloures de refraction, contestées entre M. Newton et feu M. L'Abbé Mariotte'. The earliest scientific journal in Europe, the Journal des sçavans was founded in January 1665 under the patronage of Colbert. Among Leibniz's roles at at the court of the Elector George Louis of Hanover (later King George I of Great Britain) was that of librarian, a position which enabled him to keep in touch with the various streams of information he imparts in this typically polymathic letter.