Jacopo Dondi dell'Orologio
| Jacopo Dondi dell'Orologio | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jacopo de' Dondi 1290 |
| Died | 1359 |
| Occupation | doctor, astronomer, clock-maker, polymath |
| Known for | Astronomical clock in Padua, 1344 |
Jacopo Dondi dell'Orologio (1290–1359), also known as Jacopo de' Dondi, was a doctor, astronomer and clock-maker active in Padua, Italy. He is remembered today as a pioneer in the art of clock design and construction. He was the father of Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio. Jacopo Dondi wrote on a number of subjects, including surgery, pharmacology, astrology and natural science.
Jacopo Dondi was born in Chioggia, the son of a doctor named Isacco. He attended the University of Padua and was elected municipal physician in Chioggia in 1313. In about 1327 he married Zaccarota Centrago or Centraco, with whom he had eight children; the second-born, Giovanni, became famous as the builder of the Astrarium. On the 28 February 1334, Jacopo received Venetian citizenship from the Doge Francesco Dandolo. In 1342 he moved to Padova, where he became a professor of medicine and of astronomy at the University.
He supervised the construction of a large public clock with a dial, commissioned by Prince Ubertino I da Carrara. He may also have contributed to its design. The clock was installed in the tower of the Palazzo Capitaniato, Padua in 1344. There is some evidence that it indicated and struck the hours from 1 to 24, and also that it displayed the age and phase of the moon and the place of the sun in the zodiac. Both the tower and the clock were destroyed in 1390, when the Milanese stormed the palace. A replica of the clock is in the Torre dell'Orologio of Padua, which was built in 1428.
He died in Padua between 29 April and 26 May 1359, and was buried outside the Baptistry of San Giovanni, Padua.
The most celebrated work of Jacopo Dondi is the Aggregator or Promptuarium medicinae ed Enumeratio remediorum simplicium et compositorum, completed in 1355 and conserved in manuscript in the Vatican (Vat. lat. 2462, 14th century), the Collegio di Spagna, Bologna (MS 153, dated 1425) and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Lat. 6973 and 6974). It was published in Strasburg in about 1470 by the "R-printer" (Adolph Rusch) and in Venice in 1481 by Michele Manzolo. It was reprinted in Venice in 1542 by Tommaso and Giovanni Maria Giunta, and again in 1576. The section on surgery, Enumeratio remediorum simplicium et compositorum ad affectus omnes qui a chirurgo curantur, was included in the Chirurgia: de chirurgia scriptores optimi quique veteres et recentiores of Conrad Gesner, printed at Zurich in 1555 by his cousins Andreas and Iacobus Gesner, and in the Thesaurus chirurgiae of Peter Uffenbach (1610).
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