Lorenzo Magalotti

Lorenzo Magalotti (24 October 1637 – 2 March 1712) was an Italian philosopher, author, diplomat and poet.

Magalotti was born in Rome into an aristocratic family, the son of Ottavio Magalotti, Prefect of the Pontifical Mail : his uncle Lorenzo Magalotti was a member of the Roman Curia. His cousin Filippo was rector at University of Pisa. The Jesuit Magalotti became the secretary of the Accademia del cimento and a gazeteer of the sciences.

Magalotti started off as one of the most ardent followers of Galileo Galilei but was increasingly distressed by the personal rivalries among the individual members, which constantly undermined the academy's dedication to collective research. Gradually, Magalotti lost interest in science. He became a traveller, an ambassador, and ended up as a poet. He translated Paradise Lost by John Milton, and Cyder by John Philips into Italian.

Magalotti received four years education at the Collegio Romano and three years at the University of Pisa. He studied law and medicine, but changed to mathematics under Vincenzo Viviani. On 19 June 1657 the Cimento was founded by a group of philosophers and amateurs, pupils of Galilei, who saw observation as their task. They studied the works of Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Heinsius, Robert Boyle and Pierre Gassendi. The astronomers of the Cimento succeeded in providing the first sustained confirmation of Christiaan Huygens's discoveries: Saturn's rings.

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