Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397 – 10 May 1482) was an Italian astronomer,mathematician, and cosmographer.

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was born in Florence, the son of the physician Domenico Toscanelli. There is no precise information on his education and background. Gustavo Uzielli in 1894 claimed that Toscanelli studied at the University of Padua, but modern authors consider this pure conjecture.

Toscanelli is noted for his observations of comets. Among these was the comet of 1456; only named Halley's comet when Halley predicted its return in 1759.

Thanks to his long life, his intelligence and his wide interests, Toscanelli was one of the central figures in the intellectual and cultural history of Renaissance Florence in its early years. His circle of friends included the architect of the Duomo, Filippo Brunelleschi, and the philosopher Marsilio Ficino; he knew Leon Battista Alberti, mathematician, writer and architect; and his closest friend was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, himself a wide-ranging intellect and early humanist, who dedicated two short mathematical works, both written in 1445, to Toscanelli, and made himself and Toscanelli the interlocutors in a dialogue entitled ‘On Squaring the Circle (De quadratura circuli) written in 1458.

Toscanelli along with Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus) appears to have belonged to a network of Florentine and Roman intellectuals who searched for and studied Greek mathematical works, along with Filelfo, George of Trebizond, and the humanist Pope Nicholas V, in company with Toscanelli’s friends Alberti and Brunelleschi.

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