Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397 – May 10, 1482) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
,
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
, and cosmographer.
Life
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was born in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, the son of the
physicianA physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Dominic Toscanelli. Educated in mathematics at the
University of PaduaThe University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...
, he left in 1424 with the title of a doctor of
medicineMedicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
.
Toscanelli is noted for his observations of
cometA comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
s. Among these was the comet of 1456; only named Halley's comet when
HalleyEdmond Halley FRS was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.-Biography and career:Halley...
confirmed its return in 1768.
Thanks to his long life, his intelligence and his wide interests, Toscanelli was one of the central figures in the intellectual and cultural history of Renaissance Florence in its early years. His circle of friends included the architect of the Duomo,
Filippo BrunelleschiFilippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
, and the philosopher
Marsilio FicinoMarsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
; he knew Leon Battista Alberti, mathematician, writer and architect; and his closest friend was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, himself a wide-ranging intellect and early
humanistRenaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
, who dedicated two short mathematical works, both written in 1445, to Toscanelli, and made himself and Toscanelli the interlocutors in a dialogue entitled ‘On Squaring the Circle (De quadratura circuli) written in 1458.
Toscanelli along with Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus) appears to have belonged to a network of Florentine and Roman intellectuals who searched for and studied Greek mathematical works, along with Filelfo,
George of TrebizondGeorge of Trebizond was a Greek philosopher and scholar, one of the pioneers of the Renaissance.-Life:He was born on the island of Crete, and derived his surname Trapezuntius from the fact that his ancestors were from Trebizond.At what period he came to Italy is not certain; according to some...
, and the humanist
Pope Nicholas VPope Nicholas V , born Tommaso Parentucelli, was Pope from March 6, 1447 to his death in 1455.-Biography:He was born at Sarzana, Liguria, where his father was a physician...
, in company with Toscanelli’s friends
AlbertiLeon Battista Alberti was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer and general Renaissance humanist polymath...
and
BrunelleschiFilippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...
.
Around 1468 Toscanelli devised the
gnomonThe gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow. Gnomon is an ancient Greek word meaning "indicator", "one who discerns," or "that which reveals."It has come to be used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields....
still to be seen in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence : a bronze plate let into the dome high above the left transept, and a circular white marble slab let into the floor of the Cathedral, which records the summer solstice to a half-second, and which was then and subsequently used for centuries for other calculations such as the regular movement of the sun; effectively a
Camera ObscuraThe camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
.
In 1439, the Greek philosopher Gemistos Plethon, attending the
Council of FlorenceThe Council of Florence was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It began in 1431 in Basel, Switzerland, and became known as the Council of Ferrara after its transfer to Ferrara was decreed by Pope Eugene IV, to convene in 1438...
, acquainted Toscanelli with the extensive travels, writings and mapping of the 1st century BCE/CE Greek geographer
StraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, hitherto unknown in Italy. Nearly 35 years later, the Italian was to follow up this amplified knowledge.
In 1474 Toscanelli sent a letter and a map to his PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
correspondent Fernão Martins, priest at the Lisbon CathedralThe Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Mary Major is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Lisbon, Portugal. The oldest church in the city is the see of the Archdiocese of Lisbon. Since the beginning of the construction of the cathedral, in the year 1147, the building has been modified several...
, detailing a scheme for sailing westwards to reach the Spice IslandsThe Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...
and AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. Fernão Martins delivered his letter to the King Afonso V of PortugalAfonso V KG , called the African , was the twelfth King of Portugal and the Algarves. His sobriquet refers to his conquests in Northern Africa.-Early life:...
, in his court of LisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. The original of this letter was lost, but its existence is known through Toscanelli himself, who later transcribed it along with the map and sent it to Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
, who carried them with him during his first voyage to the new world. Toscanelli had miscalculated the size of the earth which resulted in Columbus never realizing he had found a new continent.
Toscanelli lived most of his life in Florence, with occasional excursions to Todi and Rome. He is said to have entered into correspondence with scholars around Europe, but his writings have yet to be thoroughly researched.
An uncorroborated story links Toscanelli's attendance at a Chinese delegation to the Pope in 1432, when many Chinese inventions were discussed, with a flood of drawings made around the same year by the artist-engineer
TaccolaMariano di Jacopo detto il Taccola , called Taccola , was an Italian administrator, artist and engineer of the early Renaissance. Taccola is known for his technological treatises De ingeneis and De machinis, which feature annotated drawings of a wide array of innovative machines and devices...
(1382 - c.1453), which were later developed by Brunelleschi and
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
. In a 1474 letter of Toscanelli to Columbus, the authenticity of which has been a matter of disagreement among scholars, Toscanelli mentions the visit of men from
CathayCathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. It originates from the word Khitan, the name of a nomadic people who founded the Liao Dynasty which ruled much of Northern China from 907 to 1125, and who had a state of their own centered around today's...
(
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
) during the reign of Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447):
It has been suggested that the man in question may have been
Niccolo da ContiNiccolò de' Conti was an Italian merchant and explorer of the Republic of Venice, born in Chioggia, who traveled to India and Southeast Asia, and possibly to Southern China, during the early 15th century...
, who was returning from the east and is known to have met with Pope Eugenius in 1444. In a second letter, Toscanelli further describes these men as extremely learned and willing to share their knowledge:
External links
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