The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (German: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on January 1, 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the Academia Naturae Curiosorum until 1687 when Emperor Leopold I raised it to an academy and named it after himself. It was since known under the German name Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina until 2007, when it was declared to be Germany’s National Academy of Sciences. The Leopoldina has a claim to be the oldest continuously existing learned society in the world. The validity of the claim depends in part on how certain definitional and historical questions are answered.
The Leopoldina is the first and foremost academic society in Germany to advise the German government on a variety of scientific matters, for instance on climate change and disease control. The Leopoldina gives conferences and lectures and continues to publish the Ephemeriden under the name Nova Acta Leopoldina. It issues various medals and awards, offers grants and scholarships and elects new members to itself. The Academy also maintains a library and an archive and it also researches its own history and publishes another journal, Acta Historica Leopoldina devoted to this subject. Consistently with its national preeminence, it also collaborates extensively with other learned societies in international exchanges of ideas and policy recommendations. Details of such initiatives are included on its multilingual website.
The Leopoldina was founded in the imperial city of Schweinfurt on 1 January 1652 under the Latin name Academia Naturae Curiosorum, sometimes translated into English as “Academy of the Curious as to Nature.” It was founded by four local physicians- Johann Laurentius Bausch, the first president of the society, Johann Michael Fehr, Georg Balthasar Metzger, and Georg Balthasar Wohlfarth; and was the only academy like it at the time making it the oldest academy of science in Germany. The archives of Leopoldina are some of the oldest in the world based on the fact that the records date back to the 17th century. These records will provide a window into the German sciences of the last 350 years.
In 1670 the society began to publish the Ephemeriden or Miscellanea Curiosa, one of the earliest scientific journals and one which had a particularly strong focus on medicine and related aspects of natural philosophy, such as botany and physiology. It was recognized by Emperor Leopold I who raised it to an academy in 1677, and then declared it an Imperial Academy in 1687, naming it Sacri Romani Imperii Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum and allowing it to carry his name.
[caption id="attachment_222760" align="aligncenter" width="455"] Wassily Kandinsky in 1922 by Hugo Erfurth[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa (today Ukraine), where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roma...
