Ignazio Danti
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Ignazio (Egnatio) Danti (born Pellegrino Rainaldi Danti) (April 1536-October 19, 1586) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.
Biography
Born in Perugia, as a boy he learned the rudiments of painting and architecture from his father and aunt, but mathematics and science were his favorite studies.He entered the Dominican Order on March 7, 1555, changing his baptismal name from Pellegrino to Ignazio. After completing his studies in philosophy and theology he gave some time to preaching, but soon devoted himself zealously to mathematics, astronomy, and geography.
About 1567 he was invited to Florence by Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, who wished to avail himself of his services in reviving mathematical and astronomical studies in his newly acquired dominion. About the same time Pope Sixtus V, who belonged to the Dominicans, is said to have commissioned Danti to furnish plans for the construction of a Dominican church and convent at Bosco. During his stay in Florence, Danti taught mathematics.
Danti resided at the convent of Santa Maria Novella, and designed the armillary sphere (on the left) and the gnomon (on the right) that appear on the end blind arches of the lower facade of the church in 1572.
Danti was also chosen to direct the building of a canal which was to place Florence in communication with both the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. Cosimo did not live to carry out his project and shortly after his death (1574), Danti became professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. While occupying this chair he spent some time in Perugia, at the invitation of the governor, where he prepared maps of the Perugian republic.
On account of his mathematical attainments, Pope Gregory XIII invited him to Rome, appointed him pontifical mathematician and made him a member of the commission for the reform of the calendar. He also placed him in charge of the painters whom the Pope had summoned to the Vatican to continue the work so brilliantly begun by Raphael during the reign of Pope Leo X and at the same time desired him to make a number of maps of ancient and modern Italy.
When the pontiff commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to repair the Claudian harbour it was Danti who furnished the necessary plans. While at Rome Danti published a translation of a portion of Euclid with annotations and wrote a life of the architect Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, preparing also notes for the latter's work on perspective. In recognition of his labours Gregory, in 1583, made him Bishop of Alatri in the Campagna. Danti showed himself a zealous pastor in his new office.
As bishop of Alatri, Danti convoked a diocesan synod, corrected many abuses, and showed great solicitude for the poor. Shortly before his death Pope Sixtus V summoned him to Rome to assist in the erection of the grand obelisk in the piazza of the Vatican.
Besides the works already mentioned, Danti was the author of Trattato del'uso e della fabbrica dell'astrolabo con la giunta del planifero del Raja; Le Scienze matematiche ridotte in tavole, also a revised and annotated edition of La Sfera di Messer G. Sacrobosco tradotta da Pier Vincenzio Danti.
He died at Alatri. After Danti's death, in 1588 Giovanni Antonio Magini was chosen over Galileo to occupy the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna.
Sources
- [Ignazio Danti] at the Catholic Encyclopedia
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. [] at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.Danti]
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