Giuseppe Moletti

Giuseppe Moletti, who lived from 1531 to 1588, was an Italian mathematician best known for his Dialogo intorno alla Meccanica, or Dialogue on Mechanics. Though obscure today, he was renowned in his lifetime and was consulted by Pope Gregory XIII on the new calendar. He held the mathematics chair at the University of Padua before Galileo, who sent him his theorems on the centre of gravity. In the Dialogue he sought to establish Euclidean foundations for mechanics and to explain motions through the analysis of their forces and resistances. Its first day offers geometrical foundations for the Mechanical Problems attributed to Aristotle, showing that the further a weight is from the centre of a pivoting lever, the less force is needed to move it, and its second day treats problems of natural philosophy, especially the acceleration of falling bodies.