Giuseppe Biancani

"Blancanus" redirects here. For the lunar crater, see Blancanus (crater).

Reverend Giuseppe Biancani
Biancani's map of the Moon shows only stylized 15 craters, none of which are clearly recognizable or identifiable as actual craters.
Born	(1566-03-08)March 8, 1566 Bologna, Papal States
Died	June 7, 1624(1624-06-07) (aged 58) Parma, Duchy of Parma and Piacenza
Occupations	Jesuit priest Mathematician Astronomer
Academic background
Alma mater	Roman College
Doctoral advisor	Christopher Clavius
Influences	Aristotle Ptolemy Tycho Brahe Galileo Galilei
Academic work
School or tradition	Aristotelianism
Notable students	Mario Bettinus Niccolò Cabeo Giovanni Battista Riccioli
Influenced	Christoforo Borri Bernhardus Varenius

Giuseppe Biancani, SJ (Latin: Josephus Blancanus) (1566–1624) was an Italian Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named.

Biography

Giuseppe Biancani was born in Bologna in 1566, entered the Jesuit Order in 1592, and studied at the College of Brescia with Marco Antonio De Dominis, and at the Academy of Mathematics in the Roman College with Clavius. Between 1596 and 1599 he lived in Padua, where he completed his studies and befriended Galileo, who had been appointed professor of mathematics at the local university in 1592. When the Jesuits were expelled from the Republic of Venice in 1606 Biancani went to Parma where he taught mathematics in the Jesuit College until his death in 1624.

Works

In his Aristotelis loca mathematica ex universis ipsius operibus collecta et explicata, published in Bologna in 1615, Biancani discussed the Aristotelian views on floating bodies. The work suffered censorship whilst undergoing peer review, a common Jesuit practice. The reviewer, Giovanni Camerota, wrote: "It does not seem to be either proper or useful for the books of our members to contain the ideas of Galileo Galilei, especially when they are contrary to Aristotle."

Biancani wrote his Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia demonstrativa, ac facili methodo tradita in 1615. However, it was not published until 1619 in Bologna, after the Decree of the Congregation of the Index in 1616.

In his Sphaera mundi, Biancani expounded on his belief that God had made the Earth a perfect symmetrical world: the highest mountain on land had its proportional equivalent in the lowest depth of the ocean.

The original Earth emerged on the third day of the creation myth as a perfectly smooth sphere, Biancani reasoned. If not for the hand of God, "natural law" would have allowed the Earth to remain in that form. Biancani believed, however, that God had created the depths of the sea and formed the mountains of the Earth.

Moreover, if left to "natural law," the Earth would be consumed in water, in imitation of how it was created. However, the hand of God would intervene in order to cause the Earth to be destroyed entirely by fire.

The contents of the book are described in Latin as: Sphaera Mundi seu Cosmographia. Demonstrativa, ac facili Methodo tradita: In qua totius Mundi fabrica, una cum novis, Tychonis, Kepleri, Galilaei, aliorumque; Astronomorum adinventis continetur. Accessere I. Brevis introductio ad Geographiam. II. Apparatus ad Mathematicarum studium. III. Echometria, idest Geometrica tractatio de Echo. IV. Novum instrumentum ad horologia describenda.

As evidenced in the table of contents, this work also presented a summary of the discoveries made with the telescope by Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, and others. The censorship of Biancani's previous work affected the manner in which he wrote Sphaera mundi. "But that this opinion [heliocentrism] is false," Biancani wrote, during his discussion on Copernican and Keplerian theories, "and should be rejected (even though it is established by better proofs and arguments) has nevertheless become much more certain in our day when it has been condemned by the authority of the Church as contrary to Sacred Scripture" (Sphaera, IV, 37).

The work not only included studies on the natural phenomenon of the echo and on sundials, but also included a diagram of the Moon. Giuseppe Biancani's map was not drawn up in support of new Copernican ideas but those berthed in traditional geocentric cosmology and in support of Aristotelian thought. Biancani disagreed with Galileo, who believed in the existence of lunar mountains. In a 1611 letter to Christoph Grienberger (after whom the Gruemberger crater is named), Biancani wrote of his certainty that there could not be any mountains on the Moon.

Biancani opined that the Copernican system was an opinionem falsam... ac rejeciendam. Nevertheless, he remained ambivalent in the midst of the Scientific Revolution, as he cited Galileo's opinions on the surface of the Moon while also discussing those of the ancients, such as Posidonius and Cleomedes. Biancani adopted the Tychonic system battling the Aristotelianism of Mutio Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuit Order. He also maintained that the heavens were composed of fluid matter, not solid spheres, another anti-Aristotelian view.

Biancani's Constructio instrumenti ad horologia solaria discusses how to make a perfect sundial, with accompanying illustrations.

Bernhardus Varenius based much of his geographical work on Biancani's ideas.

List of works

• Biancani, Giuseppe (1615). Aristotelis loca mathematica ex universis ipsius operibus collecta, & explicata. Aristotelicae videlicet expositionis complementum hactenus desideratum. Accessere de natura mathematicarum scientiarum tractatio; atque clarorum mathematicorum chronologia (in Latin). Bononiae: apud Bartholomaeum Cochium.
• De mathematicarum natura dissertatio (in Latin). Bononiae: apud Bartholomaeum Cochium : sumptibus Hieronymi Tamburini. 1615.
• Biancani, Giuseppe (1620). Sphaera mundi seu cosmographia, demonstratiua, ac facili methodo tradita (in Latin). Bononiae: Typis Sebastiani Bonomij, sumptibus Hieronymi Tamburini.
• Sphaera mundi, seu Cosmographia demonstrativa (in Latin). Modena: Andrea Cassiani & Girolamo Cassiani. 1653.

• 
  Sphaera mundi, seu Cosmographia demonstrativa, 1653
• 
  De mathematicarum natura dissertatio, 1615

Sources

• Grillo, Enzo (1968). "BIANCANI, Giuseppe". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 10: Biagio–Boccaccio (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
• Nicolson, Marjorie Hope (1973). "Literary attitudes toward mountains". Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 3. Scribner: 253–260. Archived from the original on 2006-03-27.
• O'Connor, J.J.; Robertson, E.F. (July 2012), "Giuseppe Biancani", in O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (eds.), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• Newall, Paul (2005). "Galileo and the Bible". The Galilean Magazine and Library. Archived from the original on 2016-02-03.
• Calanca, Rodolfo (2003). "La Luna nell'Immaginario Secentesco: Una storia della selenografia fino all'icon Lunaris di Geminiano Montanari" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2005-09-20.

See also

• List of Jesuit scientists
• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics