ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Against All Superstition: Geminiano Montanari’s Scientific Adventure Between Bologna and Padua

• In Event: Scientific Disputes, Cosmological Theories from Scheiner to Cassini: Archival Sources from the 17th Century 2

English Abstract

Geminiano Montanari (1633-1687) was one of the leading exponents of the Galilean experimental method in seventeenth-century Italy. His contributions to the development of modern science are not widely known internationally and are often limited to his discovery of the variability of the star Algol (α Persei). However, Montanari was one of the most remarkable scholars of the Italian Seicento. A polymath and a staunch rationalist, he made significant contributions to multiple fields, including astronomy, meteorology, physics, medicine, hydraulics, and economics. Trained under Paolo del Buono (1625-1659), Montanari began his scientific career as an astronomical observer at the Panzano Observatory. He consolidated his career in 1664 when he accepted the chair of mathematics in Bologna. There he collaborated fruitfully with Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712) and maintained scientific relations with him even after Cassini moved to Paris.
Montanari left Bologna only in 1678 to move to Padua, to take a new chair of astronomy and meteors at the University of Padua, created specifically for him by the Republic of Venice. There, he founded the first observatory of the city, at the Seminary, and intensified his campaign to purge astronomy of vain astrological superstitions. This mission embodied his commitment to Galileo’s rational, evidence-based approach. His legacy emerges not only from his published works, but also from his extensive correspondence with Italian and foreign scholars and from several unpublished manuscripts, which provide new insights into scientific disputes and the development of knowledge during the early modern period.

Author

• Valeria Zanini, National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Astronomical Observatory of Padua, President of SISFA