I will readily admit my annual celebration for Italian Heritage is off to a slow start. I blame too many things but in the end it’s my own fault. This year I did get some help from a real Italian who gave me a list of many more to research, be ready to see them.
Now, let’s get started with an amazing astronomer whose probe made the news recently when NASA decided to crash it into the planet Saturn.
Cassini was obviously an astronomer and NASA named the probe after him for two primary reasons: he discovered four of Saturn’s moons (Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione) and the gap within Saturn’s rings, aka the Cassini Division.
Jumping back to his origins, he was born in Genoa when it was an independent republic. His family had enough money to send him away to be well educated. After attending Vallebone, the Jesuit College at Genoa and the abbey of San Fructuoso. Cassini’s mastery of Math, Astrology and poetry led to his appointment as an Astronomer. Keep in mind, until the Enlightenment, Astronomy and Astrology were joined at the hip.
His career really took off when he left the Italian peninsula to work/study in Paris through a grant from Louis XIV. There Cassini began a familial line of great scientists; there were Cassinis working at the Paris Observatory until his great grandson.
Beyond his more famous Saturn work, Cassini also discovered the red spot on Jupiter around the same time as Robert Hooke. With the help of another astronomer positioned in French Guiana, he computed the distance between Earth and Mars. He used a method outlined by Galileo to calculate the correct measurements of longitude that were in turn applied to accurately see how big France really was. Turns out France was much smaller than people believed, what a bruise to the French ego! His final accomplishment I found funny, his expertise in hydraulics which was applied in settling a dispute on the course of the Reno River between Bologna and Ferrara. This earned him the job as the Pope’s river management expert.