Marco Antonio de Dominis

Marco Antonio de Dominis (1560 to 1624) was a Dalmatian churchman, polymath and man of science, born on the island of Rab, who became bishop of Senj and Modrus and then archbishop of Split and Primate of Dalmatia and all Croatia. Educated by Jesuits at Loreto and at the University of Padua, he taught mathematics, logic and rhetoric at Padua and Brescia. His treatise of 1611, Tractatus de radiis visus et lucis in vitris, perspectivis et iride, offered a theory of the rainbow in which light is refracted twice and reflected once inside each raindrop, a priority Isaac Newton credited to him although it is disputed in favour of Descartes. His Euripus, published in Rome in 1625 after his death, gave a qualitative explanation of the tides by the combined pull of Sun and Moon. His church career was stormy. He sided with Venice against Pope Paul V, went to England in 1616 and became Dean of Windsor, then made his peace with Rome, where the Inquisition declared him a relapsed heretic. He died in custody in September 1624 and his body was burned.