Francesco Fontana (cardinal)
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Francesco Fontana (cardinal)
Francesco Fontana (, Naples – July 1656, Naples) was an Italian lawyer and an astronomer. Biography Francesco Fontana studied law at the University of Naples and then he became a lawyer in the court at the Castel Capuano. But failing to always find truth in the Court, he began to study mathematics and astronomy. He created woodcuts lease add reference as there is no evidence that Fontana was an engravershowing the Moon and the planets as he saw them through a self-constructed telescope. Fontana traced, in 1636, the first drawing of Mars and discovered its rotation. In February 1646 he published the book ''Novae coelestium terrestriumq ererum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non-vulgatae'', where he presented all the observations of the Moon made from 1629 until 1645, the drawings of the bands seen on Jupiter's disc, the strange appearances of Saturn, as well as of the stars of the Milky Way. With a Fontana's telescope, the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Zupi observed f ...
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Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 20 miles. Founded by Greeks in the first millennium BC, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. In the eighth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope ( grc, Παρθενόπη) was established on the Pizzofalcone hill. In the sixth century BC, it was refounded as Neápolis. The city was an important part of Magna Graecia, played a major role in the merging of Greek and Roman society, and was a significant cultural centre under the Romans. Naples served a ...
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Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science. Galileo studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of pendulums and "hydrostatic balances". He invented the thermoscope and various military compasses, and used the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects. His contributions to observational astronomy include telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, observation of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, observation of Saturn's rings, and an ...
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Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for Mersenne prime numbers, those which can be written in the form for some integer . He also developed Mersenne's laws, which describe the harmonics of a vibrating string (such as may be found on guitars and pianos), and his seminal work on music theory, ''Harmonie universelle'', for which he is referred to as the "father of acoustics". Mersenne, an ordained Catholic priest, had many contacts in the scientific world and has been called "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s" and, because of his ability to make connections between people and ideas, "the post-box of Europe". He was also a member of the Minim religious order and wrote and lectured on theology and philosophy. Life Mersenne was ...
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Giuseppe Gabrieli
Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. It is the most common name in Italy and is unique (97%) to it. The feminine form of the name is Giuseppina. People with the given name Artists and musicians * Giuseppe Aldrovandini (1671–1707), Italian composer * Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526 or 1527–1593), Italian painter * Giuseppe Belli (singer) (1732–1760), Italian castrato singer * Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791–1863), Italian poet * Giuseppe Castiglione (1829–1908) (1829–1908), Italian painter * Giuseppe Giordani (1751–1798), Italian composer, mainly of opera * Giuseppe Ottaviani (born 1978), Italian musician and disc jockey * Giuseppe Psaila (1891–1960), Maltese Art Nouveau architect * Giuseppe Sammartini (1695–1750), Italian composer and oboist * Giuseppe Sanmartino or Sammartino (1720–1793), Italian sculptor * Giuseppe Santomaso (1907–1990), Italian painter ...
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Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and a major figure in the Scientific Revolution. In physics, Huygens made groundbreaking contributions in optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he is chiefly known for his studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan. As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock, a breakthrough in timekeeping and the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years. An exceptionally talented mathematician and physicist, Huygens was the first to idealize a physical problem by a set of mathematical parameters, and the first to fully mathematize a mechanistic explanation of an unobservable physical phenomenon.Dijksterhuis, F.J. (2008) Stevin, Huygens and the Dutch republ ...
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Giovanni Battista Riccioli
Giovanni Battista Riccioli, SJ (17 April 1598 – 25 June 1671) was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion of 126 arguments concerning the motion of the Earth, and for introducing the current scheme of lunar nomenclature. He is also widely known for discovering the first double star. He argued that the rotation of the Earth should reveal itself because on a rotating Earth, the ground moves at different speeds at different times. Biography Riccioli was born in Ferrara. He entered the Society of Jesus on 6 October 1614. After completing his novitiate, he began to study humanities in 1616, pursuing those studies first at Ferrara, and then at Piacenza. From 1620 to 1628 he studied philosophy and theology at the College of Parma. Parma Jesuits had developed a strong program of experimentation, such as with falling bodies. One of the most famou ...
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Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae
''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae'' ("The Great Art of Light and Shadow") is a 1646 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was dedicated to Ferdinand IV, King of the Romans and published in Rome by Lodovico Grignani. A second edition was published in Amsterdam in 1671 by Johann Jansson. ''Ars Magna'' was the first description published in Europe of the illumination and projection of images. The book contains the first printed illustration of Saturn and the 1671 edition also contained a description of the magic lantern. ''Ars magna lucis et umbrae'' followed soon after Kircher's work on magnetism, '' Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica'' (1641) and the title was a play on words. In his introduction Kircher notes that the word 'magna' alluded to the powers of the magnet, so that the title could also be read “The Magnetic Art of Light and Shadow”. The work was well-known for several decades. Content ''Ars Magna'' is the first of Kircher's works to follow a symbolic structure. ...
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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 ...
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Francesco Stelluti
Francesco Stelluti (12 January 1577, in Fabriano – November 1652, in Rome) was an Italian polymath who worked in the fields of mathematics, microscopy, literature, and astronomy. Along with Federico Cesi, Anastasio de Filiis and Johannes van Heeck, he founded the Accademia dei Lincei in August 1603. Early life Francesco was the son of Bernardino Stelluti and his wife Lucrezia Corradini. He went to Rome at a young age to study law. Once he had completed his studies he began to work in the law, which he practiced all his life, while also dedicating himself to literary and scientific studies. In the Accademia he was first appointed Grand Counsellor, with the task of teaching mathematics, geometry and astronomy to the other members. Later he was appointed ''proponitor'' (lecturer) in machines and mathematical instruments, and ''provisor'' (supervisor) and ''calculator'' of the motions of the stars. His pseudonym in the Accademia was ''Tardigrado'' (slow stepper), reflecting his chara ...
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Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science. Galileo studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of pendulums and "hydrostatic balances". He invented the thermoscope and various military compasses, and used the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects. His contributions to observational astronomy include telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, observation of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, observation of Saturn's rings, and a ...
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Zacharias Jansen
Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg. He is associated with the invention of the first optical telescope and/or the first truly compound microscope, but these claims (made 20 years after his death) may be fabrications put forward by his son. Biography Zacharias Janssen was born in The Hague. Local records seem to indicate he was born in 1585 although a date of birth as early as 1580 or as late as 1588 are also given. His parents were Hans MartensSource: a book by Huib J. Zuidervaart which is to be published in the spring of 2008. The in Middelburg has already been shown a first version of this book. (who may have had the occupation of a peddler) and Maeyken Meertens, both probably from Antwerp, Belgium. He grew up with his sister Sara in Middelburg, at the time the second most important city of the Netherlands. He was known as a "street seller" who was constant ...
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Cornelis Drebbel
Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel ( ) (1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, optics and chemistry. Biography Cornelis Drebbel was born in Alkmaar, Holland in an Anabaptist family in 1572. After some years at the Latin school in Alkmaar, around 1587, he attended the Academy in Haarlem, also located in North-Holland. Teachers at the Academy were Hendrik Goltzius, engraver, painter, alchemist and humanist, Karel van Mander, painter, writer, humanist and Cornelis Corneliszoon of Haarlem. Drebbel became a skilled engraver on copperplate and also took an interest in alchemy. In 1595 he married Sophia Jansdochter Goltzius, younger sister of Hendrick, and settled at Alkmaar. They had at least six children, of whom four survived. Drebbel worked initially as a painter, engraver and cartographer. But he was in constant need of ...
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