Luca Valerio

Luca Valerio (1553 to 1618) was an Italian mathematician born in Naples. He developed ways to find the volumes and centres of gravity of solid bodies using the methods of Archimedes. He entered the Jesuit order in 1570, studied philosophy and theology at the Roman College as a student of Christopher Clavius, and left the Jesuits in 1580. He later taught rhetoric and Greek at the Collegio Pontifico Greco and mathematics and ethics at the Sapienza University of Rome, and in 1611 he also took a post in the Vatican Library. He met Galileo in Pisa in 1584, corresponded with him from 1609 until 1616 and joined the Accademia dei Lincei in 1612. After the Church decree of 1616 against the Copernican system he ended the correspondence and resigned from the Accademia, whose members saw it as siding with Galileo opponents.