• Article and book chapter
• Approximately 10 pages each
• High school level and above

Roger Joseph Boscovich (Ruđer Josip Bošković) was a Jesuit scientist with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, ranging from developing better lenses for telescopes, to designing a system to reinforce the dome of St. Peter’s for Pope Benedict XIV, to creating what today might be called a “Theory of Everything” that would explain all physical interactions in the universe. These two articles provide concise overviews of his life and work:

• “Roger Joseph Boscovich: Forerunner of Modern Atomic Theory” by Sr. Mary Mercy Fitzpatrick and Sr. Antonietta Fitzparick (Incarnate Word College, San Antonio, Texas) in The Mathematics Teacher, February 1968, pgs. 167-175. Click here to read this article via JSTOR (many libraries provide complete JSTOR access):

Who was this individual who, almost two hundred years after his death, has aroused such interest among scientists and mathematicians? Roger Joseph Boscovich was a Serbo-Coation Jesuit and a renowned mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher, whose molecular theory of matter antedates by more than a hundred years the birth of modern atomic theory.

• “Roger Joseph Boscovich” in Remarkable Physicists: From Galileo to Yukawa by Ioan James, published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. Click here for a preview from Google Books.

The year 1740 was when Benedict XIV succeeded to the papacy. His reign recalled the best years of the Renaissance. Benedict XIV was a profound scholar and a vivid personality, magnanimous and virtuous in his private life, who surrounded himself with the leading intellectuals of Rome. The Papal Secretary of State, the able and versatile Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, shared Dubrovnik connections with Boscovich, who naturally came to his attention, and Valenti’s residence soon became like a second home to him. During this period of his life he was entrusted with several practical and diplomatic commissions for lay and ecclesiastical authorities, as was not unusual among qualified clergymen of his time.

In 1735 there had been a resurgence of rumours that the long-standing cracks in the dome of St Peter’s basilica – which had been completed in 1590 – presaged an imminent collapse. The new Pope consulted various experts, one of whom recommended demolishing the huge structure and rebuilding it. Others reported that no danger threatened the dome. However, for further reassurance a commission consisting of Boscovich and two French scientists was appointed to investigate the causes and make recommendations. Boscovich drafted the report, which, by analysing the problem in theoretical terms, achieved – despite certain errors – the reputation of a minor classic in architectural statics. He undertook further such work for the Pope later.

• Article
• 4 pages
• University level

This 2004 article by Miguel de Asúa was published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.

Abstract: Many of the observations of Buenaventura Suárez (1679-1750), a Jesuit astronomer who worked in the missions of Paraguay, were made known in prestigious contemporary scientific European periodicals such as the Acta Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Upsalensis and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Suarez recorded lunar and solar eclipses, and immersions and emersions of the satellites of Jupiter for the purpose of determining the longitude of the mission towns he lived in. He was able to keep abreast of the state of the field and communicate his results through the intermediacy of an epistolary net with correspondents in Europe and the New World.

Click here for this article from NASA ADS.

Click here to download a PDF of this article from NASA ADS.

• Article
• 29 pages
• University/academic specialist level

This article by Massimo Mazzotti discusses Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a child prodigy who obtained education and acclaim for her abilities in math and physics, as well as support from Pope Benedict XIV. But after the death of her father she abandoned her work in mathematics and physics and chose a life of service to those in need. In this article (published in 2001 in Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, Vol. 92, no. 4, pgs. 657-683) Mazzotti writes:

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) is known as the author of a textbook on calculus that appeared in Milan in 1748. For the first time a woman was able to establish herself as a legitimate mathematician and publish her work…. In her Instituzioni analitiche she presented the most complete introduction to algebra, analytic geometry, and differential and integral calculus yet published in Europe. Far from being a tool to subvert traditional metaphysical assumptions and religious dogmas, Agnesi thought of mathematical analysis as an intellectual practice that could play an important role in the spiritual life of the believer….

In 1752 she renounced her rights to the family estate in exchange for an annuity that allowed her to host an increasing number of women in need and to devote all her time to their assistance. In 1759 she left the palazzo, moving to a more modest apartment nearby where she continued her catechistic activity and her volunteering at the Ospedale Maggiore. She worked with women from the urban lower classes, providing help and education to orphans, prostitutes, the elderly, the sick, and the mentally ill. Agnesi wanted to offer all of them the opportunity to embrace faith, whether to rescue them for dignified, useful lives or to enlighten the last part of their earthly paths. In 1771 a new charitable institution to assist the urban poor, the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, was opened in Milan. Archbishop Pozzobonelli asked Agnesi to become the director of the female department, which eventually housed about 450 patients…. Agnesi, who meanwhile had renounced all her possessions and was living in poverty, moved to the Pio Albergo Trivulzio to be closer to those she assisted. There she died of pneumonia in January 1799…. Her body was buried in a mass grave outside of Porta Romana, the southern gate of the town. Frisi tells us that, to those few who managed to contact her in her later years, Agnesi explained: “Man always acts to achieve goals; the goal of the Christian is the glory of God. I hope my studies have brought glory to God, as they were useful to others, and derived from obedience, because that was my father’s will. Now I have found better ways and means to serve God, and to be useful to others.”…

A wealthy family eager for social enhancement, a Church eager for new charismatic figures, and a reformist religiosity characterized by favorable views about the education of women and intellectual achievement: these were the conditions that made it possible for Agnesi to establish herself as a legitimate author of a mathematical treatise and as an advisor to the archbishop of Milan on theological matters. It can be suggested that the same religious reformism was a factor in the achievements of other eighteenth-century learned women, like Laura Bassi or Cristina Roccati….

Click here to access this article through JSTOR. Many libraries provide full access to JSTOR.

Click here for an 1801 English translation of Agnesi’s book, from Google Books.

• Article (book chapter)
• 20 pages
• University level

“The Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude”, by Paula Findlen of Stanford University, is a chapter in Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment: Art, Science, and Spirituality, a collection of essays concerning the mid-eighteenth-century papacy of Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini), published by the University of Toronto Press. Findlen tells the story of Jane Squire, an English Catholic who had worked out a new system of celestial navigation and who was determined that her ideas be heard by the establishment. As she was unable to get a hearing in England, in 1743 Squire wrote to Pope Benedict XIV, who was open to the scientific work of women. From the article:

Squire argued: “my being a Woman, excludes me not from the Blessing of being a Christian; a Character that determines the Business of the reasonable Creature; by a Determination made by its Creator”… Squire characterized herself as someone naturally drawn to mathematical problems as a pleasing pastime: “to study the Law of God Day and Night, is my proper Business; Philosophy, my Amusement; and Mathematicks, my Play-things… I see not therefore, why I should confine myself to Needles, Cards, and Dice.”

Benedict took notice of Squire’s letter and had her work reviewed by Italian scholars. Unfortunately, Squire died shortly after sending her letter, and her system of navigation was not practical.

Click here for a preview of this article, courtesy of Google Books.

• Book
• 369 pages
• Level: university

Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories, is a 2003 book by Agustín Udías, S. J. of the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Universidad Complutenese (Madrid, Spain). From the publisher:

Jesuits established a large number of astronomical, geophysical and meteorological observatories during the 17th and 18th centuries and again during the 19th and 20th centuries throughout the world. The history of these observatories has never been published in a complete form. Many early European astronomical observatories were established in Jesuit colleges.

During the 17th and 18th centuries Jesuits were the first western scientists to enter into contact with China and India. It was through them that western astronomy was first introduced in these countries. They made early astronomical observations in India and China and they directed for 150 years the Imperial Observatory of Beijing.

In the 19th and 20th centuries a new set of observatories were established. Besides astronomy these now included meteorology and geophysics. Jesuits established some of the earliest observatories in Africa, South America and the Far East.

Jesuit observatories constitute an often forgotten chapter of the history of these sciences.

Click here for more information, including a brief preview, from the publisher (Springer).

Click here for a substantial preview from Google Books.

Below are two reviews of this book by astronomers with the Vatican Observatory:

• Book review by Fr. Sabinao Maffeo, S. J., in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2005 (PDF, courtesy of NASA ADS).
• Book review by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., in the Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2007 (PDF).

Article 1000 words General Audiences An article published in Aeon in 2017 by Blake Smith, a PhD candidate in history at Northwestern University in Illinois and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. Click here to access this article directly from Aeon. The Madras Observatory offers little to the visitor’s eye. Stone slabs and broken pillars lie ignored in a fenced-off section of a local weather centre in the southern Indian city of Chennai. Few tourists venture out to see the ruins of the 18th-century complex. On the other side of the subcontinent, in northern Indian cities such as New Delhi, Varanasi and Jaipur, remains of the Jantar Mantars, vast astronomical stations, are far more popular attractions. Built in the same century as the Madras Observatory, their stark geometric structures, with looming proportions and vibrant colours, make for mandatory stops on travellers’ itineraries. Yet it is the Madras Observatory, and not the spectacular Jantar Mantars, that … Continue reading →

• Article (PDF)
• 23 pages
• Level: university

Fr. Michael Buckley, S. J., examines two questions in this scholarly paper: With what legitimacy does the theological question emerge in Newtonian mechanics? How does Newton move methodologically to its resolution?

From Newton and the New Direction in Science (Vatican: Vatican Obs. Publ. 1988), ed: George Coyne, Michael Heller, Jozef Zycinski

[Click here to download PDF]
Buckley God in Newtonian Physics