Manfredi, Eustachio

, a celebrated astronomer and mathematician, was born at Bologna in 1674, and soon displayed a genius above his age. He wrote ingenious verses while he was but a child, and while very young formed in his father’s house an academy of youth of his own age, which in time became the Academy of Sciences, or the Institute, there. He was appointed professor of mathematics at Bologna in 1698, and superintendant of the waters there in 1704. The same year he was placed at the head of the college of Montalto, founded at Bologna for young men intended for the church. In 1711 he obtained the office of astronomer to the institute of Bologna. He became member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1726, and of the Royal Society of London in 1729; and died on the 15th of February 1739. His works are: 1. “Ephemerides Motuum Coelestium ab anno 17 15 ad annum 1750;” 4 vols. 4to. The first volume is an excellent introduction to astronomy; and the other three contain numerous calculations. His two sisters were greatly assisting to him in composing this work. 2. “De Transitu Mercurii per Solem, anno 1723,” Bologna, 1724, 4to. 3. “De annuls Inerrantium Stellarum aberrationibus,” Bologna, 1729, in 4to; besides a number of papers in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, and in other places, which are enumerated by Fabroni. The best edition of his Poems, which are still in repute, is that by Bodoni, in 1793, 8vo, with a life of the author. ¹