Tito Livio Burattini

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Tito Livio Burattini (born March 8, 1617 in Agordo , Belluno province ; † probably on November 18, 1681 in Krakow ) worked as a universal scholar at the Polish court and kept in touch with famous scientists of his time. Today he is best known for the invention of the dragon valance and as the forerunner of the metric system.

Life

Tito Livio Burattini was born on March 8, 1617 in Agordo, in the Belluno region of northern Italy, into a family of local nobility whose presence in the region has been known since the mid-14th century. Burattini studied classical literature, languages, architecture, astronomy and natural sciences in Padua and Venice . Little is known about the last years of the polymath's life. Burattini fell ill with gout and probably died on November 18, 1681. At the end of his life he fell into severe poverty, which is why there was not enough money available for his funeral. Many of the polymath, scientist, and inventor's ideas remained unrealized projects. One possible reason for this is the long distance of its Polish office from the major European research centers of its time.

Egyptology

After completing his studies, Tito Livio Burattini traveled to Egypt, where he resided from 1637 to 1641. During his stay he traveled to the Nile Delta , the Sinai and the Fayyum area . He carried out geographic, ethnographic and metrological studies. In addition, he made a geographical map and precisely defined the coordinates of the most important places. In 1639 he researched the Great Pyramid with the English mathematician John Greaves .

On June 3, 1652 he came into contact with Athanasius Kircher . Five letters and drawings from the correspondence between Burattini and Kircher have survived and are now kept in the Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana. Kircher published drawings by Burattini in his works Oedipus Aegyptiacus and Sphinx Mystagoga. These pictures show pyramids near Dahshur and a tomb there. After 1652 no contact between Kircher and Burattini can be proven.

Stay in Poland

In 1641 Burattini returned to Europe and after a short stay in Germany settled in Poland, his adopted home. As a foreign courtier, he stayed in Kraków at the Polish court, where he quickly gained the favor of King Władysław IV Wasa and his wife Luisa Maria Gonzaga , who came from Italy . From the Polish court, Burattini managed to come into contact with European, especially French, scientists.

Queen Maria Louisa von Gonzages-Nevers appointed Tito Livio Burattini as royal Polish architect in 1648. In the course of this office he oversaw the construction of the Kazimierz Palace in Warsaw and the renovation work of the Ujadów Palace . In addition, Burattini was entrusted with the supervision of ore and silver mining as well as with the minting of coins. In the course of this activity, Burattini was repeatedly accused of serious allegations, mainly related to the bookkeeping, the poor quality of the coins and a personal enrichment of the native Italian. The discussion among scientists in this regard is still open today. In addition to his occupation with flight tests, Burattini carried out experiments on vacuum and optics in Poland.

The dragon valance

In 1647/48, the secretary of King Wladyslaw IV of Poland, Pierre de Noyers, reported in his correspondence about Burattini's plan to build a flying machine. The Italian inventor recorded plans for this as well as sketch plans for this project in his Ars Volandi .

Burattini touches on the possibility of a "lighter than air" flight according to the Archimedean principle , since, according to him, even the lightest feather of a bird has a higher specific weight than air. With new mechanical principles he tries to solve previous problems of failed flight attempts. These are Galileo Galileo's ideas regarding air resistance, which Burattini probably got to know on his trip to Italy around 1646.

Fig.1: Dragon Volant (Flying Dragon) by Burattini.

Burattini hoped for financial support from the Polish court in order to realize his plans. In the years 1647/48 he finally built a 1.205 m long model of the Dragon Volant (see Fig. 1). This flying machine consisted of fixed wings in combination with a wing flapping mechanism, which was supposed to be driven by muscle power via a lever mechanism. The machine was shaped like a dragon and was supposed to be controlled by means of the rotating tail piece. It is unclear whether there was ever a life-size execution of the plans.

The prototype of the machine took off for a few moments with a cat on the occasion of a demonstration at the Warschauer Hof in 1647. In 1648 the news of the Polish engineer who had designed a flying machine called the Flying Dragon spread across Europe. The response to this, however, was mostly sarcastic. This negative response from European scientists is particularly related to a supposed promise by Burattini that the flying kite would be able to travel from Constantinople to Warsaw in 12 hours.

The metric system

Burattini is considered to be the forerunner of the metric system. The system of units he developed was based on the period of a pendulum and produced the unit of length metro cattolico ( universal meter ). In his Misura Universale , published in 1675 in the Franciscan printing house in Vilna , Burattini suggested this universal unit of length.

In addition, Burattini published his work La Bilancia Sincera in 1645 based on Galileo Galilei's manuscript La bilancetta on the hydrostatic balance for determining specific gravity .

More inventions and constructions

In 1617, during his stay in Krakow, Burattini had the opportunity to examine a Pascaline that Blaise Pascal gave to Maria Luisa Gonzaga. This was the model for his calculating machine , the model of which he completed in 1658 and given to Grand Duke Ferdinando II. De Medici . A calculating machine in the Museo Galileo in Florence was mistakenly mistaken for this object constructed by Burattini.

In the years 1680-1681 Tito Livio Burattini dealt with optics and astronomy. With Galileo's former student Stanislaw Pudlowsky and the Luccheser Hieronymus / Girolamo Pinocci (* 1612) he undertook optical experiments in Krakow. Thanks to one of his own constructions, Burattini was able to discover irregularities on the surface of Venus .

Some of his self-made constructions, e.g. He gave hollow glass lenses for microscopes and telescopes to Cardinal Leopoldo de 'Medici .

Bibliography and sources

  • Antonio Favaro: Intorno alla Vita ed ai Lavori di Tito Livio Burattini Fisico Agordino del secolo XVII. Studi e Richerche. Tipografia Carlo Ferrari, Venezia 1896.
  • Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance. Travaux et Documents Organe de l'Association Humanisme et Renaissance (Volume 32). Droz, Genève 1970.
  • Calculating machine. At: http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/CalculatingMachine_n01.html (accessed January 12, 2020).
  • Clive Hart: The Prehistory of Flight . University of California Press, Berkeley 1985, ISBN 978-0520052130 .
  • Copy of Breguet's Pre-1914 Aircraft Challenge. At: http://chezpeps.free.fr/0/pre-1914/03-101_150-copy_paste_Breguet-Pre-1914-Aircraft-Challenge.html (accessed on January 12, 2020).
  • Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (= Buffoli - Caccianemici. Volume 15). Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1972.
  • · Hanna Siebenpfeiffer: "... pas plus que huit mois de temps et cinq cents escus pour payer les ouvriers". Tito Livio Burattini's dragon volant between science and charlatanism . In: Tina Asmussen, Hole Rößler (Ed.): Scharlatan! A figure of relegation in the early modern scholarly culture , (= time leaps. Research on the early modern era. Volume 17. Issue 2/3). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-465-04192-4 , pp. 283-308.
  • Horst Beinlich: Athanasius Kircher and the knowledge of ancient Egypt . In: Horst Beinlich, Christoph Daxelmüller (Hrsg.): Magic of knowledge. Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680 polymath, collector, visionary. Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002a, ISBN 978-3-89754-211-2 , pp. 85-98.
  • Horst Beinlich: Kircher and Egypt. Second hand information : Tito Livio Burattini. In Horst Beinlich, Hans-Joachim Vollrath, Klaus Wittstadt (eds.): Search for traces . Paths to Athanasius Kircher (= 600 years university 2002). Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002b, ISBN 3897542137 , pp. 57-72.
  • Ilario Tancon: Lo scienziato Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681). Al servizio del re di Polonia (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 81). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2006, ISBN 88-8443-091-7 .
  • Inge Keil: Augustanus Opticus. Johann Wiesel (1583-1662) and 200 years of optical craftsmanship in Augsburg (= Colloquia Augustana. Volume 12). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3050034440 .
  • Jan Wladyslaw Wós: Tito Livio Burattini, Precursore del Sistema metrico, e la Polonia del XVII Secolo. In: Jan Wladyslaw Wós (Ed.): Silva Rerum. Sulla Storia dell'Europa orientale e le Relazioni italo-polacche (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 54). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2001, ISBN 88-8443-011-9 , pp. 121–128.
  • Jan Wladyslaw Wós: Tito Livio Burattini, uno Scienziato italiano nella Polonia del Seicento . In: Platania, Gaetano (ed.): L´Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società. Sette Città, Viterbo 2004, ISBN 88-7853-008-5 , pp. 23-35.
  • Karolina Targosz: “LE DRAGON VOLANT” DE TITO LIVIO BURATTINI . In: Annali dell'Instituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze (Volume 2. Edition 2). Brill, Florence 1977.
  • Silvio Hénin: Early Italian Computing Machines and their Inventors . In: Arthur Tatnall (Ed.): Reflections on the History of Computing. Preserving Memories and Sharing Stories. Springer, Heidelberg a. a. 2012, ISBN 9783642338991 .
  • Tito Livio Burattini. 1617-1681. At: http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/biography/TitoLivioBurattini.html (accessed January 12, 2020).
  • Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Frank Böhling: Oedipus Aegyptiacus (= major works. Scientifically managed reprint edition with register. Volume 2). Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim u. a. 2013, ISBN 9783487146409 .
  • Wolfgang Behringer, Constanze Ott-Koptschalijski: The dream of flying. Between myth and technology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-10-007106-9 .

Works

  • Tito Livio Burattini to Athanasius Kircher, June 3, 1652. In Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana 558, f. 133r-134v.
  • Tito Livio Burattini to Ismaele Bouillau, October 4, 1675. In: Antonio Favaro (ed.): Intorno alla Vita ed ai Lavori di Tito Livio Burattini, fisico Agordino del secolo XVII. Studi e Ricerche (= Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti). Tipografia Carlo Ferrari, Venice 1896, pp. 130-131.
  • Tito Livio Burattini to Pierre des Noyers, December 20, 1680. In: Antonio Favaro (Ed.): Intorno alla Vita ed ai Lavori di Tito Livio Burattini, fisico Agordino del secolo XVII. Studi e Ricerche (= Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti). Tipografia Carlo Ferrari, Venice 1896, pp. 136-137.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Jan Wladislaw Wós: Tito Livio Burattini, uno Scienziato italiano nella Polonia del Seicento . In: Platania, Gaetano (ed.): L´Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società . Sette Città, Viterbo 2004, ISBN 88-7853-008-5 , p. 25 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Jan Wladyslaw Wós: Tito Livio Burattini, Precursore del Sistema metrico, e la Polonia del XVII Secolo. In: Jan Wladyslaw Wós (Ed.): Silva Rerum. Sulla Storia dell'Europa orientale e le Relazioni italo-polacche (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 54). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2001, ISBN 88-8443-011-9 , p. 121.
  3. ↑ a b January Wladyslaw Wos: Tito Livio Burattini, PRECURSORE del Sistema metrico, e la Polonia del Secolo XVII. In: Jan Wladyslaw Wós (Ed.): Silva Rerum. Sulla Storia dell'Europa orientale e le Relazioni italo-polacche (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 54). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2001, ISBN 88-8443-011-9 , p. 127.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Wolfgang Behringer, Constanze Ott-Koptschalijski: The dream of flying. Between myth and technology . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-10-007106-9 , pp. 269 . From: Clive Hart: The Prehistory of Flight , University of California Press, Berkeley 1985, ISBN 978-0520052130 , pp. 136-138.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Jan Wladyslaw Wós: Tito Livio Burattini, Precursore del Sistema metrico, e la Polonia del XVII Secolo. In: Jan Wladyslaw Wós (Ed.): Silva Rerum. Sulla Storia dell'Europa orientale e le Relazioni italo-polacche (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 54). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2001, ISBN 88-8443-011-9 , p. 122.
  6. ↑ Hanna Siebenpfeiffer: "... pas plus que huit mois de temps et cinq cents escus pour payer les ouvriers". Tito Livio Burattini's dragon volant between science and charlatanism . In: Tina Asmussen, Hole Rößler (Ed.): Scharlatan! A figure of relegation in the early modern scholarly culture , (= time leaps. Research on the early modern era. Volume 17. Issue 2/3). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-465-04192-4 , p. 300.
  7. ^ Tito Livio Burattini to Pierre des Noyers, December 20, 1680. In: Antonio Favaro (ed.): Intorno alla Vita ed ai Lavori di Tito Livio Burattini, fisico Agordino del secolo XVII. Studi e Ricerche (= Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti). Tipografia Carlo Ferrari, Venice 1896, pp. 136-137.
  8. ↑ Ilario Tancon: Lo scienziato Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681). Al servizio del re di Polonia (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 81). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2006, ISBN 88-8443-091-7 , pp. 68-69.
  9. ^ Tito Livio Burattini to Ismaele Bouillau, October 4, 1675. In: Antonio Favaro (ed.): Intorno alla Vita ed ai Lavori di Tito Livio Burattini, fisico Agordino del secolo XVII. Studi e Ricerche (= Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti). Tipografia Carlo Ferrari, Venice 1896, pp. 130-131.
  10. ↑ Horst Beinlich: Athanasius Kircher and the knowledge of ancient Egypt . In: Horst Beinlich, Christoph Daxelmüller (Hrsg.): Magic of knowledge. Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680 polymath, collector, visionary. Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002a, ISBN 978-3-89754-211-2 , p. 98.
  11. ↑ Ilario Tancon: Lo scienziato Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681). Al servizio del re di Polonia (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 81). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2006, ISBN 88-8443-091-7 , p. 74.
  12. ^ Tito Livio Burattini to Athanasius Kircher, June 3, 1652. In Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana 558, f. 133r-134v, after Horst Beinlich: Kircher and Egypt. Second hand information: Tito Livio Burattini . In Horst Beinlich, Hans-Joachim Vollrath, Klaus Wittstadt (eds.): Search for traces . Paths to Athanasius Kircher (= 600 years university 2002). Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002b, ISBN 3897542137 , p. 70.
  13. ↑ Horst Beinlich: Kircher and Egypt. Second hand information. In: Horst Beinlich, Hans-Joachim Vollrath, Klaus Wittstadt (eds.): Search for traces. Paths to Athanasius Kircher (= 600 years university 2002). Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002b, ISBN 3-89754-213-7 , p. 70.
  14. ^ Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Frank Böhling: Oedipus Aegyptiacus (= major works. Scientifically managed reprint edition with register. Volume 2). Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim u. a. 2013, ISBN 9783487146409 , p. 305.
  15. ↑ Horst Beinlich: Athanasius Kircher and the knowledge of ancient Egypt . In: Horst Beinlich, Christoph Daxelmüller (Hrsg.): Magic of knowledge . Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680 universal scholar, collector, visionary , Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002a, ISBN 978-3-89754-211-2 , p.96. After: Athanasius Kircher: Sphinx Mystagoga Sive Diatribe Hieroglyphica , Jansson-Waesberg, Amsterdam 1676, pp. 8–9.
  16. ↑ Horst Beinlich, Hans-Joachim Vollrath, Klaus Wittstadt (ed.): Search for traces. Paths to Athanasius Kircher (= 600 years university 2002). Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002b, ISBN 3-89754-213-7 , p. 60.
  17. ↑ Hanna Siebenpfeiffer: "... pas plus que huit mois de temps et cinq cents escus pour payer les ouvriers". Tito Livio Burattini's dragon volant between science and charlatanism . In: Tina Asmussen, Hole Rößler (Ed.): Scharlatan! A figure of relegation in the early modern scholarly culture , (= time leaps. Research on the early modern era. Volume 17. Issue 2/3). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-465-04192-4 , p. 301.
  18. ↑ a b Horst Beinlich: Kircher and Egypt. Second hand information. In: Horst Beinlich, Hans-Joachim Vollrath, Klaus Wittstadt (eds.): Search for traces. Paths to Athanasius Kircher (= 600 years university 2002). Röll Verlag, Dettelbach 2002b, ISBN 3-89754-213-7 , pp. 57-58.
  19. ↑ a b January Wladyslaw Wos: Tito Livio Burattini, uno Scienziato italiano nella Polonia del Seicento . In: Platania, Gaetano (ed.): L´Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società . Sette Città, Viterbo 2004, ISBN 88-7853-008-5 , p. 32 .
  20. ^ Inge Keil: Augustanus Opticus. Johann Wiesel (1583-1662) and 200 years of optical craftsmanship in Augsburg (= Colloquia Augustana. Volume 12 ). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-05-003444-0 , page 145. After: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (= Buffoli - Caccianemici. Volume 15). Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1972, pp. 394-398.
  21. ↑ January Wladyslaw Wos: Tito Livio Burattini, uno Scienziato italiano nella Polonia del Seicento . In: Platania, Gaetano (ed.): L´Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società, Sette Città, Viterbo 2004, ISBN 88-7853-008-5 , p. 28.
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Behringer, Constanze Ott-Koptschalijski: The dream of flying. Between myth and technology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-10-007106-9 , p. 271. Based on: Clive Hart: The Prehistory of Flight , University of California Press, Berkeley 1985, ISBN 978-0520052130 , p. 145.
  23. ↑ January Wladyslaw Wos: Tito Livio Burattini, PRECURSORE del Sistema Metrico, e la Polonia del Secolo XVII . In: Jan Wladyslaw Wós (Ed.): Silva Rerum. Sulla Storia dell'Europa orientale e le Relazioni italo-polacche (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 54). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2001, ISBN 88-8443-011-9 , p. 123.
  24. ↑ Ilario Tancon: Lo scienziato Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681). Al servizio del re di Polonia (= Labirinti. Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Volume 81). Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento 2006, ISBN 88-8443-091-7 , p. 123.
  25. ↑ January Wladyslaw Wos: Tito Livio Burattini, uno Scienziato italiano nella Polonia del Seicento . In: Platania, Gaetano (ed.): L´Europa di Giovanni Sobieski. Cultura, politica, mercatura e società. Sette Città, Viterbo 2004, ISBN 88-7853-008-5 , p. 23.
  26. ↑ a b Karolina Targosz: “LE DRAGON VOLANT” DE TITO LIVIO BURATTINI . In: Annali dell'Instituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze (Volume 2. Edition 2). Brill, Florence 1977, p. 69.
  27. ^ A b c Silvio Hénin: Early Italian Computing Machines and their Inventors . In: Arthur Tatnall (Ed.): Reflections on the History of Computing. Preserving Memories and Sharing Stories . Springer, Heidelberg a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-33899-1 , pp. 210 .
  28. ^ Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance. Travaux et Documents Organe de l'Association Humanisme et Renaissance (Volume 32). Droz, Genève 1970, p. 206.
personal data
SURNAME Burattini, Tito Livio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian inventor, architect, Egyptologist and instrument maker
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1617
PLACE OF BIRTH Agordo , Belluno Province
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1681
Place of death Krakow