Francesco Bianchini

Francesco Bianchini (Latinized Franciscus Blanchinus ; born December 13, 1662 in Verona , † March 2, 1729 in Rome ) was an Italian philosopher , astronomer and archaeologist .

Monument in the Verona Cathedral

Live and act

Bianchini worked for the Curia under four Popes, including as Secretary of the Calendar Improvement Commission, and worked on the method to calculate the correct date for Easter in a given year. He was educated in Verona in the Jesuit college, studied theology, philosophy, mathematics and physics in Padua from 1680 and, in Rome from 1684, especially Roman archeology. Pope Alexander VIII awarded him a rich benefice, and Clement XI. appointed him secretary of the commission responsible for the calendar improvement. His hometown Verona erected a marble monument for him in the local cathedral. Mazzaloni wrote his biography (Verona 1735).

Bianchini's Gnomon in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri , Rome

He published many books, including A Universal History and Hesperi et Phosphori nova phaenomena sive observationes circa planetam Veneris , in which he derived a period of rotation from observing the surface of Venus . Today we know that this is impossible because of the heavy cloud cover on this planet. He also worked on the parallax of Venus, and he measured the precession of the mass of the center of rotation.

As part of his efforts to improve the accuracy of the calendar, Bianchini constructed some important noon lines, devices for calculating the position of the sun and stars. The most notable are in the Cathedral Church of San Petronio in Bologna and in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome.

In 1713 he was elected a member of the Royal Society at the suggestion of Isaac Newton . From 1699 he was a member of the Académie des Sciences .

Craters on Mars and the Moon and the asteroid (42775) Bianchini are named after him.

Works

• Storia universale, provata co 'monumenti, e figurata co' simboli degli antichi Rome 1697 a. 1747
• De vitis romanorum pontificum a Petro Apost. ad Nicolaum I. Rome 1718–35, 4 vols
• Hesperi et Phosphori nova phaenomena sive observationes circa planetam Veneris Rome 1728

literature

• Stefan Heid : Art. Francesco Bianchini . In: Stefan Heid, Martin Dennert (Hrsg.): Personal Lexicon for Christian Archeology. Researchers and personalities from the 16th to the 21st century . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7954-2620-0 , vol. 1, p. 182 f.
• Valentin Kockel , Brigitte Sölch (ed.): Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) and the European learned world around 1700. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-05-004133-1 .
• Salvatore Rotta:  Bianchini, Francesco. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 10:  Biagio-Boccaccio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1968.
• Brigitte Sölch: Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) and the beginnings of public museums in Rome. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-06633-5 .
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Bianchini, Franz . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 1st part. University book printer L. C. Zamarski (formerly JP Sollinger), Vienna 1856, pp. 381–383 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Francesco Bianchini  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Francesco Bianchini in the catalog of the German National Library
• Catholic Encyclopedia engl.
• Brief description of Hesperi et Phosphori nova phaenomena… (English)
• Bianchini's Globe of Venus , 1727. Museum of Astronomy Museo della Specola, Bologna

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Bianchini, Francesco (1662 - 1729) in the archives of the Royal Society , London
2. ^ Directory of members since 1666: Letter B. Académie des sciences, accessed on September 20, 2019 (French).