(1608 – 1647)

He was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer. Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States. He was left fatherles at an early age and educated under the care of his uncle, a Camaldolese monk, who first entered young Torricelli into a Jesuit College in 1624 to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, when he sent Torricelli to Rome in 1627 to study science under the Benedictine Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio della Sapienza. 

Aside from several letters, little is known of Torricelli’s activities in the years between 1632 and 1641, when Castelli sent Torricelli’s monograph of the path of projectiles to Galileo, then a prisoner in his villa at Arcetri. Although Galileo promptly invited Torricelli to visit, he did not accept until just three months before Galileo’s death. During his stay, however, he wrote out Galileo’s Discourse of the Fifth day. After Galileo’s death on January 8, 1642, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici asked him to succeed Galileo as the grand-ducal mathematician and professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa. In this role he solved some of the great mathematical problems of the day, such as finding a cycloid’s area and center of gravity. He also designed and built a number of telescopes and simple microscopes; several large lenses, engraved with his name, are still preserved at Florence. In 1644, he famously wrote in a letter: “We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air.”

Torricelli died in Florence a few days after having contracted typhoid fever, and was buried in San Lorenzo. The asteroid 7437 Torricelli was named in his honor.

Torricelli’s chief invention was the mercurial barometer, which arose from solving an important practical problem. Pumpmakers of the Grand Duke of Tuscany attempted to raise water to a height of 12 meters or more, but found that 10 meters was the limit to which it would rise in the suction pump. Torricelli thought to employ mercury, fourteen times as heavy as water. In 1643 he created a tube c. 1 meter long, sealed at the top end, filled it with mercury, and set it vertically into a basin of mercury. The column of mercury fell to about 76cm, leaving a Torricellian vacuum above. As we now know, the column’s height fluctuated with changing atmospheric pressure; this was the first barometer. This discovery has perpetuated his fame, and the Torr, a unit of pressure commonly used in vacuum measurements, was named in his honor. 

Torricelli also discovered Torricelli’s Law, regarding the speed of a fluid flowing out of an opening, which was later shown to be a particular case of Bernoulli’s principle. 

Torricelli gave the first scientific description of the cause of wind: … winds are produced by differences of air temperature, and hence density, between two regions of the earth.

human pathogen worldwide

Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli are considered for the majority of human food-borne infections (www.hpa.org.uk ). Human food poisoning is acquired through the consumption of contaminated food. Poultry is a major food source of infection and infection can arises by consumption of under-cooked poultry meat or cross-contamination of other food products (www.food.gov.uk).

Other sources of infection include contaminated raw milk and water.

The general symptoms of the disease are a fever and general feeling of unwell-ness which is accompanied or followed by abdominal cramps, watery, diarrhoea.

The disease is generally self-limiting after 2-7 days. Antibiotic treatment may be required in elderly or immune-compromised patients.

Piero della Francesca 

(1411– 1492)

He was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries, he was known as a mathematician and geometer as well as an artist, though now he is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its serene humanism and its use of geometric forms, particularly in relation to perspective and foreshortening. Most of his work was produced in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.

Since the discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, researchers have been captivated by the 3300-year-old mystery of what killed the young pharaoh. Tutankhamun ruled the Egyptian empire for nine years in the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom before dying at the age of 19 in 1324 B.C. As a part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project, researchers have released what they believe is the most likely explanation for Tutankhamun’s death:a deadly combination of malaria and bone deformities that led to a fatal broken leg. Researchers had previously established that Tutankhamun had a broken leg near the time of his death by taking X-ray scans of the mummy.

“I never thought that we would really reach a great important discovery,” Zahi Hawass, co-author on the study and a lead archaeologist at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (Cairo, Egypt), told the Associated Press.

The King Tutankhamun Family Project, led by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, is an international effort to sequence the DNA of 16 mummies believed to be of ancient royal descent. The research sought to identify several unknown mummies dating to the 18th dynasty, determine familial relationships between these mummies and previously identified remains, and resolve the debate over Tutankhamun’s death. The investigators searched for pathological features attributable to any of the various theories about Tutankhamun’s death, including murder, septicemia (blood infection), other infections, inherited disorders, or poisonings.

From 2007 to 2009, researchers subjected 11 royal mummies dating from 1410–1324 B.C. and five royal mummies dating from 1550–1479 B.C. to anthropological, radiological, and genetic analysis. Mummies that were known to be distinct from Tutankhamun’s immediate lineage were used as a genetic and morphological reference. The researchers determined microsatellite-based haplotypes for the mummies, segregated alleles by generation within possible pedigree variants, and correlated diseases to the determined ages of individuals based on archeological evidence and written historical record. The researchers then used genetic fingerprinting to identify the relationships between mummies and search for inherited disorders.

A variety of hypotheses have been proposed regarding inherited disorders that might have been present in Tutankhamun’s line, including gynecomastia, craniosynostoses, and Marfan’s syndrome. Due to the common practice of inbreeding, researchers expected to find a significant amount of mutations among Tutankhamun’s lineage. “However, [prior to this study,] most of the disease diagnoses are hypotheses derived by observing and interpreting artifacts and not by evaluating the mummified remains of royal individuals apart from these artifacts,” wrote the researchers in their recent paper. The analyzed mummies in this study included Tutankhamun’s mother, father (identified as the pharaoh Akhenaten), paternal grandmother, and paternal grandfather.

While the study’s results eliminated many of the hypothesized disorders, genetic analysis did confirm the presence of several malformations throughout Tutankhamun’s lineage, including scoliosis, cleft palate, and clubfeet. The researchers confirmed that the bone disease Köhler II, which weakens bone, was present in Tutankhamun and several family members.

But this alone could not have caused the Pharaoh’s death, so researchers continued their analysis, by testing for the genes stevor, ama1, and msp1, which are specific to the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. These genes were present in Tutankhamun and three other mummies, indicating a malaria infection. This finding marks the earlierst recorded case of the disease.

Based on the presence of genes associated with Köhler II and malaria, the researchers concluded that Tutankhamun died of a fatal combination of malaria infection and avascular bone necrosis, a condition where poor supply of blood to the bone leads to weakening or destruction of sections of bone. The researchers suggested that these two diseases were probably responsible for a broken leg that Tutankhamun sustained somewhere around the time of his death, which could have been fatal in conjunction with malaria infection.

The original archeological findings further support this cause of death. “Walking impairment and malarial disease sustained by Tutankhamun is supported by the discovery of canes and an afterlife pharmacy in his tomb,” wrote the researchers.

The researchers hope that this work will help establish the field of molecular Egyptology, which would merge natural, life, and cultural sciences with the humanities, medicine, and other research fields. Hawass hinted that the researchers may have more to reveal about Tutankhamun and his family, though he did not elaborate about what the next revelation will include. “We finished the first great part of the mystery, and the second one is coming soon, in one year.”

The paper, “Ancestry and pathology in King Tutankhamun’s family,” and a related editorial by Howard Merkel of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, “King Tutankhamun, modern medical science, and the expanding boundaries of historical inquiry,” were published Feb. 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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He was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe Copernicus’ epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published just before his death in 1543, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution. His heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of science that is often referred to as the Copernican Revolution.

Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than an avocation — yet it was in that field that he made his mark upon the world.

About three thousand years ago, ships, that had been sailing for a long time searching a landing place, sighted a land. The men on those ships were the only survivors of a terrible fire that after a long war had destroyed their town.

They were sad and tired, they had been wondering for years longing for rest and peace….. and here now a welcoming land was in front of them.

They landed at a place where a river flowed into the sea blending its tumultuous yellow waters with the blue waves. So they were enthusiastic when their leader ordered them to land.

The men who finally touched land were Trojans. They had landed in Lazio on the banks of the river Tiber led by the brave hero Aeneas.

While Troy was falling under the Greek assault, he saved his father and his little son. Unfortunately his father died during the voyage.

The life and deeds of Aeneas are wonderfully told in the Aeneid, written by the great poet Virgil, here we record the most important episodes essential to the study of Roman history.

In those times, Lazio was already peopled by several tribes: Etruscans, Volscians, Sabines, Rutuli and Ausones.

The Latins were the most important population settled in a group of organised cities along the Tiber banks.

The Trojans got soon in touch with these people and with their King, the wise Latin. He warmly welcomed them, gave them hospitality and some time later he gave his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas as his wife. She had been previously bethroted to Turno, the king of Rutuli who declared war on Latin for the offense.

It was a terrible war that ended with a duel between Aeneas and Turno. The latter died. A long period of peace followed, during which Aeneas founded aTown, Lavinium, to honour his wife. His son Ascanio founded another town called Albalonga.

Many years after the death of Ascanio, the good Numitore became king. But he had a very evil and envious brother, called Amulio who wanted to rule. For this reason he imprisoned Numitore and forced his daughter Rea Silvia to become a priest.

Amulio felt safe and secure. He had ruled for a long period when some time later the god Mars sent two twins to Rea Silvia, Romulus and Remus. Amulio ordered that they be killed immedately. But he was destined to be punished.

The servant ordered to commit the cruel act, had not the heart to commit such a murder. Instead he put the two little brothers in a wicker basket and abandoned them on the Tiber waters, with the hope that someone could save them.

And they were saved. 

He was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissane. To contemporaries, he was known as a mathematician and geometer as well as an artist, though now he is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its serene humanism and its use of geometric forms, particularly in relation to perspective and foreshortening. Most of his work was produced in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.

The Baptism of Christ, 1450 (National Gallery, London).

He may have learned his trade from one of several Sienese artists working in San Sepolcro during his youth. It is known that Piero apprenticed in Florence with Domenico Veneziano, with whom he worked in 1439 on frescoes for the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova (church of Sant’Egidio, now lost). He also knew Fra’ Angelico, who introduced him to the other leading masters of the time, Masaccio and Brunelleschi. In 1442 he returned to San Sepolcro where, three years later, he received the commission for altarpiece of the church of the Misericordia (including the Madonna della Misericordia), which he was to complete only in the early 1460s. In 1449 he executed several frescoes in the Castello Estense and the church of Sant’Andrea of Ferrara, also lost. His influence was particularly strong in the later Ferrarese allegorical works of Cosimo Tura.

Two years later he was in Rimini, working for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. In this sojourn he executed the famous fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Praying in Front of St. Sigismund as well as the portrait of the condottiero. There he also met another famous Renaissance mathematician and architect, Leon Battista Alberti. Later he moved to Ancona, Pesaro and Bologna.      In 1452, Piero della Francesca was called to Arezzo to replace Bicci di Lorenzo in painting the frescoes of the basilica of San Francesco. The work was finished before 1466, probably between 1452-1456.

In 1453, he returned to San Sepolcro where, the following year, he signed a contract for the polyptych in the church of Sant’Agostino. A few years later, summoned by Pope Nicholas V, he moved to Rome: here he executed frescoes in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, of which only fragments remain. Two years later he was again in the Papal capital, for frescoes in Vatican Palace which have also been destroyed. To this period belongs The Flagellation (c. 1460), one of the most famous and controversial pictures of the early Renaissance. As discussed in own entry, it is marked by an air of geometric sobriety, in addition to presenting a perplexing enigma as to the nature of the three men at right forefront. Piero della Francesca is documented in Rimini in 1482. His will was made in 1487. In his later years, painters such as Perugino and Luca Signorelli frequently visited his workshop. According to Vasari, he went blind in old age.

His deep interest in the theoretical study of perspective and his contemplative approach to his paintings are apparent in all his work, including the panels of the S. Agostino altarpiece. 

Three treatises written by Piero are known to modern mathematicians: Abacus Treatise (Trattato d’Abaco), Short Book on the Five Regular Solids (Libellus de Quinque Corporibus Regularibus) and On Perspective for Painting (De Prospectiva Pingendi). The subjects covered in these writings include arithmetic, algebra, geometry and innovative work in both solid geometry and perspective..

He was a Venetian painter and printmaker. He was prolific, and worked not only in the region of Venetia, one of Italy’s twenty regions, but also in Germany and Spain.

Born in Venice, Tiepolo was the youngest of six children born to Orsetta, Tiepolo’s mother and his father, Domenico Tiepolo, a sea captain. While the Tiepolo surname belongs to a patrician family, Giambattista’s father did not claim patrician status. The future artist was baptised in his parish church (San Pietro di Castello) as Giovanni Battista, in honour of his godfather, a Venetian nobleman called Giovanni Battista Dorià. His father Domenico died a year after his birth, leaving Orsetta in difficult financial circumstances.

Giambattista was initially a pupil of Gregorio Lazzarini, but the influences from elder contemporaries such as Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta are stronger in his work. At 19 years of age, Tiepolo completed his first major commission, the Sacrifice of Isaac (now in the Accademia). He left Lazzarini studio in 1717, and was received into the Fraglia or guild of painters. A patrician from the Friulian town of Udine, Dionisio Delfino, commissioned a fresco decoration of the chapel and palace from the young Tiepolo (completed 1726-1728). Tiepolo’s first masterpieces in Venice were a cycle of enormous canvases painted to decorate a large reception room of Ca’ Dolfin on the Grand Canal of Venice (ca. 1726–1729), depicting ancient battles and triumph.

These early masterpieces, novel for Venetian frescoes in their luminosity, brought him many commissions. He painted canvases for churches such as that of Verolanuova (1735-40), for the Scuola dei Carmini (1740-47), and the Chiesa degli Scalzi (1743-1744; now destroyed) in Cannaregio, a ceiling for the Palazzi Archinto and Casati-Dugnani in Milan (1731), the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo (1732-1733), a ceiling for the Gesuiti (Santa Maria del Rosario) in Venice of St. Dominic Instituting the Rosary (1737-39), Palazzo Clerici, Milan (1740), decorations for Villa Cordellini at Montecchio Maggiore (1743-1744) and for the ballroom of the Palazzo Labia, now a television studio in Venice, showing the Story of Cleopatra (1745-1750).

By 1750, Tiepolo’s reputation was firmly established throughout Europe. That year, at the behest of Prince Bishop Karl Philip von Greiffenklau, he traveled to Würzburg where he resided for three years and executed ceiling paintings in the New Residenz palace (completed 1744). His painting for the grandiose Neumann-designed entrance staircase (Treppenhaus) is a massive ceiling fresco at 7287 square feet (677 m²), and was completed in collaboration with his sons, Giandomenico and Lorenzo^. His Allegory of the Planets and Continents depicts Apollo embarking on his daily course; deities around him symbolize the planets; allegorical figures (on the cornice) represent the four continents Europe, Asia, Africa and America. He included a self-portrait beside a portrait of his son Giandomenico in the Europe section of this fresco. He also frescoed the Kaisersaal salon.

In 1761, Charles III commissioned Tiepolo to create a ceiling fresco to decorate the throne room of the Royal Palace of Madrid. The panegyric theme is the Apotheosis of Spain and has allegorical depictions recalling the dominance of Spain in the Americas and across the globe. In Spain, he incurred the jealousy and the bitter opposition of the rising champion of Neoclassicism, Anton Raphael Mengs.

Tiepolo died in Madrid on March 27, 1770.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Tiepolo

He is an Australian pathologist, Nobel Laureate and researcher who is credited with the 1979 re-discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori.

He received his MBBS degree from the University of Adelaide, having completed his high school education at St Peter’s College, Adelaide.

In 1967 he was admitted into the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia and became a senior pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital where he spent the majority of his career.

At the University of Western Australia with his colleague Barry J. Marshall, Warren proved that the bacterium is the cause of stomach ulcers.

Warren helped develop a convenient diagnostic test (¹⁴C-urea breath-test) for detecting H. pylori in ulcer patients.

In 2005, Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Goddess of the Bountiful Harvest and the Nurturing Spirit. In Greek mythology the goddess Demeter was the most generous of the great Olympian goddesses. 

The Greek goddess Demeter was beloved for her service to mankind in giving them the gift of the harvest, the reward for cultivation of the soil.   

Also known as the Roman goddess Ceres, Demeter was the goddess of the harvest and was credited with teaching humans how to grow, preserve, and prepare grain. Demeter  was thought to be responsible for the fertility of the land.     

She was the only one of the Greek goddesses who was involved on a day-to-day basis in the lives of the common folk. 

While others occasionally “dabbled” in human affairs when it suited their personal interests, or came to the aid of “special” mortals they favoured, the goddess Demeter was truly the nurturer of mankind.

Demeter also was the only one of the Greek goddesses who could truly empathize with the human experience of suffering and grief, having experienced it fully herself.

The goddess Demeter is best known for her fierce defense of her daughter, Persephone, who was also known as the child, Kore (or Cora).  P

ersephone’s father was Zeus, the mighty ruler of the Olympians. The goddess Demeter had been one of his early consorts, long before his marriage to Hera.