François d'Aguilon

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François d'Aguilon (also d'Aguillon or in Latin Franciscus Aguilonius) (4 January 1567 – 20 March 1617) was a Belgian Jesuit mathematician, physicist and architect.

D'Aguilon was born in Brussels; his father was a secretary to Philip II of Spain.[1] He became a Jesuit in Tournai in 1586.[2] In 1598 he moved to Antwerp, where he helped plan the construction of the Carolus Borromeuskerk.[1] In 1611, he started a special school of mathematics in Antwerp, fulfilling a dream of Clavius for a Jesuit mathematical school; in 1616, he was joined there by Grégoire de Saint-Vincent.[3] The notable geometers educated at this school included Jean-Charles della Faille,[4] André Tacquet,[5] and Théodore Moret.[4]

Illustration by Rubens for Opticorum Libri Sex demonstrating how the projection is computed.

His book, Opticorum Libri Sex philosophis juxta ac mathematicis utiles [Six Books of Optics, useful for philosophers and mathematicians alike], published by Balthasar I Moretus in Antwerp in 1613, was illustrated by the famous painter Peter Paul Rubens.[6] It included one of the first studies of binocular vision.[1][7] It also gave the names we now use to stereographic projection and orthographic projection, although the projections themselves were likely known to Hipparchus.[8][9][10] This book inspired the works of Desargues[11] and Christiaan Huygens.[12]

He died at Antwerp, aged 50.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Neetens, A. (1997), "Franciscus Aguilonius (1567–1617)", Neuro-Ophthamology 18 (1): vii–xiii, doi:10.3109/01658109709044672 .
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bosmans, Henri, S. J. (1902), "Deux lettres inédites de Grégoire de Saint-Vincent publiées avec des notes bibliographiques sur les œuvres de Grégoire de Saint-Vincent et les manuscrits de della Faille", Annales de la Société scientifique de Bruxelles (in French) 26: 23–40 . Footnote 41, p. 38.
  3. ↑ Smolarski, Dennis C. (2002), "Teaching mathematics in the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries", Mathematics Magazine 75 (4): 256–262, doi:10.2307/3219160, MR 2074191 .
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Meskens, A. (1997), "The Jesuit mathematics school in Antwerp in the early seventeenth century", The Seventeenth Century 12 (1): 11–22, doi:10.1080/0268117X.1997.10555421, "In the few years the school was based in Antwerp it brought forth a first rate mathematician like Jan-Karel della Faille. ... Another important pupil of the school of mathematics was Theodore Moretus (1602–1667), son of Petrus and Henriette Plantin." 
  5. ↑ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Andrea Tacquet", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews .
  6. ↑ Held, Julius S. (1979), "Rubens and Aguilonius: New Points of Contact", The Art Bulletin 61 (2): 257–264, JSTOR 3049891 .
  7. ↑ Ziggelaar, August, S. J. (2012), "Theories of binocular vision after Aguilón", Strabismus 20 (4): 185–193, doi:10.3109/09273972.2012.735524 .
  8. ↑ Kreyszig, Erwin (1991), Differential Geometry, Toronto University Mathematical Expositions 11, Courier Dover Publications, p. 205, ISBN 9780486667218 .
  9. ↑ Olinthus, Gregory (1816), Elements of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry: With Their Applications to Heights and Distances Projections of the Sphere, Dialling, Astronomy, the Solution of Equations, and Geodesic Operations, Baldwin Cradock & Joy, p. 121 .
  10. ↑ Lombaerde, Piet (2008), Innovation and Experience in the Early Baroque in the Southern Netherlands: The Case of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, Architectura moderna : architectural exchanges in Europe, 16th - 17th centuries 6, Brepols Pub, p. 66, ISBN 9782503523880 .
  11. ↑ Ormerod, David (1995), "The mastery of nature: aspects of art, science and humanism in the Renaissance (review)", Parergon 13 (1): 170–171, "It required the combined brilliance of geometricians as diverse as Alberti, Leonardo, Dürer, De Caus, Aguilon, and Accolti to lay the groundwork, and the genius of Gerard Desargues to accomplish." 
  12. ↑ Ziggelaar, August, S. J. (2012), "The impact of the Opticorum Libri Sex", Strabismus 20 (3): 133–138, doi:10.3109/09273972.2012.709577 .

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External links

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