Scientists, Inventors and Explorers
Italy has fostered a long tradition of important scientific thought and discovery, fuelled in the Renaissance by such men as Galileo, who searched for a new understanding of the universe. Meanwhile, explorers such as Columbus had set off to find new worlds, a move heralded in the 13th century by Marco Polo. The spirits of scientific enquiry continued up to the 20th century, with the invention of radio and pioneering work in the field of nuclear physics.
Guglielmo Marconi, invented the first practical system for sending radio signals. In 1901, he succeeded in picking up a signal that had been sent England from Newfoundland.
After deducing that an electric current made frog’s legs move, Alessandro Volta invented the electrical battery, a “pile” of metal discs in contact with acid. He demonstrated it to Napoleon in 1801.
Genoese-born Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain in 1492. He reached the Indies in three months, navigating with such aids as an astrolabe.
The explorer Amerigo Vespucci established that the New World was a separate land mass. A pamphlet wrongly described him as its discoverer, and so, in 1507 America acquired its name.
Leonardo da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man, accomplished in both arts and sciences. He conceived his first design for a flying machine in c. 1488, more than 400 years before the first aeroplane took off. This model it based on one of his technical drawings.
The telescope enabled astronomers to produce accurate lunar maps. Domenico Cassini, astronomy professor a Bologna University, refined the instrument. In 1665 he traced the meridian line in the church of San Petronio.
Galileo Galilei proved that the earth revolved around the sun, overturning Church doctrine. He was convicted of heresy in 1633. Here he shows the rings of Saturn to Venetian senators.
Winner the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938, Enrico Fermi directed the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. He built the world’s first nuclear reactor for producing power at the University of Chicago, US.
The mathematician Archimedes was born in 287 BC in Syracuse, Sicily, then a Greek colony. Legend has it that he discovered the principle of specific gravity while in the bath.
