Article- 8 pages
- Level: high school and above
A heavily illustrated 2013 article by B. Crippa, V. Forcella, and L. Mussio, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: The name of Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich has many spellings: the Croatian Boscovič, linked to his Dalmatian origin, becomes Boscowich in German. Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich lived and worked in many cities: Rome, Pavia, Venice, Paris, London, Warsaw, Saint Petersburg and Constantinople, where he carried out diplomatic missions. He was a Jesuit and studied mathematics, physics, astronomy, geodesy, and cartography. His studies in geodesy and cartography were developed in Italy: he measured the meridian between Rome and Rimini, he worked on the new map of the Papal State and he designed the Brera Observatory. In the first part of the present work, we present Boscovich’s activities from a chronological point of view. In the second part, we focus on two specific arguments, related to geodesy and cartography: the new map of the Papal State and an attempt to rebuild the associated triangulation.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
