Barozzi, Francesco

Philosopher and Mathematician with Venetian origins, Francesco Barozzi (1537–1604) bound up his name to his Cosmography, an extended treatise on Ptolemaic cosmology with many mathematical criticisms to Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Sphere. During his career Barozzi merged his humanistic and antiquarian studies (as well as those regarding the history of ancient science) with esoterism and sorcery, so attracting the Inquisition’s sentence against himself at the end of his life. His major contribution remains the recognized dignity of mathematics as a science, which he always defended as not inferior to the other ones, and even as essential for solving astronomical issues with a certainty that was regarded as superior to that provided by specious and inconclusive disputes.