Aeronautical holdings account for more than a thousand of the 30,000 items in the Vail Collection, which was presented to MIT in 1912 by Theodore N. Vail. Accompanied by numerous prints, broadsides, and clippings, these provide a fascinating cross-section of what was published on the subject for over three hundred years. Many significant episodes in the progress toward balloon flight are illustrated in the collection.

In 1670, the Jesuit Francesco Lana Terzi (1631-1687) published Prodromo all'arte maestra, in which he provided the first detailed description of a flying vessel based on the lighter-than-air principle (shown at the right in an 18th century engraving entitled "An Air Balloon"). It was to be kept aloft by large, thin spheres made of copper from which the air had been evacuated. Its height was to be regulated with a system of weights and vents, and its horizontal movements were to be controlled by sails and oars. Lana never tested his ideas because his "religious poverty" prevented him from spending the hundred Ducats he deemed necessary for "the tryal of so pleasant a curiosity."

While Lana's project never came to fruition, there is some evidence that a Brazilian priest, Bartholomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (1685-1724), flew small paper balloons in 1709 at the court of John V of Portugal, in Lisbon. A print illustrating "Passarola" ("The Flying Ship," shown at the left), Gusmão's larger project for an airship, began circulating in Europe and appeared with slight variations in many publications. Less than ten years before the first balloons were flown by the Montgolfier brothers in France in June 1783, a pamphlet was published in Lisbon reproducing Gusmão's alleged petition to John V for funds and exclusive rights to the airship. However, both the date and text of the pamphlet are questionable.

Constructed and exhibited in 1784 in Ireland by Richard Crosbie (1755-1800), the first Irish aeronaut.

At a December 1783 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, scientists identified four principal problems to be solved for successful balloon flight, as summarized by chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794):

First, to find an envelope which combines lightness and solidity, and which is impermeable to the air...; second to find a light gas, which is easy to obtain at all times, and is inexpensive; third, to find a method of ascending and descending at will...; fourth, to find a simple method of directing the machine.

Thus, over one hundred years after Lana's publication, flight had been achieved but many issues remained unresolved.

Lana's Prodromo all'arte maestra and Gusmão's Petição can be found among the aeronautical holdings of the Vail Collection, available for research in the Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Libraries, Bldg. 14N-118.

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Object of the Month: January 2001

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