Ostilio Ricci

Ostilio Ricci da Fermo (1540 to 1603) was an Italian mathematician, best known as the teacher of Galileo Galilei. He was a university professor in Florence at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, founded in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari, and served as Court Mathematician to Grand Duke Francesco de Medici, in whose time Galileo attended his lectures. Galileo had been enrolled at the University of Pisa by his father Vincenzo to study medicine, but became more interested in mathematics after meeting Ricci, a former student of Niccolo Tartaglia. Ricci taught Galileo the mathematics of Euclid and Archimedes, who both deeply influenced his later work. Ricci regarded mathematics not as a distinct science but as a practical tool for problems in mechanics and engineering, and a manuscript on the use of the archimetro in practical geometry survives in Florence. He died in Florence at the age of 62.