Ostilio Ricci

Ostilio Ricci (27 September 1540 in Fermo - 1603 in Florence) was an Italian mathematician, teacher and discoverer of the talent of Galileo Galilei. His parents were Orazio and Elisabetta Gualteroni, both of noble origin.

Biography

He received education as a page from the Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I, thus becoming, in 1586, professor of mathematics at the School of Pages of the Grand Duke Francis I.

He was also a mathematics teacher first at the Studio pisano then at the Florentine. In Florence, he also taught geometry to many student painters and future artists, including Giorgio Vasari.

In Florence, Ricci befriended Galileo Galilei's father, Vincenzo, who moved his entire family to Florence in 1574. In both Florence and Pisa, Ricci gave Galileo his first lessons in mathematics and geometry, introducing him to also in the works of Archimedes and arousing his true interests. Thus, under Ricci's advice and with the permission of his father, Galileo went from studying medicine in the medical-surgical section to studying mathematics and physics in the physics and mathematics section of the Medical-Physical College. from the Studio pisano , where he had enrolled on September 5, 1580 and left it in 1585, without receiving a doctorate.

Already in 1587, Galileo had reached such a level of preparation that Ricci himself introduced him as a professor of mathematics at the Studio Bolognese.

Follower of the teachings of Niccolò Tartaglia, Ricci was also an expert in civil engineering and military architecture, sectors in which he developed the idea that mathematics was a practical science, and not merely an abstract one, indispensable for establishing and solving mechanical and engineering problems.

This applied vision of mathematics and its teaching, which Ricci adopted from the Scuola dei paggi, will play a decisive pedagogical role in the formation of the young Galileo.

After the death of Francesco I, his successor Ferdinando I, in addition to renewing his teaching assignment at the Studio fiorentino and conferring on him the role of Mathematician of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (replacing Stefano Buonsignori), in 1593 he also assigned him the teaching of mathematics at the Academy of Arts of Drawing in Florence.

Works

• Ostilio Ricci, Problemi di Geometria Pratica: L'uso dell'Archimetro, Manuscript, Florence, Nazionale Library, II – 57