In 1624, some young chemists at Paris having taught the experimental method and cut loose from Aristotle, the faculty of theology beset the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament prohibited these new chemical researches under the severest penalties.
The same war continued in Italy.

Even after the belief in magic had been seriously weakened, the old theological fear and dislike of physical science continued.

In 1657 occurred the first sitting of the Accademia del Cimento at Florence, under the presidency of Prince Leopold de' Medici This academy promised great things for science; it was open to all talent; its only fundamental law was "the repudiation of any favourite system or sect of philosophy, and the obligation to investigate Nature by the pure light of experiment"; it entered into scientific investigations with energy.

Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural history, and many others, enlarged the boundaries of knowledge.
Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, and the incompressibility of water were studied by the right method and with results that enriched the world.
The academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to it.

The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious, quarrels were fomented, Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome, and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair.
So, too, the noted Academy of the Lincei at times incurred the ill will of the papacy by the very fact that it included thoughtful investigators.