Giovanni Poleni

He was the son of Marquess Jacopo Poleni and studied the classics, philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics at the School of the Somaschi Fathers, Venice.

He was appointed, at the age of twenty-five, professor of astronomy at Padua. In 1715 he was assigned to the chair of physics, and in 1719 he succeeded Nicholas II Bernoulli as professor of mathematics. As an expert in hydraulic engineering he was charged by the Venetian Senate with the care of the waters of lower Lombardy and with the constructions necessary to prevent floods. He was also repeatedly called in to decide cases between sovereigns whose states were bordered by waterways.

Poleni was the first to build a calculator that used a pinwheel design. Made of wood, his calculating clock was built in 1709;[http://www.museoscienza.org/approfondimenti/documenti/macchina_poleni/replica.asp Copy of Poleni's machine] (it) Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci. Retrieved 2010-10-04 he destroyed it after hearing that Anton Braun had received 10,000 Guldens for dedicating a pinwheel machine of his own design to the emperor Charles VI of Vienna.{{sfn|Marguin|1994|pages=93-94}} Poleni described his machine in his Miscellanea in 1709, but it was also described by Jacob Leupold in his Theatrum Machinarum Generale ("The General Theory of Machines") which was published in 1727. In 1729, he also built a tractional device that enabled logarithmic functions to be drawn.

Poleni's observations on the impact of falling weights (similar to Willem 's Gravesande's) led to a controversy with Samuel Clarke and other Newtonians that became a part of the so-called "vis viva dispute" in the history of classical mechanics.{{Cite journal | last1 = Iltis | first1 = C. | title = The Leibnizian-Newtonian Debates: Natural Philosophy and Social Psychology | doi = 10.1017/S000708740001253X | journal = The British Journal for the History of Science | volume = 6 | issue = 4 | pages = 343–377 | year = 2009 | s2cid = 144194873 }}

File:Analogy between an arch and a hanging chain and comparison to the dome of St Peter's Cathedral in Rome.png

His knowledge of architecture caused Benedict XIV to call him to Rome in 1748 to examine the cupola of St. Peter's, which was rapidly disintegrating.

As part of the structural investigation of the dome he used a correctly loaded hanging chain to determine its funicular shape.{{cite book|first=Malcolm|last=Millais|title=Building Structures: From Concepts to Design|year=2005|edition=2|page=187|isbn=9780415336239|publisher=Spon Press}} He promptly indicated the repairs necessary. He also wrote a number of antiquarian dissertations. In 1710 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,{{cite web|url = http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27poleni%27%29| title = Library Archive|publisher= Royal Society|access-date = 2012-12-05}} in 1739 the French Academy of Sciences made him a member and later the societies of Berlin and St. Petersburg did the same. The city of Padua elected him as magistrate, and after his death erected his statue by Canova. Venice also honoured him by striking a medal.

He married Orsola Roberti of Bassano della Grappa. A pupil of his was Giovanni Battista Suardi (1711 – 1767).

File:Acta Eruditorum - II fisica, 1711 – BEIC 13378880.jpg, 1711|alt=Illustration of critique of Miscellanea... published in Acta Eruditorum, 1711|224x224px]]

• {{Cite book|title=Architecturae navalis principia|volume=|publisher=Tipografia del Seminario|location=Padova|year=1700|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4663702}}
• {{Cite book|title=Dissertatio de barometris et thermometris|volume=|publisher=Alvise Pavini|location=Venezia|year=1709|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=2055432}}
• Miscellanea (dissertations on physics), Venice, 1709;
• {{Cite book|title=De vorticibus coelestibus dialogus|volume=|publisher=Giovanni Battista Conzatti|location=Padova|year=1712|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4650474}}
• {{Cite book|title=Observatio solaris eclipsis habita Patavii 5. Nonas Maias 1715|volume=|publisher=Giovanni Battista Jean Victor PonceletConzatti|location=Padova|year=1715|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4651016}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{Cite book|title=De physices in rebus mathematicis utilitate praelectio|volume=|publisher=Giovanni Battista Conzatti|location=Padova|year=1716|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4651018}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{Cite book|publisher= typis Iosephi Comini|title= Ioannis Poleni ... De motu aquae mixto libri duo. Quibus multa nova pertinentia ad aestuaria, ad portus, atque ad flumina continentur |place=Patavii|year= 1717|url= https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=2055645}}
• {{Cite book|publisher= typis Iosephi Comini|title= Ioannis Poleni ... De castellis per quae derivantur fluviorum aquae habentibus latera convergentia liber. Quo etiam continentur nova experimenta ad aquas fluentes, & ad percussionis vires pertinentia ...¦ |place=Patavii|year= 1718|url= https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=2045611}}File:Giovanni Poleni – Ioannis Poleni ... De motu aquae mixto libri duo. , 1717 - BEIC 2055645.tifDe castellis per quæ derivantur fluviorum latera convergentia, Padua, 1720;
• {{Cite book|title=Mercurius in Sole visus|volume=|publisher=|location=Padova|year=1723|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4650977}}
• {{Cite book|title=Epistolae duae|volume=|publisher=|location=Padova|year=1724|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8734475}}
• {{Cite book|publisher= de l' Imprimerie royale|title= De la meilleure maniere de mesurer sur mer le chemin d'un vaisseau, independemment des observations astronomiques. ... par m. le marquis Poleni |place=A Paris|year= 1734|url= https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=144474}}
• Exercitationes Vitruvianæ Venice, 1739;
• {{Cite book|title=Institutionum philosophiae mechanicae experimentalis specimen|volume=|publisher=Tipografia del Seminario |location=Padova|year=1741|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1374558}}
• Il tempio di Diana di Efeso (The Temple of Diana at Ephesus); Venice, 1742.
• {{Cite book|title=Partis mathematica doctrinae motus animalium|volume=|publisher=Tipografia del Seminario|location=Padova|year=1743|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4651390}}
• {{Cite book|title=Doctrina architecturae militaris nec non architecturae civilis|volume=|publisher=Tipografia del Seminario|location=Padova|year=1756|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4651338}}
• {{Cite book|title=De re navali|volume=|publisher=Tipografia del Seminario|location=Padova|year=1757|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=4651024}}

File:Poleni-1.jpg|Title page to De Castellis per quae derivantur fluviorum aquae habentibus latera convergentia liber (1718)

File:Poleni-4.jpg|First page to De Castellis per quae derivantur fluviorum aquae habentibus latera convergentia liber (1718)

File:Poleni-5.jpg|Figure from De Castellis per quae derivantur fluviorum aquae habentibus latera convergentia liber (1718)

{{reflist}}

{{sfn whitelist |CITEREFSignorelli2015}}

• {{cite book|first=Jean|last=Marguin|title=Histoire des instruments et machines à calculer: trois siècles de mécanique pensante, 1642-1942|publisher=Hermann|location=Paris|year=1994}}
• {{cite book|first=Céline|last=Le Gall|title=Giovanni Poleni (1683-1761) et l’essor de la technologie maritime au siècle des Lumières|publisher=Brepols|location=Turnhout|year=2019}}
• {{DBI|first=Bruno|last=Signorelli|url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-poleni_(Dizionario-Biografico)/|title=Poleni, Giovanni|volume=84}}

;Attribution

• {{Catholic|wstitle=Giovanni Poleni}}. Cites:
• Memorie per la vita del Signor Giovanni Poleni (Padua, 1762);
• {{cite journal|first=Jean-Paul|last=Grandjean de Fouchy|author-link=Jean-Paul Grandjean de Fouchy|title=Éloge de M. le Marquis Poleni|journal=Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences|pages=151–163|location=Paris|year=1763}}

{{commons}}

• {{MacTutor|id=Poleni}}
• {{cite encyclopedia

|title= Poleni, Giovanni

|encyclopedia= Dictionary of Scientific Biography

|year= 1975

|last= Boley

|first= Bruno A.

|author-link= Bruno A. Boley

|volume= XI

|publisher= Charles Scribner's Sons

|location= New York

|url= https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/poleni-giovanni

|access-date= 15 March 2024

|pages= 65-66

}}

• [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.CRMS162 Guide to Giovanni Poleni, Specifications and Drawings of the Poleni Calculating Machine by Joannis Poleni 1927] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center]

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Category:1683 births

Category:1761 deaths

Category:Republic of Venice people

Category:18th-century writers in Latin

Category:18th-century Italian male writers

Category:Italian antiquarians

Category:18th-century Italian physicists

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences

Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences

Category:Academic staff of the University of Padua