Barnaba Oriani

Barnaba Oriani (1752 to 1832) was an Italian priest, geodesist and astronomer, known for Oriani's theorem on astronomical refraction and for his research on Uranus. He was born at Garegnano, now part of Milan, the son of a mason, studied under the Barnabites, and was ordained in 1775. From 1776 he worked at the Brera Observatory in Milan, becoming its director in 1802, and in 1779 he discovered the galaxy Messier 61. His tables of 1783 gave the first orbit of Uranus, which he improved in 1789 by allowing for Jupiter and Saturn, and his command of spherical trigonometry let him compute the orbit of Ceres soon after his friend Giuseppe Piazzi found it in 1801. Under Napoleon he headed the commission that introduced the metric system to Lombardy and measured the meridian arc between Rimini and Rome.