ABSTRACT
In the major European cities, instrument making flourished in the eighteenth century, and its clients were mostly rich amateurs. Countless collections were assembled by rich individuals and others in the eighteenth century too, but now they were collected from the perspective of the new knowledge of nature. Within science itself, astronomy was one field in which instruments had traditionally been important and a high degree of accuracy was sought. One field of study, that was actually very old, remained extremely popular among amateur researchers in the eighteenth century: natural history. Isaac Newton engaged profoundly with alchemy, in the hope of finding within it a key to a deeper understanding of reality. One field in which, after the theoretical innovations of the seventeenth century, a new wind had begun to blow was chemistry. Newtonian mechanics was for many years regarded as the summit of pure science, an ideal model for how other fields should be organized.
