João Baptista Lavanha

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João Baptista Lavanha or Juan Bautista Labaña (* around 1550 in Lisbon ; † January 31, 1624 in Madrid ) was a Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer .

Life and accomplishments

Little is known about the first years of Lavanha's life. He should Jewish been descent and Christian faith converted to be. For a long time he was in the service of the Spanish kings Philip II and Philip III. In 1583 he became a professor in Madrid. Here one of his students was the cartographer Pedro Teixeira Albernaz (1595–1662), with whom Lavanha worked several times later. He made several topographical maps - one for the Kingdom of Aragon , for example - and designed an instrument for measuring angles .

In addition, Lavanha was responsible for teaching seafarers and pilots in mathematics for about ten years in Lisbon from 1587. During this time Lavanha also supervised the correct preparation of nautical charts and of instruments useful in seafaring such as astrolabes , compasses and quadrants .

In 1591 João Baptista Lavanha was made Knight of the Portuguese Order of Christ .

Fonts

João Baptista Lavanha was the author or co-author of about half a dozen scientific publications . His main work is the Regimento nautico , published in 1595 , in which he presented the mathematical methods for determining geographical latitudes and also provided tables of the sun declination . In addition, together with the historians João de Barros (1496–1570), Diogo de Couto (approx. 1542–1616) and Manuel Severim de Faria (1584–1655), he wrote a travelogue about Portuguese discoveries in Asia .

See also

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See entry in the catalog of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal !
  2. ↑ See entry at WorldCat !
personal data
SURNAME Lavanha, João Baptista
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Labaña, Juan Bautista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1550
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1624
Place of death Madrid