Antonio Nardi

Antonio Nardi (1598-1648?) was a Tuscan man of letters known for his geometrical work with Galileo Galilei and his disciples, Michelangelo Ricci and Evangelista Torricelli. He is also the author of the Scene (sometimes referred to as the Scene Toscane or Accademiche), a sprawling manuscript work that covers philosophy, physics, ethics, and literature in addition to mathematics. Very little is known of Nardi's early life. Indeed, until recently his date and place of baptism (November 8, 1598 at Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo) were uncertain. His parents, Lazzaro Nardi and Caterina Tondinelli, were of minor provincial nobility originating from Florence. Nardi received his degree in utroque iure at the University of Pisa in 1621. It was there that he likely came into contact with Galileans like Benedetto Castelli, who held a chair in mathematics at Pisa and was a longtime friend and supporter of Galileo. In the 1630s, Nardi became active in a group of Castelli's students in Rome that included Evangelista Torricelli, Michelangelo Ricci, and Raffaello Magiotti. Nardi, along with Torricelli and Magiotti, wrote a number of letters to Galileo praising his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and faulting its detractors after its publication in 1632. Galileo, recognizing their devotion, referred to the three as his "triumvirate" in Rome. In 1635, Nardi's uncle, Baldassarre Nardi secured him a position in the court of Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Guidi di Bagno in Rome, which was home to many intellectuals like the Cardinal's librarian, Gabriel Naudé. Nardi served there until the Cardinal's death in 1641. Around this time, Nardi renewed his correspondence with Galileo, sending him this time samples of his own geometrical work. These were from Nardi's Ricercate Geometriche sopra Archimede, which is made up of newer, more efficient proofs of Archimedes' original theorems using the new method of indivisibles developed by Bonaventura Cavalieri.