BINA, ANDREA. - Cassinese Benedictine of the abbey of Polirone (Mantua), b. in Milan in 1724, d. there on 8 March 1792. He taught philosophy in the monasteries of Padua, Perugia, and Milan, theology in Rome, and mathematics and physics at the University of Parma. He is credited with the invention of the pendulum seismograph, which he first described in his Ragionamento sopra la cagione de' tremuoti, ed in particolare di quello della terra di Gualdo e Nocera nell'Umbria seguito l'anno 1751 (Perugia 1751). He also published other scientific writings, especially on electricity, and was the first to translate Cristiano Wolff’s physics into Latin.
BIBL.: G. C. Poggendorff, Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch für Mathematik, Astronomie, Physik, Chemie und verwandte Wissenschaftsgebiete, I, Leipzig 1863, p. 191; G. Terenzi, L'inventore del sismografo a pendolo, in Riv. scientifica-industriale, 19 (1887), p. 52 and in Bull. del vulcanismo ital., 14 (1887), p. 33; G. Aramennone, L'inventore del sismografo a pendolo, in La meteorologia pratica, 7 (1926), p. 264.