Marino Ghetaldi

Marino Ghetaldi (1568 to 1626), in Latin Marinus Ghetaldus and in Croatian Marin Getaldić, was a Ragusan and Croatian mathematician and physicist who studied in Italy, England and Belgium. Born into the noble Ghetaldi family, he is known for applying algebra to geometry and for work on geometrical optics, on which he wrote seven works including Promotus Archimedus of 1603, and he helped lay the groundwork for the algebraization of geometry. He was one of the few students of François Viète. He built a parabolic mirror 66 cm across that is kept today at the National Maritime Museum in London, was a pioneer of conic lenses, met and corresponded with Galileo while in Padua, and served the Republic of Ragusa as envoy in Constantinople in 1606.