Giuseppe Moletti

Giuseppe Moletti (1531 to 1588) was an Italian mathematician, best known for his Dialogo intorno alla Meccanica, the Dialogue on Mechanics. Though obscure today he was renowned in his lifetime, and Pope Gregory XIII consulted him on the new calendar. He held the mathematics chair at the University of Padua before Galileo, who had sent him his theorems on the centre of gravity. In the Dialogue he set out to give mechanics Euclidean foundations and to explain all motions through the analysis of forces and resistances. He defined mechanics as the science of overcoming greater forces with smaller ones, argued that a weight moves with less force the farther it is from the centre of a pivoting lever, and discussed the acceleration of falling bodies on the second day. He was a prolific writer, though many of his writings remained unpublished.