Today laboratories are privileged places for experimentation in all the natural sciences. In the early modern period, by contrast, experiments were carried out in a variety of places: public assembly rooms, coffee houses, private salons, kitchens, and only in one specific area in laboratories as well.
In the late 17th century, one of the most famous early modern experimentalists, Robert Hooke, did not work in a laboratory but in his private residence and in the assembly rooms of the …