CEVA, TOMMASO. - Born in Milan on 26 Dec. 1648, entered the Society of Jesus on 20 Dec. 1663, died in Milan on 3 Feb. 1737. The younger brother of Giovanni C. (who gave his name to certain theorems of geometry), Tommaso likewise distinguished himself in mathematics, which he taught for 38 years.

In his essays (Opuscula mathematica, Milan 1691; De natura gravium, ibid. 1699), mention should be made, among other things, of the invention of an instrument for dividing any angle into equal parts (published in 1695, reported in the Acta eruditorum of Leipzig the same year); as a mathematician, C. remained anchored to geometric methods, rather than opening himself to the new analytic ones. But C. enjoys wider fame for his Latin poems, especially for the curious and original Iesus Puer (Milan 1690, various reprints and translations, of which at least five in Italian). Among his Sylvae poeticae (1699), the Cippus was noted, limited by Gresset's Vert-vert. A many-sided mind, C. defended traditional philosophy against innovators such as Descartes and Gassendi in the hexameters of the Philosophia novo-antiqua (Milan 1704, various reprints), intervened with anonymous pamphlets in the controversies over Jansenism and the Chinese rites, published with great dedication the works of the celebrated orator Fr. Carlo Ambrogio Cattaneo, and wrote edifying biographies (Vita di mons. Luigi Ruzzini vescovo di Bergamo, ibid. 1712, etc.), sometimes of interest also to literary criticism (Memorie d'alcune virtù del sig. conte Francesco de Lemene, con alcune riflessioni sulle poesie, ibid. 1706). He was a member of the Academy of the Arcadians (Callimaco Neridio).

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Sommervogel, II coll. 1015-24; Necrologio, by Cordara, in the Vite degli Arcadi illustri. V. Rome 1751, with portrait; B. Cotronei, Il « Cippus » di T. C., in Atene e Roma, 9 (1906); I. Berardi, Un poema sacro dell'ultimo Seicento, in Studi di letteratura italiana, 9 (1912), pp. 71-78; A. Pascal, L'apparecchio poliettore di T. C., in Rendiconti del R. Istituto lomb., 48 (1915), pp. 173-81 and 65-78; R. Ramat, La critica del p. C., in Civiltà moderna, 10 (1938), pp. 385-395 and 11 (1939), pp. 139-66.

Edmondo Lamalle

@incollection{ec3_ceva_tommaso, author = {Lamalle, Edmondo}, title = {Ceva, tommaso}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1363--1364}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ceva-tommaso} }

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Ceva, Tommaso

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