The American Benjamin Franklin is often credited with inventing the lightning rod, among other things brought to light by his prodigious ingenuity. However, there were other scientists working on it simultaneously, and perhaps the most important of them was the Czech Prokop Diviš, a pioneer in Europe. What is really curious about his work is that he developed his concept of the lightning rod somewhat by chance, as he was actually trying to create a system that would prevent the formation of thunderstorms; that is, not to attract lightning but to repel it.

A brutal accidental explosion destroyed part of the Italian city of Brescia in 1792, caused by a lightning strike on a fortress, which started a fire that reached the gunpowder magazine. Following the accident, the installation of lightning rods became widespread, an invention that had until then been met with considerable skepticism, especially in the religious world.

Although it was not the official position of the Church, the less educated clergy—who were in the majority—would ring the church bells during a storm to ward off demons, as old Augustinian and Thomistic theses attributed adverse meteorological phenomena to these beings. In this, they were aligned with some Protestant preachers who attributed these phenomena to divine will and rejected the installation of lightning rods because they feared that diverting lightning to the ground could cause earthquakes.

Portrait of Prokop Diviš
Portrait of Prokop Diviš.Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

However, the Age of Enlightenment had arrived, the 18th century, in which Reason began to prevail over dogmatic faith. The scientists of the time fought as best they could against these ideas, pointing out the danger—too often proven in practice—of ringing bells during a storm, but the resistance persisted. Except in England and Spain, where churches were equipped with lightning rods without much trouble, much of Europe lacked them. This is something Prokop Diviš could attest to, as he was part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy as a canon in Bohemia.

Born in 1698 in Helvíkovice (in what is now the Czech Republic), he was the son of a modest family, and after being orphaned in 1716, the priest of his parish sent him to study at the local Jesuit school, which set him on a religious career path. At eighteen, he entered the Premonstratensian Abbey of Louka (in Moldavia) as a novice. The Candidus et Canonicus Ordo Praemonstratensis was an order of regular canons that followed the Rule of St. Augustine and had a gymnasium (a secondary school) in that city for further studies.

It was there that, following a monastic tradition, Prokop Diviš assumed that name, as his real name was Václav Divíšek. He took his vows in 1720 and continued his academic training—he was brilliant—studying philosophy and theology, and was ordained a priest in 1726. Although he began teaching at the monastery, his passion for performing scientific demonstrations in front of the students displeased his colleagues, who considered them more appropriate for alchemists and sorcerers. As a result, he was sent to the University of Salzburg to complete his theological training. In 1733, he earned his doctorate and then returned to the abbey, where he served as an assistant to the prior until 1736, when he was assigned to a parish in Přímětice.

He remained there for five years, after which he had to return to Louka because he was appointed prior. It was the spring of 1741, and the country was embroiled in the so-called First Silesian War, which had broken out in December 1740 when Austrian Silesia was invaded by Frederick II of Prussia. In April, France joined him, and French troops also entered German territory. Unable to stop this alliance, Maria Theresa I of Austria ceded the region to Frederick, thus ending the conflict with the Peace of Breslau.

Prokop Diviš meteorological machine
Prokop Diviš meteorological machine.Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

But it is not this conflict that interests us here. Rather, in this context, Prussian troops took the abbot of the Premonstratensian Abbey prisoner. Diviš paid a large sum from the monastery’s coffers to ransom him, and instead of gratitude, this act provoked the opposite reaction: he was harshly criticized and sent back to the parish of Přímětice. The world benefited from this decision because there, Diviš had the freedom to pursue his scientific research.

It all started with his determination to improve the parish’s farmland, which he equipped with hydraulic systems. However, during this period of 18th-century Enlightenment, electricity began to fascinate scholars, and Diviš was no exception to this fascination. Since little was known about the subject, it was being applied in all sorts of ways. For instance, Diviš experimented with small electrical discharges on plants to stimulate their growth, a practice he intended to extend to humans for therapeutic purposes; he claimed success and presented his findings at the imperial court in Vienna.

However, what truly gave him some renown was the invention of the Denis d’Or, an electrically operated musical instrument. It is not exactly known in which year he created it, with speculation pointing to 1748; however, it is documented from 1753 onward. In reality, we know little more than the name (an allusion to Dionysus), since the only prototype made was sold in Vienna after its creator’s death, and it was never heard of again. It is believed to have been a type of electrophone that, using eight hundred strings, three keyboards, and a pedal system, produced fourteen double sounds.

These sounds imitated those of other instruments, such as the harp, harpsichord, lute, and some wind instruments. Descriptions say it measured half a meter in length, one meter in width, and about one meter twenty in height, resembling the appearance of a clavichord. In fact, scholars believe its operation would have been more acoustic, like an accordion, with electricity only used to charge its strings (which were metallic) and enhance the sound. Additionally, it seems that Diviš installed a system to deliver shocks to the unsuspecting player as a joke, which led people to believe it was electrically powered.

Prokop Diviš's meteorological machine at his museum
Prokop Diviš’s meteorological machine at his museum.Credit: Palickap / Wikimedia Commons

In 1753, a tragic accident occurred that led the canon to focus his attention on lightning: one struck and killed Georg Wilhelm Richmann, a professor in Saint Petersburg, while he was trying to measure the intensity of the atmosphere’s electric field. Diviš then sent several letters to Austrian and Russian scientists, proposing they work together on inventing a meteorological machine that could eliminate the danger of lightning by absorbing electricity from the air. Since his experiments with plants and the Denis d’Or were considered eccentric—aside from the fact that all his publications began with biblical quotes—no one bothered to reply, and he decided to proceed alone.

To this end, he placed a forty-meter-high pole near his parish, topped with a structure holding twelve tin boxes filled with iron powder and studded with four hundred upward-facing nails, assuming these would help attract electricity. When a storm came, lightning struck the pole. At that time, in the summer of 1754, Diviš misinterpreted the experience: as was common in that era, he believed that the nails had drawn the electricity from the atmosphere, preventing lightning from forming in the clouds—a conclusion we now recognize as naive.

What actually happened was that the lightning, attracted by the metallic elements at the top of the pole, then traveled to the ground via thick chains, which were initially intended only to keep the structure upright, and joined with the opposite charge latent in the earth. In reality, this is how lightning normally works—remember, opposite charges attract—only by chance, while Diviš’s pole had directed it to a specific point. In other words, Diviš had created a lightning rod.

Although he published his experiment, and several newspapers reported on it, the academic world remained skeptical and gave it little attention, as they focused mainly on his descriptions of how the clouds dissipated (and regenerated when he took down the pole, as he claimed). However, the peasants of Přímětice took it seriously enough that, four years later, when the region was hit by a persistent drought that threatened to ruin them, they blamed the priest and destroyed his meteorological machine. He had another one placed atop his church, but his own ecclesiastical superiors advised him to dismantle it to avoid further disturbances.

Bust of Prokop Diviš on the square named after him in the city of Znojmo.
Bust of Prokop Diviš on the square named after him in the city of Znojmo.Credit: Jan Polák / Wikimedia Commons

Diviš complied, but continued theoretical research, and in 1765, thanks to the help of two priests, he managed to publish a treatise titled Längst verlangte Theorie von der meteorologischen Electricité (Long-awaited Theory of Meteorological Electricity), in which he formulated the principles of what he called Magia naturalis. The work received the same recognition as his previous efforts, that is to say, none; it was dismissed as fantasy, and he died at the end of that same year, likely with a sense of bitterness.

In fact, Prokop Diviš remained forgotten until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered as a visionary. After all, he had worked on the lightning rod at the same time as Franklin—only a few months later—likely knowing something of Franklin’s experiments, though only in broad strokes without details (curiously, Franklin also invented a musical instrument, the glass harmonica).

And while 19th-century scientists pointed out his conceptual errors, some believe that he has a right to be considered at least a co-inventor, especially considering that his meteorological machine was technically superior to Franklin’s, as it had those chains connecting it to the ground (Franklin used a kite), and was also the first to function like a modern lightning rod—even if unintentionally.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on November 6, 2018: El hombre que inventó el pararrayos moderno por accidente, ignorado por la ciencia hasta el siglo XIX

SOURCES

Mgr. Magda Králová, Prokop Diviš

José Altshuler, El fuego del cielo. Mito y realidad en torno al rayo

The Prokop Diviš Memorial

Czech Radio

Wikipedia, Prokop Diviš

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