|
Agostino Scilla
Agostino Scilla (10 August 1629 – 31 May 1700) was an Italian Baroque painter, paleontologist, geologist, numismatist, and a pioneer in the study of fossils and in scientific illustration. In addition to his paintings, he published an early text on paleontology: ''La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso'' ("Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense", 1670) which was introduced to English audiences by William Wotton of the Royal Society in 1696. He was among the first to promote a scientific understanding of fossils in contrast to fantastic Biblical and divine interpretations. Biography The son of a notary in Messina in Sicily, Scilla studied under Antonio Barbalunga in Messina and later Andrea Sacchi in Rome and became a painter. In Messina, he painted frescoes in the churches of San Domenico and of the Nunziata de' Teatini. Among his canvases are a depiction of ''Death of San Ilarione'' painted for the church of Sant'Ursula. His frescos in the Cathedral of Syracuse date f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including the Iberian Peninsula it continued, together with new styles, until the first decade of the 19th century. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain, and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany, and Russia. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Steno
Niels Steensen ( da, Niels Steensen; Latinized to ''Nicolaus Steno'' or ''Nicolaus Stenonius''; 1 January 1638 – 25 November 1686History of Geology – Steno – Aber, James S. 2007. Retrieved 11 January 2012. ) was a , a pioneer in both and who became a |
Sedgwick Museum Of Earth Sciences
The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, is the geology museum of the University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola .... It is part of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Department of Earth Sciences and is located on the university's Downing Site in Downing Street, Cambridge, Downing Street, central Cambridge, England. The Sedgwick Museum is the oldest of the eight museums which make up the University of Cambridge Museums consortium. History Construction and opening John Woodward (naturalist), Dr John Woodward collected and catalogued over 35 years nearly 10,000 specimens in five walnut cabinets, two of which he bequeathed to the university in his will. The university later purchased another two, and the fifth was added in the 1840s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Woodward (naturalist)
John Woodward (1 May 1665 – 25 April 1728) was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at the University of Cambridge. Though a leading supporter of observation and experiment in what we now call science, few of his theories have survived. Life Woodward was born on 1 May 1665 or perhaps 1668, in a village, possibly Wirksworth, in Derbyshire. His family may have been from Gloucestershire; his mother's maiden surname was Burdett. At the age of 16 he went to London to be apprenticed to a linen draper, but he later studied medicine with Dr Peter Barwick, physician to Charles II. As a leading physician who had never been to university, Woodward was a prominent figure on the "modern" side in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in early 18th-century England, on the medical and other fronts. In 1692 Woodward was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic and in 1693 elected a fellow of the Royal Soci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ray
John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him". He published important works on botany, zoology, and natural theology. His classification of plants in his ''Historia Plantarum'', was an important step towards modern taxonomy. Ray rejected the system of dichotomous division by which species were classified according to a pre-conceived, either/or type system , and instead classified plants according to similarities and differences that emerged from observation. He was among the first to attempt a biological definition for the concept of ''species'', as "a group of morphologically similar organisms arising from a common ancestor". Another significant contribution to taxonomy was his division of plants into those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcello Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi (10 March 1628 – 30 November 1694) was an Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the "Founder of microscopical anatomy, histology & Father of physiology and embryology". Malpighi's name is borne by several physiological features related to the biological excretory system, such as the Malpighian corpuscles and Malpighian pyramids of the kidneys and the Malpighian tubule system of insects. The splenic lymphoid nodules are often called the "Malpighian bodies of the spleen" or Malpighian corpuscles. The botanical family Malpighiaceae is also named after him. He was the first person to see capillaries in animals, and he discovered the link between arteries and veins that had eluded William Harvey. Malpighi was one of the earliest people to observe red blood cells under a microscope, after Jan Swammerdam. His treatise ''De polypo cordis'' (1666) was important for understanding blood composition, as well as how blood clots. In it, Malpighi describ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Maratta
Carlo Maratta or Maratti (13 May 162515 December 1713) was an Italian painter, active mostly in Rome, and known principally for his classicizing paintings executed in a Late Baroque Classical manner. Although he is part of the classical tradition stemming from Raphael, he was not exempt from the influence of Baroque painting and particularly in his use of colour. His contemporary and friend, Giovanni Bellori, wrote an early biography on Maratta. Biography Born in Camerano (Marche), then part of the Papal States, Maratta went to Rome in 1636, accompanied by, Don Corintio Benicampi, secretary to Taddeo Barberini. He became an apprentice in the studio of Andrea Sacchi. It was at this time that the debate between Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona took place at the Accademia di San Luca, the artists academy in Rome. Sacchi argued that paintings should only have a few figures which should express the narrative whereas Cortona countered that a greater number of figures allowed for the develop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Pietro Bellori
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian painter and antiquarian, but, more famously, a prominent biographer of artists of the 17th century, equivalent to Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century. His ''Lives of the Artists'' (''Vite de' Pittori, Scultori et Architetti Moderni''), published in 1672, was influential in consolidating and promoting the theoretical case for classical idealism in art. «Bellori is the "predecessor of Winckelmann" not only as an antiquarian but also as an art theorist. Winckelmann's theory of the "ideally beautiful" as he expounds it in ''Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums'', IV.2.33 ff., thoroughly agrees—except for the somewhat stronger Neoplatonic impact, which is to be explained perhaps more as an influence of Raphael Mengs than as an influence of Shaftesbury—with the content of Bellori's ''Idea'' (to which Winckelmann also owes his acquaintance with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassiano Dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588 – 22 October 1657) was an Italian scholar and patron of arts. The secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he was an antiquary in the classicizing circle of Rome, and a long-term friend and patron of Nicolas Poussin, whom he supported from his earliest arrival in Rome: Poussin in a letter declared that he was "a disciple of the house and the museum of cavaliere dal Pozzo." A doctor with interests in the proto-science of alchemy, a correspondent of major figures like Galileo, a collector of books and master drawings, dal Pozzo was a node in the network of European scientific figures. Biography Dal Pozzo was born in Turin, to a noble family originating from Vercelli, the grandson of the first minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was raised in Florence and educated at the University of Pisa. In 1612 he moved to Rome, where with deft diplomacy he moved among influential and cultivated patrons. After taking up a position as secretary in Cardinal Barber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Barberini (1597–1679)
Francesco Barberini (23 September 1597 – 10 December 1679) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal. The nephew of Pope Urban VIII (reigned 1623–1644), he benefited immensely from the nepotism practiced by his uncle. He was given various roles within the Vatican administration but his personal cultural interests, particularly in literature and the arts, meant that he became a highly significant patron. His secretary was the antiquarian Cassiano dal Pozzo who was also a discerning patron of the arts. Francesco was the elder brother of Cardinal Antonio Barberini and Taddeo Barberini who became Prince of Palestrina. Career He was born in Florence to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti, and studied at the University of Pisa where he was assisted by family friend Galileo Galilei, graduating in canon and civil law in 1623. On 2 October the same year, his uncle, Maffeo Barberini, newly elected as Pope Urban VIII, made him a cardinal, state secretary and papal legate to Avignon when he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerolamo Cardano
Gerolamo Cardano (; also Girolamo or Geronimo; french: link=no, Jérôme Cardan; la, Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501– 21 September 1576) was an Italian polymath, whose interests and proficiencies ranged through those of mathematician, physician, biologist, physicist, chemist, astrologer, astronomer, philosopher, writer, and gambler. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the Renaissance, and was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem in the Western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science. Cardano partially invented and described several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He made sig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ... who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".Woods, p. 108. He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language, but most of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
