Tito Livio Burattini
Italian inventor, architect and engineer (1617–1681)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tito Livio Burattini (Polish: Tytus Liwiusz Burattini; 8 March 1617 – 17 November 1681) was an inventor, architect, Egyptologist, scientist, instrument-maker, traveller, engineer and nobleman. He spent his working life in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[1][2][3] He was born in Agordo, Republic of Venice, and studied in Padua and Venice. In 1639, he explored the Great Pyramid of Giza with English mathematician John Greaves;[3][4] both Burattini and Sir Isaac Newton used measurements made by Greaves in an attempt to accurately determine the circumference of the earth.[citation needed]
Tito Livio Burattini | |
|---|---|
Tytus Liwiusz Burattini | |
Burattini's personal coat of arms | |
| Born | March 8, 1617 |
| Died | November 17, 1681 (aged 64) |
From the Holy Roman Empire 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.[2] 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.[5] According to Clive Hart's The Prehistory of Flight, he promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from landing the craft.[6]
He later developed an early system of measurement based on time, similar to today's International System of Units; he published it in his book Misura universale (lit. 'universal measure') in 1675 at Vilnius.[4] His system includes the metro cattolico (lit. 'catholic [i.e. universal] metre'), a unit of length equivalent to the length of a free seconds pendulum; it differs from the modern metre by half a centimetre.[7][8] He is considered the first to recommend the name metre for a unit of length.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
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".[15] He made lenses for microscopes and telescopes, and gave some of them to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici.[15] He is also credited with building a calculating machine, which he donated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II, that borrows from both a Blaise Pascal machine and Napier's rods.[16] He died in Kraków, aged 64.
