Fausto Veranzio: Difference between revisions
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Vrančić's book on mechanics, ''Machinae Novae'' (Venice 1595), contained 40 large pictures depicting 56 different [[machine]]s, [[tool|device]]s, and technical [[concepts]]. The sensational book was soon translated into Italian, [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[French language|French]] and [[German language|German]]. |
Vrančić's book on mechanics, ''Machinae Novae'' (Venice 1595), contained 40 large pictures depicting 56 different [[machine]]s, [[tool|device]]s, and technical [[concepts]]. The sensational book was soon translated into Italian, [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[French language|French]] and [[German language|German]]. |
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One of the illustrations in ''Machinae Novae'' is a sketch of a parachute dubbed ''Homo Volans'' ("The Flying Man"). Having examined [[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s rough [[Sketch (drawing)|sketch]]es of a [[parachute]], Vrančić had designed a parachute of his own.<ref>Jonathan Bousfield, [http://books.google.com/books?id=UxSnm-mUp40C&pg=PA280&dq=Faust+Vran%C4%8Di%C4%87&hl=cs&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false ''The Rough Guide to Croatia''], pg. 280, Rough Guides (2003), ISBN 1843530848</ref> In 1617, now over sixty-five years old, he implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from a [[tower]] in Venice. This event was documented some 30 years after it happened in a book written by [[John Wilkins]], the secretary of the [[Royal Society]] in [[London]]. |
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His areas of interest in engineering and mechanics were broad. Mills were his main point of research, where he created 18 different [[design]]s. He envisioned [[windmill]]s with both vertical and horizontal [[Axis of rotation|axes]], with different wing construction to improve their efficiency. The idea of a mill powered by tides incorporated accumulation pools filled with water by the high tide and emptied when the tide ebbed, simply using [[gravity]]; the concept has just recently been engineered and used. |
His areas of interest in engineering and mechanics were broad. Mills were his main point of research, where he created 18 different [[design]]s. He envisioned [[windmill]]s with both vertical and horizontal [[Axis of rotation|axes]], with different wing construction to improve their efficiency. The idea of a mill powered by tides incorporated accumulation pools filled with water by the high tide and emptied when the tide ebbed, simply using [[gravity]]; the concept has just recently been engineered and used. |
Revision as of 00:15, 26 May 2010
Faust Vrančić[1] or Fausto Veranzio[2][3] ([Faustus Verantius or Verancsics Faustus] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help); (Šibenik circa 1551 – Venice, January 17, 1617) was a bishop, humanist, philosopher, historian, diplomat, linguist, lexicographer, and inventor from the town of Šibenik in the Venetian Republic (today modern Croatia).
Life
Family history
The Vrančić (Veranzio) family came to Šibenik (Dalmatia), where a member of the family was mentioned for the first time in 1360.[verification needed] His father, Michele, was a Latin poet and on his mother's side he was from the Berislavić family (s. Trogir).[4] While the family's main residence was in Šibenik, they owned a summer house in Šepurine, a village neighbouring Prvić Luka, where he is buried. The family owned substantial amounts of land on the island of Prvić and acquired an impressive art collection. Descendants of the family still live in the summer house in Šepurine. His uncle, Antun Vrančić (also Antonio Veranzio; in Hungarian: Verancsics Antal [2] (1504–1573), diplomat and high civil servant, was in touch with Dutch philosopher, humanist and writer Erasmus (1465–1536); with German philosopher, theologian and reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560); and with Nikola Zrinski (1508–1566), ban, poet, statesman and soldier.
Activities
As a youth, Vrančić was interested in science. He attended schools in Padua (Padova) and Venice, where he focused on physics, engineering and mechanics. At the court of King Rudolf II in Hradcany in Prague Vrančić was Chancellor for Hungary and Transylvania often in contact with Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. In 1598 he got the title of bishop of Csanad.
After his wife's death,[5] Vrančić left for Hungary and later for Venice to join the brotherhood of Saint Paul (barnabites) in 1609, where he committed himself to the study of science.
Vrančić died in 1617 in Venice. By his own request, he was buried in Prvić Luka, a village on the island of Prvić island near Šibenik.
Work
Lexicography
Vrančić was the author of a five-language dictionary,[6] Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europeae linguarum; Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmaticae et Hungaricae, published in Venice in 1595, with 5,000 entries for each language: Latin, Italian, German, the Dalmatian language (in particular, the Chakavian dialect of Croatian) and Hungarian. These he called the "five noblest European languages" ("quinque nobilissimarum Europeae linguarum"). When Peterus Lodereckerus published the second edition of Vrančić's dictionary in Prague, he referred to the Dalmatian language as Croatian.[verification needed][citation needed] Since that publication the language has continued to be known as Croatian.[verification needed][citation needed]
In an extension of the dictionary called Vocabula dalmatica quae Ungri sibi usurparunt, there is a list of Croatian words that entered the Hungarian language. The book greatly influenced the formation of both the Croatian and Hungarian languages orthography; the Hungarian language accepted his suggestions, for example, the usage of ly, ny, sz, and cz. It was also the first dictionary of the Hungarian language, printed four times, in Venice, Prague (1606), Pozun (1834) (what is nowadays Bratislava in Slovakia), and in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1971. The work was an important source of inspiration for other European dictionaries; among them:
- Hungarian and Italian written by Bernardino Balli
- German Thesaurus polyglottus by humanist and lexicographer Hieronim Megister
- Multilingual Dictionarium septem diversarum linguarum by Peterus Lodereckerus of Prague in 1605 in Latin, Italian, Bohemian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Dalmatian. The author edited the second edition of Vrančić's work and renamed the Dalmatian language for the first time into "Croatian"[verification needed].
Technical research
Vrančić's book on mechanics, Machinae Novae (Venice 1595), contained 40 large pictures depicting 56 different machines, devices, and technical concepts. The sensational book was soon translated into Italian, Spanish, French and German.
One of the illustrations in Machinae Novae is a sketch of a parachute dubbed Homo Volans ("The Flying Man"). Having examined Leonardo da Vinci's rough sketches of a parachute, Vrančić had designed a parachute of his own.[7] In 1617, now over sixty-five years old, he implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from a tower in Venice. This event was documented some 30 years after it happened in a book written by John Wilkins, the secretary of the Royal Society in London.
His areas of interest in engineering and mechanics were broad. Mills were his main point of research, where he created 18 different designs. He envisioned windmills with both vertical and horizontal axes, with different wing construction to improve their efficiency. The idea of a mill powered by tides incorporated accumulation pools filled with water by the high tide and emptied when the tide ebbed, simply using gravity; the concept has just recently been engineered and used.
By order of the Pope, he envisioned and made projects needed for regulating rivers, since Rome was often flooded by the Tiber river. He also tackled the problem of the wells and water supply of Venice, which is surrounded by sea. Devices to register the time using water, fire, or other methods were envisioned and materialized. His own sun clock was effective in reading the time, date, and month, but functioned only in the middle of the day.
The construction method of building metal bridges and the mechanics of the forces in the area of statics were also part of his research. He drew proposals which predated the actual construction of modern suspension bridges and cable-stayed bridges by over two centuries. The last area was described when further developed in a separate book by mathematician Simon de Bruges (Simon Stevin) in 1586.
History and philosophy
Only a few of Vrančić's works related to history remain: Regulae cancellariae regni Hungariae and De Slavinis seu Sarmatis in Dalmatia exist in manuscript form, while Scriptores rerum hungaricum was published in 1798.
In Logica nova ("New logic") and Ethica christiana ("Christian ethics"), which were published in a single Venetian edition in 1616, Vrančić dealt with the problems of theology regarding the ideological clash between the Reformation movement and Catholicism. Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) and the Archbishop of Split Marco Antonio de Dominis (1560–1624) were his intellectual counterparts.
Lost works
Vrančić published some of his works under the name "Veranzo". Many of them were never printed, left in the form of manuscripts. Some were sold to stay in big archives in the capitals of Austria or Hungary, while some were lost forever.
Legacy
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2010) |
Today, one of oldest astronomical societies in Croatia bears the name of Faust Vrančić, as does a Croatian Navy warship, used for rescues.
References
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2009) |
- The book mentioning Vrančić's parachute jump is John Wilkins's Mathematical Magic of the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry, Part I: Concerning Mechanical Powers Motion, and Part II, Deadloss or Mechanical Motions (London, 1648).
- ^ original pronounced "vranchich"
- ^ a b Google Books Andrew L. Simon: Made in Hungary: Hungarian contributions to universal culture
- ^ The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. XLII * No. 162 *, Summer 2001 László Sipka: Innovators and Innovations
- ^ Naklada Naprijed, The Croatian Adriatic Tourist Guide, pg. 208, Zagreb (1999), ISBN 953-178-097-8
- ^ Cultural Link Kanada, Deutschland: Festschrift zum Dreissigjährigen Bestehen by Beate Henn-Memmesheimer & David Gethin John
- ^ Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe: Lexicography and the Making of Heritage by John P. Considine.
- ^ Jonathan Bousfield, The Rough Guide to Croatia, pg. 280, Rough Guides (2003), ISBN 1843530848