Abbondio Collina

Abbondio Collina, born Giovanni at Bologna in 1691 and dead on 21 December 1757, was an Italian Camaldolese monk, priest, mathematician and geographer. The son of Pietro Collina and Giacoma Santi, he became a Camaldolese monk at the monastery of Classe in Ravenna in 1709 and was sent in 1717 to the University of Pisa to study under Luigi Guido Grandi. He then went to Bologna to hold the chair of geography and nautics at the Istituto delle Scienze and was named lecturer of geometry in a post endowed by his brother Marco Antonio Collina Sbaraglia. A founding member of the Accademia Benedettina of Bologna, he lectured on the invention of the compass, and the lectures were collected in his Considerazioni istoriche sopra l'origine della bussola nautica nell'Asia of 1748. He also translated travel accounts of two Arabs published by Renaudot, wrote poetry, and left manuscripts on historical geography and on nautical institutions.