Leonardo Salimbeni

Salimbeni: Opuscoli di geometria e balistica 1780

Leonardo Salimbeni (* 1752 in Spalato , † 1823 in Verona ) was an Italian mathematician and engineer .

Salimbeni studied at the military academy in Verona, where he was a student of Antonio Maria Lorgna , whose successor he became head of the academy, even when it was moved to Modena in 1798 under Napoleon .

He is known for his early contributions to statics, especially the statics of vaults and arches made of masonry, about which he published a book in 1787. Lorenzo Mascheroni and, in France, Philippe de la Hire , Charles Bossut and Charles Augustin de Coulomb were forerunners in this direction . In contrast to his predecessors, after Edoardo Benvenuto he is also interested in the forces during the construction phase of a vault. Salimbene followed a geometrical approach (which he later translated into analytical formulas), but was only partially successful as a forerunner of graphic statics of the 19th century (Benvenuto). According to Jean-Victor Poncelet , his actual new contribution is buried under numerous geometrical evidence (in the style of old authors such as Christiaan Huygens ): Salimbene found the support line of arches of constant finite cross-sectional thickness and found that it no longer corresponded to the chain line of the idealization of infinitely thin arches as many engineers assumed until the 19th century.

In 1788 he published a textbook on statics resulting from his lectures. He also published on ballistics.

Fonts

Opuscoli di geometria e balistica, 1780
Degli archi e delle volte, Verna 1787
Saggio di un nuovo corso di elementi di statica, 1788

Individual evidence

↑ Edoardo Benvenuto, An introduction to the history of structural mechanics, Springer 1991, Volume 2, pp. 425ff, on Salimbene. His teacher Lorgna also published on the statics of vaults and carried out measurements (where he approximated the vaults using rods), in which Salimbene was involved.
^ Poncelet, Examen critique et Historique des principales théories ou solutions concernant l'équilibre des voutes, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences Volume 35, 1852, pp. 494-502, 531-540, 578-580. Among the eighteenth-century authors, he found only Coulomb and Salimbeni worth investigating.

personal data
SURNAME	Salimbeni, Leonardo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian engineer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	1752
PLACE OF BIRTH	Spalato
DATE OF DEATH	1823
Place of death	Verona

[1] Edoardo Benvenuto, An introduction to the history of structural mechanics, Springer 1991, Volume 2, pp. 425ff, on Salimbene. His teacher Lorgna also published on the statics of vaults and carried out measurements (where he approximated the vaults using rods), in which Salimbene was involved.

[2] Poncelet, Examen critique et Historique des principales théories ou solutions concernant l'équilibre des voutes, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences Volume 35, 1852, pp. 494-502, 531-540, 578-580. Among the eighteenth-century authors, he found only Coulomb and Salimbeni worth investigating.