Luigi Ferdinando Marsili
| Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli | |
|---|---|
Conte Ferdinando de Marsigli
|
|
| Born |
10 July 1658 Bologna |
| Died | 1 November 1730 Bologna |
| Nationality |
 Italian
|
| Other names | De Marsigli, Marsili |
| Occupation | Scientific scholar, soldier and emissary |
| Known for | Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna |
Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (or Marsigli, Lat. Marsilius; 10 July 1658 – 1 November 1730) was an Italian scholar and eminent natural scientist, who also served as an emissary and soldier.
Born in Bologna, he was a member of an ancient patrician family and was educated in accordance with his noble social rank. He supplemented his reading by studying mathematics, anatomy, and natural history helped by the best Bolognese tutors and enhanced by his personal observations. After a course of scientific studies in his native city he travelled throughout Asia Minor collecting data on the Ottoman Empire's military organization, as well as on its natural history.
On his return he entered the service of the Emperor Leopold (1682) and fought with distinction against the Turks, by whom he was wounded and captured in an action on the River Rába; sold to a pasha who met him after the Battle of Vienna, his release was secured in 1684. He returned to the Imperial Army deploying his skills as a talented military engineer. Marsigli contributed to the successful siege of Buda in 1686 and in the following years in the military operations of the liberation war against the Turks.
After the Treaty of Karlowitz he was commissioned to lead the Habsburg border demarcation commission. Marsigli mapped the 850 km-long Habsburg-Ottoman border in the former Kingdom of Hungary (today including Croatia, Serbia, Romania). During the twenty years he spent in Hungary he collected scientific information, specimens, antiques, took measurements and observations for his work on the Danube. He was assisted by who prepared manuscripts for printing and commissioned the engravers in his home town of Nuremberg. The sample of the work, Prodromus, was published in 1700 and the large work was expected by 1704. His scholarship was well received in England, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in November 1691.
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