Gilles-François de Gottignies

Gilles-François de Gottignies was a Belgian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, born in Brussels on 10 March 1630 and dead in Rome on 6 April 1689, aged fifty nine. He became a very active member of the scientific community in Rome, where he was professor of mathematics at the Roman College. He opposed the theory of Jean-Dominique Cassini, and his works were later translated into French by Buffon. His books include Elementa geometriae planae of 1669, Logistica sive Scientia circa quamlibet quantitatem of 1675, an Arithmetica introductio ad logisticam of 1676 that sets out the usual practical arithmetic, and a first book of mathematical letters. H. Bosmans discussed his Logistica in 1928, and L. de Wreede wrote a thesis on his life at Leiden in 1999.