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Tito Livio Burattini ( pl, Tytus Liwiusz Burattini, 8 March 1617 – 17 November 1681) was an
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza, issue 1998
especially section titled "" {{DEFAULTSORT:Burattini, Tito Livio 1617 births 1681 deaths 17th-century Italian inventors Polish indigenes Italian scientific instrument makers 17th-century Polish businesspeople Metrologists
Tito Livio Burattini ( pl, Tytus Liwiusz Burattini, 8 March 1617 – 17 November 1681) was an inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
, architect, Egyptologist, scientist, instrument-maker, traveller, engineer, and nobleman, who spent his working life in Poland and Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
. He was born in Agordo, Italy, and studied in Padua and Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. In 1639, he explored the Great Pyramid of Giza with English mathematician John Greaves; both Burattini and Sir Isaac Newton used measurements made by Greaves in an attempt to accurately determine the circumference of the earth.
For Germany in 1641, the court of King Ladislaus IV invited him to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In Warsaw, Burattini built a model aircraft with four fixed glider wings in 1647. Described as "four pairs of wings attached to an elaborate 'dragon'", it was said to have successfully lifted a cat in 1648 but not Burattini himself. According to Clive Hart's ''The Prehistory of Flight'', he promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from landing the craft.Qtd. in
He later developed an early system of measurement based on time, similar to today's International System of Units
The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...
; he published it in his book ' (lit. "universal measure") in 1675 at Vilnius. His system includes the ' (lit. " catholic .e. universalmetre"), a unit of length equivalent to the length of a free seconds pendulum; it differs from the modern metre by half a centimetre. He is considered the first to recommend the name ''metre'' for a unit of length.
Along with two others he met at Kraków, Burattini "performed optical experiments and contributed to the discovery of irregularities on the surface of Venus, comparable to those on the Moon". He made lenses for microscopes and telescopes, and gave some of them to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici. He is also credited with building a calculating machine, which he donated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II, that borrows from both a Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer.
He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pa ...
machine and Napier's rods. He died in Kraków, aged 64.
See also
* John WilkinsReferences
External links
* in the 9 May 1963 issue of '' Flight International''Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza, issue 1998
especially section titled "" {{DEFAULTSORT:Burattini, Tito Livio 1617 births 1681 deaths 17th-century Italian inventors Polish indigenes Italian scientific instrument makers 17th-century Polish businesspeople Metrologists