Giovanni Poleni (1683-1761) was a Marquess, physicist, mathematician, and antiquarian.
School period
Gallery of Giovanni Poleni
Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, Italy
In 1695 Poleni began his studies in the school of the basilica Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, where he studied philosophy, then theology, followed by courses of civil and military architecture, drawing, painting, and perspective under the guidance of painter Giuseppe Marcati.
College/University
Career
Gallery of Giovanni Poleni
Giovanni Poleni (1683-1761) was a Marquess, physicist, mathematician, and antiquarian.
Achievements
Membership
Royal Society
1710 - 1761
Royal Society, 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, London, England, United Kingdom
In 1710 Poleni was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, upon proposal by Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1695 Poleni began his studies in the school of the basilica Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, where he studied philosophy, then theology, followed by courses of civil and military architecture, drawing, painting, and perspective under the guidance of painter Giuseppe Marcati.
M. Vitruvii Pollionis architectura: textu ex recensione Codicum emendato cum exercitationibus notisque novissimis Joannis Poleni et commentariis variorum additis nunc primum studiis Simonis Stratico
Giovanni Poleni was an Italian physicist, mathematician, archaeologist, and engineer. He is famous for his book titled Miscellanea, a small collection of dissertations on physics. Miscellanea includes dissertations on barometers, thermometers, and conical sections in sundials, as well as an illustrated treatise describing his arithmetical calculating machine, which proved to be the first calculating machine with gears.
Background
Giovanni Poleni was born on August 23, 1683, in Venice, Italy. Poleni was the son of Jacopo Poleni and carried his title of marquis of the Holy Roman Empire, conferred by Emperor Leopold I and confirmed in 1686 by the Republic of Venice. Jacopo Poleni was a well educated "middle class" Venetian, a literate and a poet, but searching for glory, he entered as a volunteer at the army of Emperor Leopold I and in the same 1683, he took part and displayed a lot of courage in the battle against Turks during the Siege of Vienna. In June of 1685, the Emperor awarded him for his merits with the titles "Marquis, Count of St. Michael the Archangel, and Knight, along with his descendants", a title, confirmed by the Senate in July of 1686.
Education
In his early life, Poleni followed a variety of studies, and his intellectual endowment was soon known to be extraordinary. In 1695 Poleni began his studies in the school of the basilica Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, where he studied philosophy, then theology, followed by courses of civil and military architecture, drawing, painting, and perspective under the guidance of painter Giuseppe Marcati. In 1707 Poleni began to deal with physics, carrying out the first scientific experiments. In the same year, he met Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist, regarded as the father of modern anatomical pathology, with whom Poleni started a friendship and collaboration that continued until his death.
At the age of twenty-six, Giovanni Poleni accepted the chair of astronomy at the University of Padua; six years later he became a professor of physics as well. The Venetian Senate invited him to investigate problems of hydraulics pertinent to the irrigation of lower Lombardy, Poleni soon acquired such proficiency in this field that he became the accepted arbiter of all disputes between states bordering on rivers. In 1719 he assumed the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua left vacant by Nikolaus I Bernoulli, upon the latter’s return to Basel. His noteworthy opening lecture was published in 1720 as De mathesis in rebus physicis utilitate.
Poleni observed the solar eclipse in 1724 and wrote a treatise on the topic which was published in the following year. In 1738 Poleni established within a few months an up-to-date laboratory of experimental physics and began to lecture on that subject. He simultaneously conducted meteorological observations, corresponded with French, English, German, and Italian savants (particularly Euler, Maupertuis, the Bernoullis, and Cassini III), published memoirs on various subjects, and participated in the study of calendar reform that had been sponsored by Pope Clement XI. From 1739 he taught experimental physics since by this time he had available a physics laboratory. It was the first physics laboratory to be established in an Italian university.
In 1743 Poleni was invited by the Pope and get a significant contribution to the consolidation of San Pietro's dome in Roma. Poleni was appointed to the chair of Nautical Studies and Naval Construction at Padua in 1756. From this time he taught nautical sciences and shipbuilding.
Quotations:
"By a happy chance, I designed a machine with the use of which even a novice in the art of calculation, provided that knows the figures, can perform arithmetic operations with his own hand. So I am worried that it was made of wood, as I had planned and that, although initially built with poor precision, showed that this was achievable, rather than made. Therefore, I have recreated the machine from scratch, building it of the hardest wood, with all possible attention and the work done has not failed in vain."
Membership
In 1710 Poleni was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, upon proposal by Sir Isaac Newton. In 1723 he was admitted to the Academy of the Institute of Sciences of Bologna. In 1724 he was appointed a partner of the newly founded Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy, starting his correspondence with Leonard Euler. In 1739, the prestigious Académie Royale des Sciences of Paris admitted him among its members.
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
1710 - 1761
Personality
A music-lover, Poleni was the patron of Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) - a famous Italian composer and violinist.
Physical Characteristics:
Giovanni Poleni, who since the 1720s had suffered from violent headaches due to an accident, died in Padua on 15 November 1761, after a few days of rapid worsening. The autopsy, performed by his colleague and friend Giambattista Morgagni, revealed that the death had been caused by an aortic aneurysm.
Connections
On 30 December 1708, obeying his father, Giovanni Poleni married to Orsola Roberti (1686-1737), who was from a high ranking and noble Bassano del Grappa family. The family had six children, five boys, and a girl. The first-born was Jacopo (Giacomo), a very talented boy, born on 18 October 1709, died in 1747. All of the boys of Poleni pursuit religious career, with the exception of the last, Eugenio (1717-1736), who was destined to give succession to the family, but died only 18 years old, to the severe grief of Marquis Giovanni, who in 14 months lost three dear people - his son, his wife and his father. Poleni had three other sons: Bernardo, Luca, and Francesco, and one daughter - Elisabetta, who married to professor Giulio Pontedera, an Italian botanist.