GRIMALDI, FRANCESCO MARIA. - Jesuit, physicist, b. in Bologna on 2 April 1613, d. there on 28 December 1663.
Having entered religious life in 1632, after teaching belles-lettres for 25 years he devoted himself to the study of physics and collaborated with his confrere G. B. Riccioli on important works. To him are owed: studies on refraction and on the dispersion or decomposition of white light into the elementary colors; the discovery of diffraction fringes, which are observed when a beam of light passes through a very thin slit or a minute pinhole (though these were also observed by Leonardo da Vinci); a wave theory of light, innovative for its time; the study of the lunar spots. His principal works are: Physico-mathesis de lumine, coloribus et iride, aliusque adnexis libri duo (posthumous, Bologna 1665) and a Selenographia o Tarsula selenografica, reported by Fr. G. B. Riccioli, who gave G.'s name to one of the lunar spots, in Almagestum novum (I, Bologna 1651, p. 204; see also several observations of G. reported there on p. 754).
Bibliography4 worksSommervogel, III, coll. 1833-34; J. Schreiber, Die Mondnomenclatur Riccioli und die Grimaldische Mondkarte, in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 54 (
BIBL.: Sommervogel, III, coll. 1833-34; J. Schreiber, Die Mondnomenclatur Riccioli und die Grimaldische Mondkarte, in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 54 (1898, 3), pp. 252-72; J. Duhr, Jesuitenfabeln, 4th ed., Freiburg im Breisgau 1904, pp. 286-87; Italian version, I, Florence 1908, pp. 256-57.
Provenzal, Giulio. “Grimaldi, francesco maria.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, col. 1167. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/grimaldi-francesco-maria.
MLA
Provenzal, Giulio. “Grimaldi, francesco maria.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, col. 1167. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/grimaldi-francesco-maria.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_grimaldi_francesco_maria,
author = {Provenzal, Giulio},
title = {Grimaldi, francesco maria},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
pages = {1167},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/grimaldi-francesco-maria}
}
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