Journal des sçavans

The "Journal des sçavans" (later renamed "Journal des savants"), founded by Denis de Sallo, was the earliest scientific journal published in Europe, although from the beginning it also carried a proportion of non-scientific material, such as obituaries of famous men, church history, and legal reports. [Dibner Library of the Smithsonian Institute, http://www.sil.si.edu/libraries/Dibner/newacq_2000.htm] The first edition appeared as a twelve page quarto pamphlet [Brown, 1972, p. 368] on Monday, 5 January, 1665. [Hallam, 1842, p. 406.] This was shortly before the first appearance of the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London," on 6 March 1665. [Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Vol.1, Issue 1, is dated March 6 1665. See also "History of the Journal" at http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page=1244]

The journal ceased publication in 1792, during the French Revolution, and although it very briefly reappeared in 1797 under the updated title "Journal des savants", it did not re-commence regular publication until 1816. From then on, the "Journal des savants" became more of a literary journal, and ceased to carry significant scientific material. [James, 2004, xv. Dibner Library of the Smithsonian Institute, http://www.sil.si.edu/libraries/Dibner/newacq_2000.htm]

Footnotes

References

*Brown, Harcourt (1972). "History and the Learned Journal". "Journal of the History of Ideas", 33(3), 365-378.
*Hallam, Henry (1842). "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries". Harper & Brothers.
*James, Ioan (2004). "Remarkable Physicists: From Galileo to Yukawa". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521017068
*Kilgour, Frederick G. (1998). "The Evolution of the Book". New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195118596

External links

* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb343488023/date "Journal des sçavans"] at Gallica
* [http://www.sil.si.edu/libraries/Dibner/newacq_2000.htm "Journal des sçavans"] at [http://www.sil.si.edu/libraries/Dibner/index.cfm The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institute]
* [http://www.chez.com/journaldessavants/index.html The modern "Journal des Savants"] (having evolved into something very different from its original form)