GIOVANNI di CASALE. – Franciscan, philosopher and scientist, b. at Casale di Monferrato ca. 1320 (?), d. after 1375.
He is the author of a Quaestio de velocitate motus alterationis, written in 1355 (ed. Venice 1505), which drew on the doctrines of Riccardo Swineshead (or Suisset) and Nicola di Oresme and appears to have been widely circulated in the 14th and 15th centuries. G. was probably the first to make Oresme’s doctrines known in Italy.
BIBL.: Sbaralea, III, p. 52; A. Maier, An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft, Essen 1943, pp. 354–57 (bibl.); Descriptio codicum, in Arch. Francisc. histor., 1 (1909), p. 116. Anneliese Maier