Francesco Maria Grimaldi
(Silvio Bergia)
 Fig.1: Portrait of Francesco Maria Grimaldi. (Credit: Quadreria dell'Università degli Studi di Bologna) |
Francesco Maria Grimaldi was born in Bologna on April 2 1618. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1632 and took holy orders in 1651. He carried out his studies at the Jesuit colleges of Novellara, Parma and Bologna. At the College of Bologna he taught philosophy and later mathematics. He died at the early age of 45, in December 1663. Grimaldi collaborated with Giovan Battista Riccioli in theoretical, observational and experimental investigations. Riccioli acknowledged the essential role played by Grimaldi in the completion of his Almagestun Novum (1651). Grimaldi is also responsible for a large part of the work involved in compiling the tables which appear in the second volume of Astronomia reformata (1665), another of Riccioli's works. |
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Fig. 2: Commemorative plaque outside Palazzo Grimaldi, via San Felice 26, Bologna. |
Grimaldi's fame is essentially bound to his discovery of diffraction, described in his main work, De lumine, published in Bologna in 1665, two years after his death.
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| Fig. 3: Front covers of "De lumine". | |
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(Francesco Maria Grimaldi - page 1 of 3)
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