THE 



EDINBURGH 

 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Art. I. — Memoir of the Life and Writings of M. Piazzi 9 

 Director General of the Observatories of Naples and Paler- 

 mo. 



JVI. Joseph Piazzi, President of the Academy of Sciences 

 of Naples, Member of the Royal Society of London, Associate 

 of the Institute of France, and the Societies of Turin, Got- 

 tingen, Berlin, and Milan, was born at Ponte, in the Valte- 

 line, on the 16th July 1746. Having taken the habit of the 

 Theatins at Milan, he finished his noviciate in the convent of 

 St Anthony. His classical and mathematical studies were car- 

 ried on successively at Milan, Turin, and Rome, and among 

 his instructors he had the honour of ranking the celebrated 

 PP. Tiraboschi, Beccaria, and Lesueur and Jacquier. After 

 being initiated into the literature and science of the times, he 

 went to teach philosophy at Genoa ; but the freedom with 

 which he expressed his opinions alarmed the zeal of the Do- 

 minicans, and he would have been exposed to all the troubles 

 of a religious persecution, had not the Grand Master Pinto 

 rescued him from its power, by appointing him professor of 

 mathematics in the new university of Malta. 



After the suppression of the order of the Knights of Malta, 

 he repaired to Rome, and afterwards to Ravenna, where he 

 was appointed to the chair of Philosophy and Mathematics in 

 the college of the nobles. Here he was exposed to the same 

 illiberal zeal, in consequence of having published some philo- 



VOL. VI. XO. II. APRIL 1827. N 



