Francesco was born in
Messina with the surname of Marulì, although the surname is sometimes reported as "Mauroli".[4] He was one of seven sons of Antonio Marulì, a government official, and Penuccia. His father was a Greek physician who fled
Constantinople when the Ottomans invaded the city.[5][6] Antonio had studied with the Neoplatonic Hellenist
Constantine Lascaris, so Francesco received a "Lascarian" education through his father[7] and from Francesco Faraone and Giacomo Genovese, also disciples of Lascaris, whose influence is recognizable.[8][9]
In 1534 Francesco Marulì changed his surname to Mauro Lyco (from the meaning of "occult wolf"), after having adopted for eight years, uninterruptedly, the name of Mauro Lycio ("occult
Apollo") as a member of a Messina academy.[10]
Having already obtained priestly ordination since 1521 and, consequently, some ecclesiastical benefit, he was appointed
abbot of the monastery of Santa Maria del Parto (in
Castelbuono) in 1550 by
Simone Ventimiglia marquis of
Geraci, pupil and patron of Maurolico.[11]
He died in 1575 of natural death, during a plague epidemic due to which the mathematician had retired to Contrada Annunziata: a hilly area north of Messina, where the Marulì family owned a villa that probably had hosted, sometimes, the academy of which the scientist-humanist had been part.[12]
He is buried in the church of San Giovanni di Malta in Messina, where his nephews Francesco and Silvestro Maurolico erected an artistic marble sarcophagus, accompanied by the uncle's bust and Maurolico's coat of arms with the wolf and the star
Sirius.
Accomplishments
In 1535 Maurolico collaborated with the painter
Polidoro da Caravaggio in designing triumphal arches (composing the Latin inscriptions for this apparato) for the entry into the city of
Messina by Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V. Like his father, he also became head of the Messina
mint and for a time was in charge of maintaining the fortifications of the city on behalf of Charles V. Maurolico tutored the two sons of Charles's viceroy in Sicily,
Juan de Vega, and had the patronage of many rich and powerful men. He also corresponded with scholars such as
Clavius and
Federico Commandino.
In 1547 he collaborated with the sculptor
Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli for the creation of the famous Orion Fountain in Messina. By Maurolico are the Latin inscriptions on the ground-level basin of the fountain and, probably, most of the Neoplatonic program for this monumental civic sculpture.[13] Between 1548 and 1550, he stayed at the castle of
Pollina in Sicily as a guest of the marquis
Giovanni II Ventimiglia, and utilized the castle tower in order to carry out astronomical observations.
Maurolico's astronomical observations include a sighting of the
supernova that appeared in
Cassiopeia in 1572.
Tycho Brahe published details of his observations in 1574; the supernova is now known as
Tycho's Supernova.
Maurolico's Photismi de lumine et umbra and Diaphana concern the
refraction of light and attempted to explain the natural phenomenon of the
rainbow. He also studied the
camera obscura. Photismi were completed in 1521, Diaphana first part 1523, the second and third ones in 1552, but all the material was published posthumously only in 1611.
His De momentis aequalibus (completed in 1548, but first published only in 1685) attempted to calculate the
barycenter of various bodies (
pyramid,
paraboloid, etc.).
In his Sicanicarum rerum compendium, he presented the history of
Sicily, and included some autobiographical details. He had been commissioned to write this work, and in 1553 the
Senate of Messina granted him a salary of 100 gold pieces per year for two years so that he could finish this work and his works on mathematics.
His De Sphaera Liber Unus (1575) contains a fierce attack against
Copernicus'
heliocentrism, in which Maurolico writes that Copernicus "deserved a whip or a scourge rather than a refutation".[16]
Maurolico published a Cosmographia in which he described a methodology for measuring the earth, which was later employed by
Jean Picard in measuring length of
meridian arc in 1670.
Maurolico published an edition of
Aristotle'sMechanics, and a work on music. He summarized Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum and also wrote Grammatica rudimenta (1528) and De lineis horariis. He made a map of Sicily, which was published in 1575.
In 2009 the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage has ordained the establishment of the Edizione nazionale dell'opera matematica di Francesco Maurolico (National Edition of Maurolico's mathematical oeuvre).
^Renate Burgess/Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, Portraits of doctors & scientists in the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine: a catalogue, Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1973 (
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine), page 239
^Galluzzi, Paolo (1984). Novità celesti e crisi del sapere. Banca toscana. p. 132.
OCLC59935636. Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) Maurolico was a Sicilian, descended from Greek immigrants. He had an active career as civil servant, abbot, historian, and teacher. His passion was for mathematics, and his aim was to restore European knowledge of the ancient Greek mathematical achievement To the latter end, he vigorously pursued his own mathematical studies; edited the works of Archimedes, Apollonius, Autolycus, Theodosius, and Serenus; summarized and commented on Euclid's Elements; paraphrased and edited various medieval mathematical works or medieval translations of ancient works; and composed his own original treatises on mathematics and mathematical science.
^Galluzzi, Paolo (1984). Novità celesti e crisi del sapere. Banca toscana. p. 132.
OCLC59935636. Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) Maurolico was a Sicilian, descended from Greek immigrants. He had an active career as civil servant, abbot, historian, and teacher. His passion was for mathematics, and his aim was to restore European knowledge of the ancient Greek mathematical achievement To the latter end, he vigorously pursued his own mathematical studies; edited the works of Archimedes, Apollonius, Autolycus, Theodosius, and Serenus; summarized and commented on Euclid's Elements; paraphrased and edited various medieval mathematical works or medieval translations of ancient works; and composed his own original treatises on mathematics and mathematical science.
^"MAUROLICO, Francesco" by Rosario Moscheo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 72 (2008).
^J J O'Connor and E F Robertson (November 1, 2010).
"Francesco Maurolico". School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
^Richard S. Westfall (January 1, 1995).
"Maurolico [Marul, Marol], Francesco". The Galileo Project Department of History and Philosophy of Science Indiana University. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
^"MAUROLICO, Francesco" by Rosario Moscheo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 72 (2008).
^Russo, Attilio (2018). "Una nuova ipotesi sul nome 'Maurolico' ", Archivio Storico Messinese, 99, Messina 2018, 37-71, especially 50-51 and 70-71 note 69.
ISSN1122-701X
^"MAUROLICO, Francesco" by Rosario Moscheo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 72 (2008).
^Russo, Attilio (2018). "Una nuova ipotesi sul nome 'Maurolico' ", Archivio Storico Messinese, 99, Messina 2018, 37-71.
ISSN1122-701X
^"MAUROLICO, Francesco" by Rosario Moscheo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 72 (2008).
^Russo, Attilio (2018). "Una nuova ipotesi sul nome 'Maurolico' ", Archivio Storico Messinese, 99, Messina 2018, 37-71, especially 58-64.
ISSN1122-701X
^Russo, Attilio (2001). "La fontana del Sirio d'Orione, o delle metamorfosi", Città & Territorio, II/2001, Messina 2001, pp. 30-41.