ABSTRACT
JEAN DIETZ MOSS See also Demonstration; Dialectic; Discourse, Modes of
This prominent Jesuit mathematician and natural philosopher pusued his own interests in such subjects as astronomy and cosmography (roughly, geography) while teaching, during his long academic career at Parma and Bologna, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. Indeed, his first publication, which went through several editions, was a didactic work on prosody that first appeared in 1640. Riccioli later published extensively on astronomy and on the motion of the earth, his most celebrated work being the Almagestum novum (New Almagest, 1651), after Ptolemy’s (ca. 100-ca. 170) great work. In geography, his major publication was the Geographiae et hydrographiae reformatae…libri duodecim (Twelve Books of Reformed Geography and Hydrography, 1661). Both works were speedily followed by second editions, testimony to Riccioli’s intellectual stature.
