Antonio Cagnoli

Antonio Cagnoli (1743 to 1816) was an Italian astronomer, mathematician and diplomat in the service of the Republic of Venice. He was born at Zakynthos, then a Venetian possession, and in 1772 became secretary to the Venetian ambassador in Spain. In 1775 he moved to Paris, where he became a pupil of Jerome Lalande and built a well equipped private observatory, and in 1786 he built another at Verona. He is best remembered for his treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry, published in 1786 and translated into French in 1808, and for the relation between the sides and angles of a spherical triangle that bears his name. He also published a star catalogue in 1803, presided over the Accademia nazionale delle scienze from 1796, and ended his career as professor of pure mathematics at the Military Academy of Modena, teaching there until 1807.