Ricci, Michael Angelo

, a learned Italian ecclesiastic, was born at Rome in 1619. He was created a cardinal in 1681, but did not long enjoy that dignity, as he died in 1633, at the age of sixty-four. He was well skilled in the pure mathematical sciences, and published at Rome, in 4to, “Exercitatio Geometrica,” a small tract, which was reprinted at London, and annexed to Mercator’s “Logarithmotechnia,” chiefly on account of the excellency of the argument “de maximis et minimis,” or the doctrine of limits; where the author shows a deep judgment in exhibiting the means of reducing that lately discovered doctrine to pure geometry. ¹