BORELLI (John Alphonso)
, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, born at Naples the 28th of January 1608. He was professor of philosophy and mathematics in some of the most celebrated universities of Italy, particularly at Florence and Pisa, where he became highly in favour with the princes of the house of Medicis. But having been concerned in the revolt of Messina, he was obliged to retire to Rome, where he spent the remainder of his life under the protection of Christina queen of Sweden, who honoured him with her friendship, and by her liberality towards him softened the rigour of his hard fortune. He continued two years in the convent of the regular clergy of St. Pantaleon, called the Pious Schools, where he instructed the youth in mathematical studies. And this study he prosecuted with great diligence for many years afterward, as appears by his correspondence with several ingenious mathematicians of his time, and the frequent mention that has been made of him by others, who have endeavoured to do justice to his memory. He wrote a letter to Mr. John Collins, in which he discovers his great desire and endeavours to promote the improvement of those sciences: he also speaks of his correspondence with, and great affection for, Mr. Henry Oldenburgh, Secretary of the Royal Society; of Dr. Wallis; of the then late learned Mr. Boyle, and lamented the loss sustained by his death to the commonwealth of learning. Mr. Baxter, in his Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, makes frequent use of our author's book De Motu Animalium, and tells us, that he was the first who discovered that the force exerted within the body prodigiously exceeds the weight to be moved without, or that nature employs an immense power to move a small weight. But he acknowledges that Dr. James Keil had shewn that Borelli was mistaken in his calculation of the force of the muscle of the heart; but that he nevertheless ranks him with the most authentic writers, and says he is seldom mistaken: and, having remarked that it is so far from being true, that great things are brought about by small powers, that, on the contrary, a stupendous power is manifest in the most ordinary operations of nature, he observes that the ingenious Borelli first observed this in animal motion; and that Dr. Stephen Hales, by a course of experiments in his Vegetable Statics, had shewn the same in the force of the ascending sap in vegetables.
After a course of unceasing labours, Borelli died at Pantaleon of a pleurisy, the 31st of December 1679, at 72 years of age.
Beside several books on physical subjects, Borelli published the following mathematical ones: viz.
1. Apollonii Pergæi Conicorum Lib. 5, 6, & 7. Floren. 1661, fol.
2. Theoriæ Medicorum Planetarum ex causis physicis deductæ. Flor. 1666, 4to.
3. De Vi Percussionis. Bologna, 1667, 4to.—This piece was reprinted, with his celebrated treatise De Motu Animalium, and that other De Motionibus Naturalibus, in 1686.
4. Euclides Restitutus, &c. Pisa, 1668, 4to.
5. Osservatione intorno alla vistu ineguali degli Occi. —This piece was inserted in the Journal of Rome, for the year 1669.
6. De Motionibus Naturalibus de Gravitate pendentibus. Regio Julio, 1670, 4to.
7. Meteorologia Aetnea, &c. Regio Julio, 1670, 4to.
8. Osservatione dell' Ecclissi Lunare, 11 Gennaro 1675.—Inserted in the Journal of Rome 1675, p. 34.
9. Elementa Conica Appollonii Pergæi, & Archimedis Opera, nova & breviori methodo demonstrata.— Printed at Rome in 1679, in 12mo, at the end of the 3d edition of his Euclides Restitutus.
10. De Motu Animalium. Pars prima in 1680, and Pars altera in 1681, 4to.—These were reprinted at Leyden 1685, revised and purged from many errors; with the addition of John Bernoulli's Mathematical Meditations concerning the Motion of the Muscles.
11. At Leyden, 1686, in 4to, a more correct and accurate edition, revised by J. Broen, M. D. of Leyden, of his two pieces, De Vi Percussionis, & De Motionibus de Gravitate pendentibus.
