Giuseppe Campani (1635–July 28, 1715) was an Italian optician and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...

who lived in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

during the latter half of the 17th century.

Life

Giuseppe Campani was born in 1635. He was an

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

n from Castel San Felice near

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome. History Sp ...

. His lenses and telescopes, made in Rome, were sent as far as

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. Campani was known as the best maker of optical instruments of his age. His brother,

Matteo Campani-Alimenis Matteo or Mathieu Campani-Alimenis (born in Spoleto, Italy) was a mechanician and natural philosopher of the 17th century. Life He held a curacy at Rome in 1661, but devoted himself principally to scientific pursuits. As an optician he is chie ...

, and he were experts in grinding and polishing

lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...

, especially for very long focal length

aerial telescope An aerial telescope is a type of very long focal length refracting telescope, built in the second half of the 17th century, that did not use a tube. Instead, the objective was mounted on a pole, tree, tower, building or other structure on a swi ...

objectives. His brother is also noted as a mechanician for his work on clocks. He was a priest in charge of a parish in Rome.

Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of V ...

ordered several long-focus lenses (86, 100, 136 feet respectively) for the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. With these Cassini found several moons of the planet

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; ...

, among other discoveries. Constantijn Huygens, Jr., brother of

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 ...

, acquired one of Campani's telescopes. While in London in 1689 he ordered a new tube for the instrument from the instrument maker John Marshall.

Astronomer

Campani made many observations himself. Cassini called his attention to the spots on

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

, and he disputed with

Eustachio Divini Eustachio Divini (4 October 1610 – 22 February 1685) was an Italian manufacturer and experimenter of optical instruments for scientific use in Rome. The origins Eustachio was born on 4 October 1610 in San Severino Marche, from the illustrious ...

, an Italian optician, the priority of their discovery. His astronomical observations and his descriptions of his telescopes are detailed in the following papers: ''Ragguaglio di due nuovi osservazioni, una celeste in ordine alla stella di Saturno, e terrestre l'altra in ordine agl' instrumenti'' (Rome, 1664, and again in 1665); ''Lettere di G. C. al sig. Giovanni Domenico Cassini intorno alle ombre delle stelle Medicee nel volto di Giove, ed altri nuovi fenomeni celesti scoperti co' suoi occhiali'' (Rome, 1666).

Instruments

Campani's entire workshop was donated to the ''Gabinetto di Fisica'' of the

Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute The Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna (''Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna'') is an academic society in Bologna, Italy, that was founded in 1690 and prospered in the Age of Enlightenment. Today it is closely associated ...

in 1747. His telescopes were in length. A telescope by Campani was tested in 1871 and was found to provide good definition and a flat field, with a magnification of about 20 times. A tripod compound monocular microscope made by Campani is held in the Billings microscope collection at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Life

Astronomer

Instruments

Works

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading