Celio Calcagnini (

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, 17 September 1479 – Ferrara, 24 April 1541), also known as Caelius Calcagninus, was an Italian humanist and scientist from

. His learning as displayed in his collected works is very broad. He had a wide experience: as soldier, academic, diplomat and in the chancery of

Ippolito d'Este Ippolito (I) d'Este (; 20 March 1479 – 3 September 1520) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal, and Archbishop of Esztergom. He was a member of the ducal House of Este of Ferrara, and was usually referred to as the Cardinal of Ferrara. T ...

. He was consulted by

Richard Croke Richard Croke (or Crocus) (c. 1489–1558) was an English classical scholar and a royal tutor and agent. Early life and education He was educated at Eton College.''Concise Dictionary of National Biography''. He took his BA at King's College, C ...

on behalf of

Henry VIII of England Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

in the question of the latter's divorce. He was a major influence on Rabelais's literary and linguistic ideas and is presumed to have met him in Italy, as well as being a teacher of

Clément Marot Clément Marot (23 November 1496 – 12 September 1544) was a French Renaissance poet. He was influenced by the writers of the late 15th century and paved the way for the Pléiade, and is undoubtedly the most important poet at the court of Fr ...

and was praised by

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

. He had a contemporary reputation as an astronomer, and wrote on the

rotation of the Earth Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star ...

. He knew

Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

in Ferrara at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His ''Quod Caelum Stet, Terra Moveatur'' is a precursor of the ''

De Revolutionibus ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book ...

'' of Copernicus, though A. C. Crombie qualifies his rotational theory as "vague", and is often dated to about 1525.R. J. Schoeck, ''The Geography of Erasmus'', p. 201, in Fokke Akkerman, Arie Johan Vanderjagt, A. H. Van Der Laan, ''Northern Humanism in European Context, 1469-1625: From the 'Adwert Academy' to Ubbo Emmius'' (1999).

Works

''Opera aliquot''
(1544)

Notes

External links

Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Celio Calcagnini in .jpg and .tiff format. 1479 births 1541 deaths Scientists from Ferrara Italian male writers 16th-century Italian astronomers Italian Renaissance humanists Academic staff of the University of Ferrara {{Italy-writer-stub