Giovanni Poleni

Giovanni Poleni, who lived from 1683 to 1761, was a marquess, physicist, mathematician and antiquarian, born in Venice, the only son of Marquess Jacopo Poleni. He studied classics, philosophy, theology, mathematics and physics with the Somaschi Fathers, became a close collaborator of the anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni, and was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Padua at twenty five, moving to the chairs of physics in 1715 and mathematics in 1719. As an expert in hydraulic engineering he advised the Venetian Senate on the waters of lower Lombardy, and he built the first calculator with a pinwheel design, a wooden calculating clock of 1709. In 1739 he founded the Teatro di Filosofia Sperimentale at Padua, the first dedicated physics laboratory within an Italian university. In 1748 he was called to Rome to examine the cupola of St Peter's, using a loaded hanging chain to find its funicular shape. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1710 and a member of the French Academy of Sciences from 1739.