Bartholomeu Lourenço de Gusmão

Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (Santos, Brazil, December 1685 – November 18, 1724) was a Brazilian priest and naturalist, noted for his early work on lighter-than-air airship design.

Gusmão began his novitiate in the Society of Jesus at Bahia when he was about fifteen years old, but left the order in 1701. He went to Portugal and found a patron at Lisbon in the person of the Marquis of Abrantes. He completed his course of study at the University of Coimbra, devoting his attention principally to philology and mathematics, but received the title of Doctor of Canon Law (related to Theology). He is said to have had a remarkable memory and a great command of languages.

In 1709 he presented a petition to King John V of Portugal, seeking royal favour for his invention of an airship, in which he expressed the greatest confidence. The contents of this petition have been preserved, together with a picture and description of his airship. Developing the ideas of Francesco Lana de Terzi, S.J., Gusmão wanted to spread a huge sail over a boat-like body like the cover of a transport wagon; the boat itself was to contain tubes through which, when there was no wind, air would be blown into the sail by means of bellows. The vessel was to be propelled by the agency of magnets which were to be encased in two hollow metal balls. The public test of the machine, which was set for June 24, 1709, did not take place.

It is known that Gusmão was working on this principle at the public exhibition he gave before the Court on August 8, 1709, in the hall of the Casa da Índia in Lisbon, when he propelled a ball to the roof by combustion. The king rewarded the inventor by appointing him to a professorship at Coimbra and made him a canon. He was also one of the fifty selected as members of the Academia Real de História, founded in 1720; and in 1722 he was made chaplain to the Court. Gusmão also busied himself with other inventions, but in the meantime continued his work on his airship schemes, the idea for which he is said to have conceived while a novice at Bahia. His designs included a ship to sail in the air consisting of a triangular gas-filled pyramid, but he died without making progress.

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