Élie Diodati (Elia, Elias) (1576–1661) was a Genevan lawyer and jurist from a leading

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

family in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, who had moved there from

Lucca Città di 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 of Lucca, province has a population of 383,9 ...

. He is now known as a supporter of

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

: they started their correspondence in 1620 and met in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in 1626. He settled in Paris, where he was an ''avocat du Parlement''. He arranged for

Lodewijk Elzevir Lodewijk Elzevir (c. 1540 – 4 February 1617), originally ''Lodewijk or Louis Elsevier or Elzevier'', was a printer, born in the city of Leuven (today in Belgium, then part of the Habsburg Netherlands or Spanish Netherlands). He was the founder of ...

to visit Galileo at Arcetri, in May 1636, leading to the publication of the ''

Two New Sciences The ''Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences'' ( ) published in 1638 was Galileo Galilei's final book and a scientific testament covering much of his work in physics over the preceding thirty years. It was writ ...

''.Michael Sharratt, ''Galilo; Decisive Innovator'' (1994), p. 185-7.

Notes

Further reading