Francesco maurolico biography

◀▲▶History / 15th-century / Person: Maurolico, Francesco

Francisco Maurolico was an Italian Benedictine who wrote important books on Greek mathematics. He also worked on geometry, the theory of numbers, optics, conics and mechanics.

Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):

• However, he also learned much from Francesco Faraone, a priest in Messina, who taught him grammar and rhetoric.
• Thus Maurolico would believe in approaching problems using his intellect, and using his own practical experience.
• Maurolico left the city for a while to escape from the deadly illness.
• Maurolico was able to concentrate on his scholarly pursuits during these years and he produced significant contributions in a broad range of different topics although his best work was done on mathematics.
• Certainly he was not a wealthy man and required patrons to be able to publish his work and several leading men of Messina appear to have put up funds since their names appear in dedications in Maurolico's work.
• The governor attended Maurolico's lectures on these t
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  1  The Works of Francesco Maurolico

  Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) was one of the most important mathematicians of the XVI century in Europe. He spent most of his life in Messina and in Sicily, a marginal location with respect to the main cultural centers of the time: Roma, Venezia, Firenze, Urbino. This fact did not prevent him from undertaking a complete program of restoration and recovering of classical mathematics. In 1575, at the end of his life, he had accomplished se

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  Francesco Maurolico

  Quick Info

  Born

  16 September 1494
  Messina, Kingdom of Sicily (now Italy)

  Died

  22 July 1575
  Messina, Kingdom of Sicily (now Italy)

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  Summary

  Francisco Maurolico was an Italian Benedictine who wrote important books on Greek mathematics. He also worked on geometry, the theory of numbers, optics, conics and mechanics.

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  Biography

  Francesco Maurolico's name is Greek and is transcribed in a variety of different ways in addition to 'Francesco Maurolico' which is the most common. His first name is sometimes given as Francisco while other forms of his family name are Maurolyco, Maruli or Marulli. He used a Latin form of his name in his publications, giving again different forms: Maurolycus, Maurolicus or Maurolycius. His family were originally Greek but had fled to Messina, in Sicily, to escape from Turkish invasions of their homeland, so their first language was Greek. Francesco's father, Antonio Maurolico, had fled from Constantinople to Messina where he was tutored by the Greek scholar and grammarian Constantine Lascaris who had also fled from C