Gilles-François de Gottignies

Gilles-François de Gottignies (10 March 1630 – 6 April 1689) was a Belgian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer.

Life

De Gottignies was born in 1630 in Brussels, but became a very active member of the scientific community in Rome, where he became professor of mathematics at the Roman College. He opposed Jean-Dominique Cassini's theory and his works were translated in French by Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.^[1] He died in Rome, aged 59, in 1689.

Works

• Gottignies, Gilles François (1669). Elementa geometriae planae. Romae: typis Angeli Bernabò.
• Gottignies, Gilles François (1675). Logistica sive Scientia circa quamlibet quantitatem. Romae: typis Iacobi Antonij de Lazzaris Varesij.
• Gottignies, Gilles François (1676). Arithmetica introductio ad logisticam universae mathesi servientem continens vulgo usitatam arithmeticam practicam. Romae: typis Nicolai Angeli Tinassij.
• Gottignies, Gilles François. Epistolarum mathematicarum liber primus. Romae: typis Nicolai Angeli Tinassij.

References

• Joseph McDonnell, Jesuit geometers, St Louis (USA), 1989
• Biographie nationale de Belgique, tome 8, Bruxelles, 1884, coll. 154–156. (Notice par A. Siret)
• Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, tome 21, Paris, 1986, coll. 921-924 (notice de R. Mols)
• Diccionario histórico de la Companía de Jesús. Biográfico-temático, 2, Rome-Madrid, 2001, pp. 1789-1790. (notice de S. Bedini).
• W. Audenaert, Prosopographia Iesuitica Belgica antiqua. A Biographical Dictionnary of the Jesuits in the Low Countries, I, Louvain-Heverlee, 2000, p. 392.
• H. Bosmans, "La Logistique de Gilles-François de Gottignies de la Compagnie de Jésus", dans: Revue des questions scientifiques, 41^e série, 13, 1928, 215–244.
• L. de Wreede, Gilles-François de Gottignies (1630-1689), jezuïet en geleerde, thèse inédite, Leyde, 1999.
• K. Porteman, Emblematic exhibition at the Brussels Jesuit College (1630-1685), Bruxelles-Turnhout, 1996, p. 109.