Bernardino Baldi

Background

Baldi descended from a noble family from Urbino, Marche, Italy, where he was born on June 5, 1533.

Education

After a classical education by private tutors at Urbino, Baldi studied mathematics with Guido Ubaldo del Monte, under Federico Commandino, beginning about 1570. At Commandino’s suggestion he translated the Automata of Hero of Alexandria into Italian, but left it unpublished until 1589. He also translated the Phenomena of Aratus of Soli and wrote didactic poems on the invention of artillery and the nautical compass, but did not publish them.

In 1573 he enrolled at the University of Padua, and when it was closed shortly afterward because of plague, Baldi returned to Urbino. He was with Commandino during the latter’s final illness in 1575, and obtained from him an account of his life. Baldi’s studies at Padua centered on philology and literature, but he obtained no degree.

Career

In 1580 Baldi went to Mantua in the service of Ferrante II Gonzaga, who in 1585 secured him the post of abbot of Guastalla. He then put in order his biographies of some 200 mathematicians, a work conceived during the writing of Commandino’s biography and completed in 1588-1589. About that time he also wrote his principal contribution to physics, a commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian Questions of Mechanics, posthumously published in 1621. In 1589 he published his translation of Hero’s Automata, prefaced by a history of mechanics.

Baldi visited Urbino in 1601 to compile materials for a life of Federico di Montefeltro, and in 1609 he resigned his abbacy to enter the service of the duke of Urbino as historian and biographer, remaining there until his death. A vast work on geography on which he worked in his later years remains unpublished, although many of his poetic and literary compositions were printed in his lifetime. His final scientific contribution was a translation of Hero’s Belopoeica into Latin, accompanied by the Greek text and by Baldi’s Latin Life of Hero (1616). Brief extracts from his lives of the mathematicians were published in 1707, and about forty of those biographies have since been published in full. Most of the work, however, remains in manuscript.

Except for that of Henri de Monantheuil, with which Baldi was certainly unacquainted, Baldi’s commentary on the Questions of Mechanics was the most important work of its kind to appear up to that time. His account of dynamic equilibrium in spinning tops was superior to that of G. B. Benedetti, with whose principal work he appears to have been unfamiliar.

It was the opinion of Pierre Duhem that Baldi drew his chief ideas from manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Duhem accepted the year 1582 for the original composition of Baldi’s commentary, as given by Baldi’s first biographer. That date is, however, inconsistent with passages in Baldi’s own preface and in the text of the work, which imply the year 1589. The latter year is also supported by textual indications that Baldi’s principal inspiration was drawn from Commandino’s translation of Pappus and from Guido Ubaldo’s commentary on the Plane Equilibrium of Archimedes, both of which were published in 1588.

Achievements

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  Among his contemporaries Baldi was famous for his extraordinary mastery of languages (his biographers report that he knew at least a dozen).
  
  The most significant aspect of Baldi’s approach to mechanics lay in the development and application of the concept of centers of gravity, particularly with regard to stable and unstable equilibrium. His major contribution to the field of mechanics is his commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems, published posthumously in the work In mechanica Aristotelis problemata exercitationes (1621; Exercises in the mechanical problems of Aristotle).

Works

More photos

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  • Cronica de Matematici 1707
  • Della Vita e De' Fatti di Guidobaldo I. Da Montefeltro, Duca d'Urbino Libri Dodici 1604
  • Opuscolo Inedito Di Bernardino Baldi e Versi Del Conte Terenzio Mamiani Della Novere
  • Renaissance Fables: Aesopic Prose
  • La corona dell'anno. Del reuerendiss. sig. Bernardino Baldi da Vrbino, abate di Guastalla. Nella quale si contiene tanti sonetti, quanti santi corrono in tutto l'anno 1589
  • Celeo e l'orto, egloga elegantissima di Bernardino Baldi da Urbino 1751
  • La Deifobe, ouero Gli oracoli della Sibilla Cumea Monodia. Di Bernardino Baldi da Urbino abbate di Guastalla, & Academico Affidato. Nella quale s'ha come compendio tutta l'historia romana
  • Encomio della patria di monsignor Bernardino Baldi da Urbino abate di Guastalla 1706
  • La navigation, poeme de Bernardino Baldi 1607
  • Concetti morali, cantati da Bernardino Baldi da Vrbino, abbate di Guastalla 1607
  • Scamilli impares Vitruviani a Bernardino Baldo 1612
  • Opuscolo Inedito Di Bernardino Baldi e Versi Del Conte Terenzio Mamiani Della Novere 1613
  • Marittimi e pedanteschi del secolo 16 1787
  • L'Invenzione del Bossolo da Navigare: Poema Inedito
  • La nautica
  • In mechanica Aristotelis problemata exercitationes 1621
  • Vite Di Matematici Arabi

Connections

associate:

Guido Ubaldo del Monte 1545 - 1607

Del Monte dealed in his major work with mechanics of the movement of critical understandings of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school. On the threshold of modern science standing, he attempted a theoretical analysis of simple machines (the so-called mechanical powers) and went to the application of the principle of virtual velocity deserves. Del Monte was of the opinion that the technical application of machinery is an act against nature, a outwitting nature. He also said that one can not operate as an abstract and decoupled from the practical application of science mechanics. His interests were varied, he also dealt with astronomy, Perspective and mathematical instruments.

teacher:

Federico Commandino

After a classical education by private tutors at Urbino, Baldi studied mathematics under Federico Commandino beginning about 1570.

influencer:

Alessandro Piccolomini

Baldi was influenced in his ideas on the continuance of motion by the earlier commentary of Alessandro Piccolomini.

influencer:

Leonardo da Vinci

References

• La questione della riforma del calendario nel quinto concilio lateranense (1512-1517)
  1896
• Del Primo Libro De' Paralipomeni d'Omero, di Quinto Smirneo Detto Calabro: Volgarizzamento Inedito di Bernardino Baldi da Urbino
  2019
• Bernardino Baldi Nella Vita E Nelle Opere
  1908
• Encyclopedia Britannica
  2004
• The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church - Kindle edition by Charles G. Herbermann, Catholic Way Publishing. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
  2014
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1970