Torre, John Maria De La

, a celebrated philosopher, was born at Rome in 1710, of a family originally of Genoa, and studied in the Clementine college at Rome. He became afterwards professor of philosophy and mathematics at the college of Ciudad, in the Frioul. Thence he went to Naples, and taught these sciences in the archiepiscopal seminary. Charles of Bourbon, king of Naples, appointed him in 1754 to be his librarian, superintendant of the royal printing-office, and keeper of the museum, which enabled him to devote his time to his favourite pursuits, one of which was the improvement of microscopes, which he brought to a very great degree of perfection, by inventing the highest magnifiers that had ever been known, four of which he sent in 1765 to our royal society. An account | of them may be seen in the Philosophical Transactions, vols, LV. and LVI. This ingenious author was a member of the principal academies of Italy, and a corresponding member of those of Paris, London, and Berlin. He died March 7, 1782, not more rt gretted as a man of genius, than as a man of private worth and amiable manners. His principal works are, “On Natural Philosophy,” Naples, 174-9, 2 vols. 4to. 2. “Elementa Physicae,” ibid. 1767, 8 vols. 3. “History and phenomena oi Vesuvius,” i755, 4to. 4. “Microscopical Observations,” 1766, &c. ]¹