Gabriele Manfredi

Gabriele Manfredi (Bologna, 25 March 1681, to Bologna, 1761) was an Italian mathematician and an early worker on differential equations. He was born into a remarkable Bolognese family: his father Alfonso was a notary and lawyer, and his brothers Eustachio and Eraclito became professors of astronomy and mathematics. After beginning medical studies he turned to mathematics, and from 1701 he corresponded with Guido Grandi, a correspondence that marks the start of innovative work on the calculus in Italy. His book De constructione aequationum differentialium primi gradus, published in 1707, gathered the results then scattered in the literature on first order differential equations and set out foundations of the integral calculus, and Leibniz reviewed it favourably in 1708. Manfredi served the Senate of Bologna from 1708 until his retirement in 1752, held a professorship of mathematics at the University of Bologna from 1720, and from 1742 headed the Bolognese water authority, dealing with the floods of the river Reno. His students included the Olivetan monk Ramiro Rampinelli, later the teacher of Maria Gaetana Agnesi.