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Muzio Oddi
Muzio or Mutio Oddi (15 December 1569, Urbino – 15 December 1639, Urbino) was an Italian mathematician and Gnomonist. Biography He was born to Lisabetta Genga and Lattanzio Oddi. His initial training was in eloquence and philosophy, but he later trained under the painter Federico Barocci. He moved to Pesaro to work under Guidobaldo del Monte, one of the main disciples of Federico Commandino. He was hired to work in Spain and France as a military engineer, which required him also to help train in the use of artillery. He returned to the Duchy of Urbino to work as an engineer under the Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere. In 1601, he was accused, perhaps unfairly, of being involved in a plot that also involved the Marchese Ippolito della Rovere; the plot aimed to depose the Duke Francesco Maria. In 1609, Muzio Oddi was released from prison, and exiled to Milan. In Milan, he won a competition to become professor of Mathematics. He published his works, prepared in prison, includin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urbino
Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482. The town, nestled on a high sloping hillside, retains much of its picturesque medieval aspect. It hosts the University of Urbino, founded in 1506, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Urbino. Its best-known architectural piece is the Palazzo Ducale, rebuilt by Luciano Laurana. Geography The city lies in a hilly region, at the foothills of the Northern Apennines and the Tuscan-Romagnolo Apennines. It is within the southern area of Montefeltro, an area classified as medium-high seismic risk. In the database of earthquakes developed by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, nearly 65 seismic events have affected the town of Urbino between 26 March 1511 and 26 March 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sector (instrument)
The sector, also known as a proportional compass or military compass, was a major calculating instrument in use from the end of the sixteenth century until the nineteenth century. It is an instrument consisting of two rulers of equal length joined by a hinge. A number of scales are inscribed upon the instrument which facilitate various mathematical calculations. It was used for solving problems in proportion, multiplication and division, geometry, and trigonometry, and for computing various mathematical functions, such as square roots and cube roots. Its several scales permitted easy and direct solutions of problems in gunnery, surveying and navigation. The sector derives its name from the fourth proposition of the sixth book of Euclid, where it is demonstrated that similar triangles have their like sides proportional. Some sectors also incorporated a quadrant, and sometimes a clamp at the end of one leg which allowed the device to be used as a gunner's quadrant. History ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
17th-century Italian Mathematicians
The 17th century lasted from January 1, 1601 ( MDCI), to December 31, 1700 ( MDCC). It falls into the early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized by the Baroque cultural movement, the latter part of the Spanish Golden Age, the Dutch Golden Age, the French ''Grand Siècle'' dominated by Louis XIV, the Scientific Revolution, the world's first public company and megacorporation known as the Dutch East India Company, and according to some historians, the General Crisis. From the mid-17th century, European politics were increasingly dominated by the Kingdom of France of Louis XIV, where royal power was solidified domestically in the civil war of the Fronde. The semi-feudal territorial French nobility was weakened and subjugated to the power of an absolute monarchy through the reinvention of the Palace of Versailles from a hunting lodge to a gilded prison, in which a greatly expanded royal court could be more easily ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1639 Deaths
Events January–March * January 14 – Connecticut's first constitution, the Fundamental Orders, is adopted. * January 19 – Hämeenlinna ( sv, Tavastehus) is granted privileges, after it separates from the Vanaja parish, as its own city in Tavastia. *c. January – The first printing press in British North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye. * February 18 – In the course of the Eighty Years' War, a sea battle is fought in the English Channel off of the coast of Dunkirk between the navies of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, with 12 warships, and Spain, with 12 galleons and eight other ships. The Spanish are forced to flee after three of their ships are lost and 1,600 Spaniards killed or injured, while the Dutch sustain 1,700 casualties without the loss of a ship. * March 3 – The early settlement of Taunton, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town. * March 13 – Harvard University is named for cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1569 Births
Year 1569 ( MDLXIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June * January 11–May 6 – The first recorded lottery in England is performed nonstop, at the west door of St Paul's Cathedral. Each share costs ten shillings, and proceeds are used to repair harbours, and for other public works. * March 13 – Battle of Jarnac: Royalist troops under Marshal Gaspard de Tavannes surprise and defeat the Huguenots under the Prince of Condé, who is captured and murdered. A substantial proportion of the Huguenot army manages to escape, under Gaspard de Coligny. * June 10 – German Protestant troops reinforce Coligny, near Limoges. July–December * July 1 – The Union of Lublin unites the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, following votes in the Assemblies of three Lithuanian provinces (Volhynia, Ukraine and Podlasie) in fav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Grossi
Carlo Grossi (c. 163414 May 1688) was an Italian composer. Life He is believed to have been the first composer to use the term "divertimento", in his 1681 composition ''Il divertimento de' grandi musiche da camera, ò per servizio di tavola.'' He was the organist at the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. He is also known for setting Hebrew religious texts to recitative in the style of Claudio Monteverdi, such as in his ''Cantata Ebraica in Dialogo'', a work commissioned from Grossi (himself a Gentile) by the relatively free and well-off Jewish community of Modena. This work was likely intended for performance by an amateur choir (the choral parts are relatively simple, suggesting deliberate tailoring to the capabilities of less advanced musicians) with professional-standard operatic soloists.Joel Cohen, notes to Harmonia Mundi CD HMA1951021, 'Musique Judeo-Baroque' (2001). Grossi died in 1688 at Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeaster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Clavius
Christopher Clavius, SJ (25 March 1538 – 6 February 1612) was a Jesuit German mathematician, head of mathematicians at the Collegio Romano, and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius Lilius, that is known as the Gregorian calendar. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, including an emphatic acknowledgement of Lilius' work. In his last years he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe. Early life Little is known about Clavius' early life other than the fact that he was born in Bamberg in either 1538 or 1537. His given name is not known to any great degree of certainty—it is thought by scholars to have perhaps been ''Christoph Clau'' or ''Klau''. There are also some who think that his taken name, ''Clavius'', may be a Latinization of his original Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gonfaloniere
The Gonfalonier (in Italian: ''Gonfaloniere'') was the holder of a highly prestigious communal office in medieval and Renaissance Italy, notably in Florence and the Papal States. The name derives from ''gonfalone'' (in English, gonfalon), the term used for the banners of such communes. In Florence, the office was known as Gonfalonier of Justice (''Gonfaloniere di Giustizia'') and was held by one of the nine citizens selected by the drawing lots every two months, who formed the city's government, or Signoria. In the papal states, it was known as Gonfalonier of the Church or Papal Gonfalonier. Other central and northern Italian communes, from Spoleto to the County of Savoy, elected or appointed ''gonfalonieri.'' The Bentivoglio family of Bologna aspired to this office during the sixteenth century. However, by the year 1622, when Artemisia Gentileschi painted a portrait of Pietro Gentile as a gonfaloniere of Bologna, with the ''gonfalone'' in the background, the office had merely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sundials
A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat plate (the ''dial'') and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial. As the Sun appears to move through the sky, the shadow aligns with different hour-lines, which are marked on the dial to indicate the time of day. The ''style'' is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, though a single point or ''nodus'' may be used. The gnomon casts a broad shadow; the shadow of the style shows the time. The gnomon may be a rod, wire, or elaborately decorated metal casting. The style must be parallel to the axis of the Earth's rotation for the sundial to be accurate throughout the year. The style's angle from horizontal is equal to the sundial's geographical latitude. The term ''sundial'' can refer to any device that uses the Sun's altitude or azimuth ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucca
Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one of the Italian's "Città d'arte" (Arts town), thanks to its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well preserved historic center, where, among other buildings and monuments, are located the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which has its origins in the second half of the 1st century A.D. and the Guinigi Tower, a tower that dates from the 1300s. The city is also the birthplace of numerous world-class composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Alfredo Catalani, and Luigi Boccherini. Toponymy By the Romans, Lucca was known as ''Luca''. From more recent and concrete toponymic studies, the name Lucca has references that lead to "sacred wood" (Latin: ''lucus''), "to cut" (Latin: ''lucare'') and "luminous space" (''leuk'', a term used by the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanctuary Of The Holy House Of Loreto
The Basilica della Santa Casa ( en, Basilica of the Holy House) is a Marian shrine in Loreto, in the Marches, Italy. The basilica is known for enshrining the house in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed by some Catholics to have lived. Pious legends claim the same house was flown over by angelic beings from Nazareth to Tersatto (Trsat in Croatia), then to Recanati, before arriving at the current site. The basilica is also known for enshrining the Madonna and Child image of "Our Lady of Loreto". Pope Benedict XV designated the religious image as patroness of air passengers and auspicious travel on 24 March 1920. Pope Pius XI granted a Canonical Coronation to the venerated image made of Cedar of Lebanon wood on 5 September 1922, replacing the original Marian image consumed in fire on 23 February 1921. The church The basilica containing the ''Santa Casa'' is a Late Gothic structure built starting from 1468, and continued by Giuliano da Maiano, Giuliano da Sangall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
