Francesco Lana de' Terzi

Francesco Lana de' Terzi, who lived from 1631 to 1687, was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician, naturalist and aeronautics pioneer born in Brescia. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1647, studied at the Roman College, where from 1652 he collaborated with Athanasius Kircher, and from 1675 to 1679 taught mathematics and physics at the University of Ferrara. In 1670 he published the Prodromo, which described a flying ship carried by four copper spheres emptied of air; the design was physically impossible, as Leibniz showed in 1710, but it led to Lana being called the Father of Aeronautics. He also developed the idea that grew into Braille. In 1671 he was appointed a corresponding member of the Royal Society of London, and in 1686 he founded the Accademia dei Filelfici in Brescia, modelled on the Accademia dei Lincei. The asteroid 6892 Lana is named after him.