BORELLI, GIOVANNI ALFONSO(b. Naples, Italy, January 1608; d. Rome, Italy, 31 December 1679), astronomy, epidemiology, mathematics, physiology (iatromechanics), physics, volcanology.

    1674, she launched her Accademia Reale. Borelli appeared twice before it in 1675—in February when he spoke on the construction of the triremes of the ancients and again in April when he discussed Etna, this time including considerations resulting from a climb to the rim of the volcano in 1671. Christina also patronized another, more scientific group, known variously as the Accademia dell'Esperienza or the Accademia Fisica-matematica. It was organized in July of 1677 under the leadership of Giovanni Giustino Ciampini, who was also connected with the Giornale de' Letterati. Its membership included Borelli and an old friend and disciple, Lucantonio Porzio. But recognition apparently did not entail too much tangible support, and Borelli began to look farther afield for that. Cassini had been in Paris for several years and had become a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. In 1676 Borelli wrote him complaining of the extreme circumstances to which he had been reduced by his enemies and the lack of quiet which was interfering with the completion of his works; he hinted that he too would like to serve the Most Christian King. By February 1677, negotiations were under way. A year later he had hopeful news, but he wrote that he was too old to travel to Paris. Instead he would send his work on the motion of animals to be printed there with a dedication to the king. In May of 1678 he still hoped for his election to the Royal Academy, but since he did not wish to trust his only copy of De motu animalium to the mails, he wrote that he needed time to have another made. Actually it is unlikely that he ever was elected to the Academy. A short time previously he had been robbed of all his possessions by a servant. Lacking adequate means, he had accepted the hospitality of the fathers of the Casa di S. Pantaleo and had entered their house on 13 September 1677. For the last two years of his life he taught mathematics at its Scuole Pie. Apparently he never sent a copy of his manuscript to Paris. Then in late 1679 Queen Christina agreed to bear the printing costs and Borelli dedicated the De motu animalium to her. He died in December, however, and his benefactor at the convent, P. Giovanni di Gesù, accepted the responsibility of seeing this last and most important work through the press. Volume I, treating of external motions, or the motions produced by the muscles, appeared in 1680. Volume II, dealing with internal motions, such as the movements of the muscles themselves, circulation, respiration, the secretion of fluids, and nervous activity, appeared in late 1681. A simple stone in the wall of the Church of S. Pantaleo recalls: Joh. Alphonso Borellio, neapolitano, philosopho medico et matematico, clarissimo, . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. ORIGINAL WORKS.

Borelli's major writings are Discorso . . . nel quale si manifestano le falsità e gli errori contenuti nella difesa del problema geometrico risoluto dal R. D. Pietro Emmanuele (Messina, 1646); Delle cagioni delle febbri maligne di Sicilia negli anni 1647 e 1648, . . . Ed in fine si tratta della digestione di cibi con nuovo metodo (Cosenza, 1649); Euclides restitutus (Pisa, 1658); Apollonius Pergaeus Conicorum lib. v. vi. vii. paraphraste Abalphato Asphahanensi nunc primum editi. Additus in calce Archimedis assumptorum liber, ex codicibus Arabicis m. ss. . . . Abrahamus Eccellensis . . . latinos reddidit (Florence, 1661); Euclide rinnovato (Bologna, 1663); Del movimento della cometa apparsa il mese di Dicembre 1664 (Pisa, 1665); Theoricae mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae (Florence, 1666); De vi percussioni liber (Bologna, 1667); Risposta . . . alle considerazioni fatte sopra alcuni luoghi del suo libro della forza della percossa del R. P. F. Stefano de gl' Angeli (Messina, 1668); De motionibus naturalibus a gravitate pendentibus, liber (Regio Iulio [Reggio di Calabria], Bologna, 1670); Istoria et meteorologia incendii Aetnaei anni 1669 . . . accessit. Responsio ad censuras Rev. P. Honorati Fabri contra librum auctoris De vi percussionis (Regio Iulio [Reggio di Calabria], 1670); Elementa conica Apollonii Pergaei, et Archimedis opera, nova et breviori methodo demonstrata (Rome, 1679); De motu animalium . . . Opum Posthumum. Pars prima (Rome, 1680), Pars altera (Rome, 1681); and “Discorso sopra la laguna di Venezia. Relazione sopra lo stagno di Pisa. Supplemento da aggiungersi alla proposizione seconda del secondo libro del P. Castelli, ecc.,” in Raccolta d'autori che trattano del moto dell'acque, IV (Florence, 1765), 15-63.

Shorter tracts and less important works appeared in various issues of Giornale de' Letterati; Borelli, et al., Tetras anatomicarum epistolarum de lingua, et cerebro (Bologna, 1665); Marcello Malpighi, Opera posthuma (London, 1697); and Giovanni Targione Tozzetti, Atti e memorie inedite dell' Accademia del Cimento, 3 vols. (Florence, 1780).

The collections of the libraries of Florence, especially the Galileiana of the Biblioteca Nazionale, contain a great deal of unpublished correspondence to, from, and relating to Borelli. Other Italian libraries, and perhaps French and English ones, must still have a great deal of unrecognized and unpublished Borelli materials. The following have made many Borelli letters available: Howard B. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology, 5 vols. (Ithaca, N. Y., 1966); Giovanni Arenaprimo di Montechiaro, “Gio: Alfonso Borelli a Marcello Malpighi,” in Studi di medicina legale e varii . . . in onore di Giuseppe Ziino ecc. (Messina, 1907), pp. 467-475; Vincenzo Busacchi and Giordano Muratori, “Giovanni Alfonso Borelli e lo Studio di Bologna,” in Bollettino delle scienze mediche [Società di Bologna], 136 (1964), 86-90; Modestino Del Gaizo, Alcune lettere di Giovanni Alfonso Borrelli, dirette una al Malpighi, le altre al Magliabechi (Naples, 1886); “Contributo allo studio della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Alfonso Borrelli,” Atti dell'Accademia Pontaniana, Napoli,