Giovanni Battista Beccaria (; 3 October 1716 – 27 May 1781),

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, was born at Mondovì, and entered the religious Order of the Pious Schools or Piarists, in 1732, where he studied, and afterward taught,

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

and rhetoric. At the same time, he applied himself with success to mathematics. He became professor of experimental physics, first at Palermo and then at

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and was appointed to a similar position at

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

in 1748. He was afterwards made tutor to the young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at

during the remainder of his life. In May 1755 he was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

of London, and published several papers on

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

subjects in the '' Phil. Trans.''. In 1759, King

Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia Charles Emmanuel III (27 April 1701 – 20 February 1773) was Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia from 1730 until his death. Biography He was born in Turin to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy and his first wife the French Anne Marie d'Orléans. H ...

, who had invited him to Turin, employed him to measure the degree of meridian arc in Piedmont. Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread a knowledge of the electrical researches of

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

and others. His principal work was the treatise ''Dell’ Elettricismo Naturale ed Artificiale'' (1753), which was translated into English in 1776.

Works

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Notes

References

* 1716 births 1781 deaths People from Mondovì 18th-century Italian physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Sapienza University of Rome faculty University of Palermo faculty Catholic clergy scientists {{Italy-physicist-stub