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Domenico Troili (1722–1792) was an Italian ''
abbate Abbate and L'Abbate is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Allison Abbate (born 1965), American film producer
*Anthony Abbate, American former Chicago police officer and criminal
* Carlo Abbate (c. 1600–before 1640), Ital ...
'' and a
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
, who held the appointment of custodian of the library of the ruling family of
Este in
Modena
Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
. He is recognized as the first person who documented the fall of a
meteorite
A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...
, in 1766.
[
Troili was a pupil of ]Roger Joseph Boscovich
Roger Joseph Boscovich ( hr, Ruđer Josip Bošković; ; it, Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich; la, Rogerius (Iosephus) Boscovicius; sr, Руђер Јосип Бошковић; 18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a physicist, astronomer, ...
at the Collegio Romano
The Roman College ( la, Collegium Romanum, it, Collegio Romano) was a school established by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1551, just 11 years after he founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It quickly grew to include classes from elementary school t ...
, and supported his master's atomic theory
Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter a ...
explaining the properties of matter.
The Albareto meteorite
In 1766, Troili witnessed the fall of a stone from the sky near the town of Albareto
Albareto (Parmigiano: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Parma in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about west of Bologna and about southwest of Parma.
Albareto borders the following municipalities: Borgo Val di Taro, ...
, in the Duchy of Parma
The Duchy of Parma and Piacenza ( it, Ducato di Parma e Piacenza, la, Ducatus Parmae et Placentiae), was an Italian state created in 1545 and located in northern Italy, in the current region of Emilia-Romagna.
Originally a realm of the Farnese ...
, Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
. He collected reports from many other eyewitnesses, closely examined the stone and detected in it small grains of a brassy mineral. He called the material "marchesita" (from Italian "little marchioness
A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...
"). Troili summarized the results of his research in a 43-page document, ''Ragionamento della caduta di un sasso'' ("Concerning the fall of a stone from the air") published in Modena
Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
in 1766.[
The report by Troili said that at about five hours after midday, when the sky was clear except for some clouds over the mountains on the far horizon, many people leaving their fields suddenly saw distant flashes of lightning and heard thunder. This rose in a crescendo of cannonading with loud explosions overhead. Numerous people saw a body streak across the sky and plunge to the ground. To some, the trail looked bright and fiery; to others, dark and smoky. The body hit the ground with such a force that a cow was knocked off its feet and two women clung to trees to avoid falling. The stone made a hole a meter deep in the earth and instantly broke into many pieces. It was a stone that was very heavy, irregular in shape, and magnetic. The outer surface looked as though it had been burned by fire. The inner parts looked much like sandstone with small steely sparkles.]
Approximately 2 kilograms of the stone were recovered. Today its small fragments are dispersed in numerous museums and laboratories, with the largest piece of 605 g located in the Museum of the University of Modena
The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ( it, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia), located in Modena and Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, is one of the oldest universities in Italy, founded in 1175, with a population of 2 ...
.[ The main component of the meteorite was long assumed to be ]pyrite
The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Iron, FeSulfur, S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
Pyrite's metallic Luster (mineralogy), lust ...
, FeS2. However, in 1862, German mineralogist
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...
Gustav Rose
Prof Gustavus ("Gustav") Rose FRSFor HFRSE (18 March 1798 – 15 July 1873) was a German mineralogist who was a native of Berlin. He was President of the German Geological Society from 1863 to 1873.
Life
He was born in Berlin the son of pharmaco ...
analyzed the composition and determined it as FeS, an iron sulfide. Rose named this new mineral troilite
Troilite is a rare iron sulfide mineral with the simple formula of FeS. It is the iron-rich endmember of the pyrrhotite group. Pyrrhotite has the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2) which is iron deficient. As troilite lacks the iron deficiency whic ...
after Troili. Although the work by Troili is widely recognized as describing a meteoritic fall, Troili himself, though searching for a scientific explanation in the spirit of the Enlightenment, did not recognize its extraterrestrial origin, but instead attributed the event to a by-product of a volcanic eruption: "the true cause of the fall of a stone in Albereto in mid-July, 1766, is a subterranean explosion that hurled the stone skyward"
Other investigations
His report ''Dell'oriuolo oltramontano ragionamento'' (Modena: Soliani) 1757, was concerned with the method of hour-reckoning familiar to us, but "foreign"— "ultramontane"— in Italy, of two sequences of twelve fixed hours each, not adjusted according to seasonal daylight; it was called "small" or "half clock" in the Old World, from an Italian perspective ''orologio (oriuolo) oltramontano''.[Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum and Thomas Dunlap, ''History of the hour: clocks and modern temporal orders'' (1998), p. 115.]
In 1770 appeared his ''Dissertazione sopra un legno fossile'' co-authored with
Giambattista Toderini; it was concerned with explaining the origin of fossil wood
Fossil wood, also known as fossilized tree, is wood that is preserved in the fossil record. Over time the wood will usually be the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified, in ...
.
His report of electrical experiments, ''Della elettricità: lezioni di fisica sperimentale fatte nella Università di Modena il primo anno del suo rinnovamento'', was published at Modena, 1772.
Works
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Troili, Domenico
1722 births
1792 deaths
Italian abbots
18th-century Italian astronomers
18th-century Italian Jesuits