Francesco Barozzi

Francesco Barozzi (1537 to 1604), in Latin Franciscus Barocius, was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and humanist. Born at Candia, now Heraklion, on Crete, then a Venetian possession, the son of a Venetian nobleman, he studied mathematics at the University of Padua, and an inherited estate on Crete brought him an income of four thousand ducats, so that he could live mostly in Venice as an independent scholar. He does not appear to have held an academic post, although he lectured on Sacrobosco's De sphaera at Padua in 1559. He translated many ancient works, including Proclus on Euclid's Elements, published at Venice in 1560, and mathematical writings of Hero, Pappus of Alexandria and Archimedes. He helped to reappraise the geometry of Euclid and corresponded with many mathematicians, among them the Jesuit Christopher Clavius. His Cosmographia of 1585, dedicated to the Duke of Urbino, concerns the cosmography and mathematical systems of Ptolemy.