Federico Commandino

Federico Commandino

Federico Commandino , also Federigo, Latinized Federicus Commandinus, (* 1506 in Urbino , † September 5, 1575 there ) was an Italian humanist, doctor and mathematician.

Life

Commandino came from a noble family in Urbino. His grandfather was secretary to the Duke of Urbino and his father Battista designed the fortifications of Urbino. He was taught in Greek and Latin in Fano by the humanist G. Torelli and in mathematics by the teacher of the Orsini family, who fled Rome to Urbino in 1527 before the Sacco di Roma . On the recommendation of this teacher (who became bishop in 1533) he became private secretary of Pope Clement VII in 1533 , but who died in the same year. He attended the universities of Padua (1534-1544) and Ferrara, where he earned a doctorate in medicine. In addition to medicine, he also studied philosophy and the classical quadrivium . After completing his studies, he wanted to practice as a doctor in Urbino, but became tutor and doctor of the ducal family. He married and had two daughters and a son, but his wife died soon after. At the Duke of Urbino he met Cardinal Farnese, with whom he went to Rome in the early 1550s. He befriended Cardinal Cervini, who became Pope Marcellus II in 1555 , but died shortly afterwards. Commandino then returned to Urbino, where he was in the service of the Duke and Cardinal Farnese. When Cardinal Farnese became Bishop of Bologna, Commandino followed him there, but returned to Urbino after his death in 1565. The Duke of Urbino had given him a pension.

He is known as the editor and translator of mathematical works of ancient Greece, of Archimedes , Aristarchus of Samos , Pappos , Heron of Alexandria , of Claudius Ptolemy , Serenus of Antinoupolis , Apollonios of Perge , Eutokios and the elements of Euclid . He mostly translated from Greek into Latin. He started doing it in Urbino, where he had access to the ducal library. Later in Rome, his access to manuscripts and books expanded considerably, and he also had access to Greek manuscripts in Venice.

He was also involved in the development of the reduction circle (to the proportional circle), which is usually attributed to Fabrizio Mordente and in the later development Galileo Galilei . Mordente had discussions with Commandino and Guidobaldo del Monte in Urbino.

He corresponded with the astronomer Francesco Maurolico . Bernardino Baldi (who wrote his biography in 1587) and Guidobaldo del Monte (a friend of Galileo's) were his students. In 1563 John Dee visited him .

Editing

Liber de centro gravitatis solidorum , 1565

• 1558 edition of the writings of Archimedes with own commentary. It includes loop measurement (with comment Eutocius), spirals , quadrature of the parabola , conoids and spheroids , sandy computer . In addition to the first printed edition in Basel from 1544, he had access to a Greek manuscript in Venice. An edition of Archimedes On Floating Bodies , which he knew only from the printed Latin edition (Venice 1543, 1565), he published in Bologna in 1565 with his own additions of incomplete evidence (Proposition 2 in Book 2).
• 1558 Planisphaerium by Ptolemy, with a commentary on the stereographic projection of the celestial sphere of Ptolemy, which relates to the architectural perspective . There was already a Latin edition of the Planisphaerium (Basel 1536), which Commandinus revised and commented on.
• 1562 Ptolemy's De Annalemate , a fragment on sundials that was only known in Latin translation. Commandinus also discusses relevant passages in Vitruvius and adds his own treatise.
• 1566 the first four books of the conic sections by Apollonius, the only ones preserved in Greek. With his translation, he improves the earlier Latin translation, which appeared in Venice in 1537. The book also contained the commentary by Eutokios, Book 7 of Pappo's collection, and of Serenus Cut of a Cylinder and a Cone .
• In 1570 he published in Pesaro a Latin translation of a manuscript from Arabic that was connected with Euclid's On the Division of Figures and that John Dee gave him.
• 1572 (Pesaro) the elements of Euclid with commentary by Commandino. The translation was published at the request of the son of the Duke of Urbino. In addition to the Latin edition, he also published an Italian translation by one of his students (Urbino 1575).
• 1572 (Pesaro) Aristarchus size and distance of the sun and moon with commentary and sections from Pappos collection, book 6.
• 1575 (Urbino) Heron Pneumatik (published posthumously by his son-in-law)
• 1588 (Pesaro) Pappos Collection, books 3 to 8 (published posthumously by del Monte)

He also published his own research on key areas in the tradition of Archimedes De Centro Gravitatis (Bologna 1565).

literature

• Edward Rosen Federico Commandino , in Dictionary of Scientific Biography

See also

• Commandino's theorem

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Federico Commandino. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Baldi's biography 1509 is stated, but on his tombstone it says that he was 69 years old. Galileo Project to Commandino
2. ↑ The reason for the doctorate in Ferrara was the lower costs, as with Copernicus , Ferrara was therefore also called refugium pauperorum , Copernicus in Ferrara
3. ^ Edward Rosen The Invention of the Reduction Compass , Physis, Volume 10, 1968, pp. 306-308
4. ↑ Published in Giornal de 'letterati d'Italia, Volume 19, 1714, pp. 140-185, reprinted in F. Ugolino, F.-L. Polidori (editor) Versi e prose scelte di Bernardino Baldi , Florence 1859, pp. 513-537
5. ^ PL Rose, Commandino, John Dee, and the De superficierum divisionibus of Machometus Bagdedinus , Isis, Volume 63, 1972, pp. 88-93. Edward Rosen John Dee and Commandino , Scripta mathematica, Vol. 28, 1970, pp. 321-326.