Giovanni Antonio Magini

Giovanni Antonio Magini (1555 to 1617), in Latin Maginus, was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer and mathematician, born in Padua. He finished his studies in philosophy at Bologna in 1579, turned to astronomy, and in 1582 wrote the Ephemerides coelestium motuum. In 1588 he was chosen ahead of Galileo for the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna, where he stayed until his death. He supported a geocentric world system and devised his own planetary theory of eleven rotating spheres, set out in a work of 1589 that was framed against the observations of Copernicus. He described quadrants in surveying and astronomy, computed accurate trigonometric tables in 1606, invented calculating devices, and wrote on concave mirrors. His life work as a cartographer was the Atlante geografico d Italia, printed by his son in 1620.