乔万尼·巴特斯达·里奇奥利Giovanni Battista Riccioli

乔万尼·巴特斯达·里奇奥利的父亲是Giambattista Riccioli。Giambattista只是里奇奥利 里奇奥利的另一种版本，因此本传记的主人公里奇奥利与他的父亲同名。里奇奥利于1614年10月6日加入耶稣会，当时他16岁。他花了头两年作为初学生接受培训，然后在1616年开始学术研究，当时他开始在费拉拉学习人文学科。他在皮亚琴察继续学习人文学科，之后于1620年在帕尔马开始学习哲学和神学。耶稣会在帕尔马经营三所教育机构：大学、一所教育贵族子弟的学院，以及一所约建于1600年的耶稣会学院，里奇奥利就读于后者。除了哲学和神学的高级课程外，该学院还提供语法和修辞学的低级课程。

里奇奥利在帕尔马的耶稣会学院度过了八年。在这里，他师从朱塞佩·比安卡尼（1565-1624），后来里奇奥利向对他影响很大的朱塞佩·比安卡尼表示感谢。朱塞佩·比安卡尼对天文学感兴趣，并用望远镜观测太阳和月亮。他曾与另一位耶稣会科学家克里斯托夫·赛因那（1573-1650）合作观测太阳黑子。里奇奥利对天文学着迷，并将研究活动投入这一主题，尽管他也从事相关主题的工作。这更多是由于他的上级，因为在他完成学业并于1627-28年冬季被授予圣职后，他请求允许他作为耶稣会传教士前往中国。然而，他的请求被拒绝，他的余生都在耶稣会学院任教。1629年至1632年，他在帕尔马的耶稣会学院教授逻辑学、物理学和形而上学。在曼图亚的耶稣会学院度过1633-1634学年后，他于1635年回到帕尔马。他在帕尔马只再待了一年，便于1636年被派往博洛尼亚，在那里任教直至职业生涯结束。

Alfredo Dinis在[14]中总结了里奇奥利的贡献，他写道：-

里奇奥利在意大利和国外都享有很高的声望和强烈的反对，不仅作为一个拥有百科全书式知识的人，而且作为一个能够理解和讨论宇宙学、观测天文学和地理学中所有相关当代问题的人。

现在让我们看看他的科学贡献，以便理解他为何获得这样的声誉。他在被任命并开始在帕尔马任教后不久就开始进行实验。在1629年至1631年期间，他对落体进行了一系列实验，发现每秒下落的距离按照1、3、9、27的序列增加。他的耶稣会同事Niccolo Cabeo（1586-1650）对哲学、物理学和数学感兴趣，请他进行关于摆的等时性实验，并在Daniello Bartoli（1608-1685）的协助下，他用不同长度的摆进行了实验。里奇奥利在1633-34年搬到曼图亚，但他在1634年能够在费拉拉与Cabeo一起进一步研究摆和落体。

历史学家之间对于里奇奥利究竟相信什么有很多讨论，特别是他是否相信伽利略提出的理论，尽管他在著作中反对这些理论。不清楚的一个原因可能是，随着岁月流逝，里奇奥利的观点变得更强烈地反对伽利略的观点。如果我们看他1634年进行的落体工作，那么我们只有里奇奥利在1651年对此的记述，那时他的观点可能已经在某种程度上改变了。Cabeo对落体实验的解释由里奇奥利在1651年描述如下（见[2]）：-

[Cabeo]根据他自己多次重复的实验，最强调地断言，如果两个球同时从同一高度落下，一个重一盎司，另一个重十磅或任何更大的重量，要么两者都是铅制的，要么一个是铅制的，另一个是石头或木头的；只要空气静止，且较轻的那个重量不是小到不足以克服空气的阻力……那么两者将同时到达地面……

里奇奥利对同样的1634年实验的解释相当不同[2]：-

……除了木球，我们从我们耶稣会教堂的塔上释放了不同重量的石头，有一次是一个青铜盆，另一次是一块木板，他让我放在下落点下面，这样从不同的声音中我能更好地区分哪一个更快到达地面。……我注意到较重的那个稍微更快到达地面。

他对天文观测的兴趣是在帕尔马学生时代由朱塞佩·比安卡尼激发的，并且在1635年回到帕尔马后，他对月球进行了观测。他写道[14]：-

一旦对天文学的热情在我心中燃起，我就再也无法将它熄灭。

在帕尔马的这一年里，里奇奥利讲授弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪，1636年两人迁往博洛尼亚后，他们合作完成了大量工作。弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪比里奇奥利年轻20岁，在他们合作期间，出版物均以里奇奥利的名义发表，但他将全部功劳归于弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪，作为较年轻者，弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪承担了实验工作中最艰难的部分。他认定，为了进行精确的实验，他需要一种精确测量时间的方法，而他采用的方法是利用摆。首先，弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪和里奇奥利通过让摆摆动24小时（以恒星大角星穿过子午线来计量）来校准一个摆。他们用这个3英尺长的摆来校准一个较短的摆用于计时。随后，他们从阿西内利塔的不同高度丢下木球和铅球。为提高精度，他们还让一群懂音乐的修士随着摆的摆动吟唱来辅助计时，这是一个很好的补充。实验并未证实伽利略的结果，因为正如人们可能预料的那样，在塔上不同高度进行的所有实验中，铅球都比木球先落地。他声称，实验得出不同结果的原因是，伽利略以及其他提出相同主张的人只从50或100英尺的高度丢下重物，而他的实验使用了312英尺高的阿西内利塔。

为了进行精确的天文观测，里奇奥利在弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪的协助下，在博洛尼亚的圣卢西亚学院建立了一座天文台，[14]：

……收藏了许多用于天文观测的仪器——包括望远镜、象限仪、六分仪及其他相关仪器——并偶尔有外国研究者来访。

里奇奥利的哲学是相信感官的证据[14]：

感官本身，如果运用得当，几乎总能如实地呈现对象。

当然，这正是他需要的信念，用来支持地球静止不动——它看起来似乎没有在运动。然而，他仍然进行了实验，试图看看能否找到任何运动的证据。在Almagestum novum （1651）中，他提出了126个论点，其中49个支持地球绕太阳运动，77个支持地球静止不动。对于其中一些，他引用了自己的实验，对于另一些，他引用了别人的实验。例如，以下是77个论点中的5个[21]：-

如果地球旋转，那么向西发射的炮弹的撞击力会比向东发射的小。但这与我们的实验相反。

在天平点之间应该能探测到天狼星的视差。

如果地球有周日旋转，在赤道附近落下的重物与在相同条件下在极点附近落下的相同物体将具有根本不同的运动。

重物自然地沿着一条直线垂直落向地面。如果垂直向上发射，它们会落回发射的位置。如果地球有周日和周年运动，这些物体将遵循曲线轨迹。

如果地球运动，那么空中的云和鸟会被看到向西飞，因为它们被地球落在了后面。

里奇奥利对约翰内斯·开普勒认识到行星以椭圆轨道绕太阳运动印象深刻。然而，由于这与他自己静止地球体系相矛盾，他采用了一种相当巧妙的方式来解释约翰内斯·开普勒的结果。他声称，上帝让行星以规则的方式运动，以适应人类的理解。因此，他让它们看起来以椭圆轨道绕太阳运动，使计算它们的位置成为人类的一项美好任务，而实际上它们以复杂的方式绕静止的地球运动。

我们引用了Almagestum novum （1651）中的内容，但尚未解释里奇奥利这部巨著的性质。这篇论著实际上是一部天文学百科全书，两卷共近1500页。该著作分为十卷：
I 球面天文学；
II 地球元素；
III 太阳；
IV 月球；
V 食；
VI 恒星；
VII 行星；
VIII 彗星和新星；
IX 世界体系；
X 一般问题。
此外还有前言部分，包含天文学家的年表，随后是简短传记及其主要贡献的描述。第四卷关于月球，包含许多来自弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪在里奇奥利指导下进行的观测材料。给出了月球表面地图，其中包含表面主要特征的名称，以著名科学家（特别是天文学家）命名。里奇奥利的命名方案今天已被采用，Janet Vertesi [32]试图理解为什么他的命名方案被采用：-

里奇奥利的图版呈现了一幅高度风格化的图像，简洁而卡通化。他描绘物体之间的相似之处，形成一种标准化的视觉语言来表示类似现象：不同大小的陨石坑以完全相同的方式表示，仿佛是从同一块刻版印刷出来的，向观看者表明它们是‘同一类东西’。……[它]是一幅汇编图片，是不同个体多次 successive 观看的结果，被掩盖并归入一个没有可见历史的图版中。……里奇奥利不仅能描绘月球特征之间的感知关系，还能通过‘它不是什么’来告诉我们‘月球是什么’：它是月球的，不是地球的。

这些书中最长的是《世界体系》，约有350页。正是在这本书中，给出了上文提到的支持和反对哥白尼体系的126条论据。这些是科学论据，但里奇奥利还加入了圣经论据。也许在最能说明问题的一段中，他写道（见[4]）：-

如果容忍哥白尼主义者随意解释圣经文本并规避教会法令，那么人们就不得不担心，这种自由不会仅限于天文学和自然哲学，而可能扩展到最神圣的教义；因此，坚持按字面意义解释所有神圣文本的规则十分重要。

这部著作还包括里奇奥利支持宗教裁判所针对伽利略所作裁决的论据。这一部分很有用，因为它包含了与伽利略审判有关的原始文件，否则这些文件可能无法获得。

里奇奥利在弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪协助下进行的另一个项目是一项使用三角测量法进行的勘测，旨在确定博洛尼亚的子午线。除弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪外，他还得到Ovidio Montalbini（1601-1672）的协助，此人是博洛尼亚大学教授及其科学博物馆的管理员，以及乔凡尼·多美尼科·卡西尼的协助，后者在博纳文图拉·卡瓦列里去世后于1650年被任命为博洛尼亚大学数学教授。该项目于1655年完成，结果由里奇奥利发表在Geographiae Hydrographiae Reformatae（1661年）中。尽管是一位神学家，里奇奥利一直觉得他的主要工作和出版物应该是关于天文学的。他年轻时曾辩称，有许多耶稣会士出版神学著作，但很少有人出版天文学著作，因此他应该专注于天文学出版物。然而，到1662年，他完成了一部神学著作，即关于圣母玛利亚无染原罪的著作。他认为这是自己最重要的著作，但宗教裁判所拒绝允许该著作出版。这让里奇奥利非常愤怒，人们可能会认为这会使他重新考虑自己对宗教裁判所在伽利略问题上所持立场的全力支持。事实上恰恰相反，在此之后，里奇奥利在谴责伽利略方面比宗教裁判所走得更远——他的观点似乎变得越来越顽固地反对伽利略。一个可能的原因或许并非出于科学理由，而是试图站在宗教裁判所一边，以便他们可能同意出版他关于圣母玛利亚的著作。

里奇奥利的书为马利亚无染原罪教义辩护，反驳了一位否认该教义的多明我会士。他还写了另一部神学著作，为教皇在支持该教义方面的无误性辩护[25]：-

禁书目录部[宗教裁判所]内部意见分歧，一些人主张第二本书不应付印，因为它以可疑的论据为教皇无误性辩护，而且攻击多明我会士毫无意义。然而，里奇奥利还是继续出版了那本关于教皇无误性的书，并附有一份经过改动的印刷许可，从而激怒了博洛尼亚的多明我会审判官。随后，圣职部命令将该书列入禁书目录，并没收了大部分副本。

里奇奥利出版了另一部天文学著作Astronomia reformata（1665年），献给巴伐利亚公爵斐迪南。这部著作与Almagestum novum有相当多的重叠，但也包含许多新信息，特别是关于土星和木星外观变化的内容。他详细介绍了弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪和他本人对木星条带外观变化的观测，也报告了其他人对木星条带的观测。尽管他没有意识到土星有一个环系统，但他确实在Astronomia reformata中发表了许多土星外观的图画，其中一些描绘了这颗行星位于一个环内。

在里奇奥利做出的许多我们尚未提及的发现中，有一项是他首次记录到对双星的观测，即大熊座中的开阳星。尽管他是第一个记录观测到双星的人，但人们认为贝内代托·卡斯泰利在1617年已经发现了这对双星。我们也没有提到里奇奥利的早期出版物Prododia Bononiensis。这部两卷本论著（第1卷，1639；第2卷，1640）展示了里奇奥利的专业范围，因为这部书涉及格律学和拉丁散文风格。

里奇奥利一生中与许多一流科学家通信，例如：约翰·赫维留，这位波兰天文学家住在但泽，即今格但斯克；克里斯蒂安·惠更斯；乔凡尼·多美尼科·卡西尼，他在博洛尼亚期间从里奇奥利那里学到很多；以及阿塔纳修斯·基歇尔，这位德国耶稣会神父和学者自1634年起住在罗马，其通信方式与马兰·梅森类似，与众多学者通信。当里奇奥利的想法受到挑战时，他变得相当情绪化，例如当斯特凡诺‧德力‧安杰利质疑他关于地球静止的“证明”时，他非常不安。然而，斯特凡诺‧德力‧安杰利攻击的不只是他的科学，还攻击他作为科学家和哲学家的地位。里奇奥利的同时代人将他的性格描述为多血质、易怒、胆汁质、忧郁和黏液质。他的健康不佳，我们已经指出他如何乐于让弗朗西斯科·马里亚·格里马尔迪做更繁重的体力工作。即使在1639年，他的健康也被描述为虚弱，十年后，据说他身体孱弱。事实上到1651年，当Almagestum novum出版时，他被描述为跛足。

最后，让我们记下，路易十四授予他一项奖，以表彰他全部活动的总体成就及其与当时文化的相关性。

Giovanni Battista Riccioli's father was Giambattista Riccioli. Giambattista is merely another version of Giovanni Battista so Giovanni, the subject of this biography, was given the same name as his father. Riccioli entered the Jesuit Order on 6 October 1614, when he was 16 years of age. He spent the first two years training as a novice before beginning his academic studies in 1616 when he began to study the humanities at Ferrara. He continued to study the humanities at Piacenza before he began to study philosophy and theology at Parma in 1620. The Jesuits ran three educational establishments in Parma, the university, a college for educating the sons of the nobility, and a Jesuit College, established around 1600, which Riccioli attended. In addition to advanced courses in philosophy and theology, the College provided lower level courses in grammar and rhetoric.

Riccioli spent eight years at the Jesuit College at Parma. Here he was taught by Giuseppe Biancani (1565-1624) and Riccioli later offered his thanks to Biancani who had a strong influence on him. Biancani was interested in astronomy and made observations of the sun and moon with a telescope. He had collaborated with another Jesuit scientist, Christoph Scheiner (1573-1650), in making observations of sunspots. Riccioli became fascinated with astronomy and devoted his research activities to this topic although he also engaged in work on related topics. This was more due to his superiors for, after he completed his studies and was ordained in the winter of 1627-28, he requested that he be allowed to go the China as a Jesuit missionary. However, his request was denied and he spent the rest of his career teaching at Jesuit colleges. He taught logic, physics, and metaphysics at the Jesuit College in Parma from 1629 to 1632. After spending the academic year 1633-1634 at the Jesuit College in Mantua, he returned to Parma in 1635. He only spent one more year in Parma before being sent to Bologna in 1636 where he taught for the rest of his career.

Alfredo Dinis sums up Riccioli's contribution in [14] where he writes:-

Riccioli enjoyed great prestige and great opposition, both in Italy and abroad, not only as a man of encyclopaedic knowledge but also as someone who could understand and discuss all the relevant issues of the day in cosmology, observational astronomy, and geography.

Let us now look at his scientific contributions so that we can understand why he gained this reputation. He began conducting experiments soon after he was ordained and began teaching at Parma. During the period from 1629 to 1631 he conducted a series of experiments with falling bodies finding that the distance of fall per second increased according to the sequence 1, 3, 9, 27. His Jesuit colleague, Niccolo Cabeo (1586-1650) who was interested in philosophy, physics and mathematics, asked him to conduct experiments on the isochronism of the pendulum and, assisted by Daniello Bartoli (1608-1685), he conducted experiments with various lengths of pendulum. Riccioli moved to Mantua for the year 1633-34, but he was able to work with Cabeo at Ferrara on further studies with the pendulum and falling bodies in 1634.

There has been much discussion between historians as to exactly what Riccioli believed, in particular whether he believed in the theories propounded by Galileo despite his writings in which he opposed them. It seems likely that one reason for the lack of clarity is that Riccioli's views became more strongly opposed to those of Galileo as the years went by. If we look at the work on falling bodies which he undertook in 1634, then we only have Riccioli's writing about this in 1651 by which time his views may have to some extent changed. Cabeo's interpretation of his experiments on falling bodies is described by Riccioli in 1651 as follows (see [2]):-

[Cabeo] affirms most emphatically from his own often repeated experiments, that if two balls are dropped at the same time from the same height, one of one ounce and the other of ten pounds or whatever greater weight, either both being of lead, or one lead and the other stone or wood; providing that the air is still, and that the lighter one is not of so small a weight that it is not forceful enough to overcome the resistance of the air ... it will happen that both reach the ground at the same moment ...

However, Riccioli's interpretation of the same 1634 experiments is rather different [2]:-

... besides wooden balls, we released stones of diverse weights from the tower of our chapel of the Society of Jesus, with once a bronze basin, at another time a wooden board having he put by me under the drop, so that from the different sounds I would distinguish better which one reached the ground faster. ... I noticed that the heavier one reached the ground a little more quickly.

His interest in astronomical observations had been prompted by Biancani during his student years in Parma and, after he returned to Parma in 1635, he made observations of the moon. He wrote [14]:-

I could never extinguish the enthusiasm for astronomy once it arose in me.

During this year in Parma, Riccioli taught Francesco Maria Grimaldi and after the two moved to Bologna in 1636 they did much work together. Grimaldi was 20 years younger than Riccioli and, throughout their work together, publications appeared under Riccioli's name but he gave full credit to Grimaldi who, as the younger man, took on the hardest parts of the experimental work. He decided that in order to carry out accurate experiments he needed to have an accurate way of measuring time and his way of doing this was with a pendulum. First, Grimaldi and Riccioli calibrated a pendulum by getting it to swing for 24 hours (measured by the star Arcturus crossing the meridian line). They used this 3 foot pendulum to calibrate a shorter pendulum to use in timing. Then they dropped balls of wood and of lead from various heights from the Asinelli tower. A nice addition to the accuracy was obtained by getting a group of musical monks to chant in time with the swinging pendulum to aid with the timing. The experiment did not confirm Galileo's result for, as one might expect, the lead balls reached the ground before the wooden ones in all the experiments using different heights on the tower. He claimed that the reason the experiments had come up with different results was that Galileo, and others making the same claims, had only dropped weights from 50 or 100 feet while his experiments had used the 312 foot high Asinelli tower.

In order to make accurate astronomical observations Riccioli, with Grimaldi's assistance, set up an observatory at the College of Santa Lucia in Bologna which [14]:-

... housed many instruments for astronomical observations - including telescopes, quadrants, sextants, and other related instruments - and was occasionally visited by foreign researchers.

Riccioli's philosophy was to trust the evidence of the senses [14]:-

By themselves, the senses, if correctly applied, almost always represent the object as it is in reality.

This belief, of course, was just what he needed to argue in favour of a stationary earth - it does not appear to be moving. However, he still conducted experiments in an attempt to see if he could detect any evidence for motion. In Almagestum novum (1651) he presented 126 arguments, 49 in favour of the earth moving round the sun, and 77 in favour of a stationary earth. For some he quoted his own experiments, and for some he quoted experiments of others. For example, here are 5 of the 77 arguments [21]:-

If Earth rotates, the impact of a cannon ball will be less if launched towards the West than towards the East. But this is contrary to our experiments.

A parallax in Sirius should be detectable between the equinoxes.

If Earth had a diurnal rotation, heavy bodies falling near the equator would have a fundamentally different motion than identical bodies falling near the poles under identical conditions.

Heavy bodies naturally fall to Earth along a line that is straight and perpendicular to ground. If launched perpendicularly upwards, they fall back upon the location from which they were launched. If the Earth had diurnal and annual motions, these bodies would follow curved trajectories.

If Earth moves, then the clouds and the birds in the air would be seen to fly West, as they were left behind by the Earth.

Riccioli was very impressed by Kepler's realisation that the planets moved in elliptical orbits round the sun. However, since this was at odds with his own stationary earth system, he adopted a rather neat way of explaining Kepler's results. God, he claimed, had made the planets move in a regular way to accommodate human understanding. He had therefore made them appear to have elliptical orbits round the sun, to make calculating their positions a nice task for humans, while physically they moved in a complicated way round a stationary earth.

We have quoted from Almagestum novum (1651) but we have not explained the nature of this large work by Riccioli. The treatise is really an encyclopaedia of astronomy containing nearly 1500 pages in two volumes. The work is divided into ten books:
  I Spherical Astronomy;
  II Terrestrial Elements;
  III The Sun;
  IV The Moon;
  V Eclipses;
  VI Fixed Stars;
  VII Planets;
  VIII Comets and New Stars;
  IX Systems of the World;
  X General Problems.
In addition there is Front Matter which contains a chronology of astronomers followed by short biographies with a description of their main contributions. Book IV, on the moon, contains much material which comes from observations carried out by Grimaldi working under instruction from Riccioli. Maps of the moon's surface are given containing names for the major features on the surface, named after famous scientists (particularly astronomers). Riccioli's naming scheme has been adopted today and Janet Vertesi [32] tries to understand why his naming scheme was adopted:-

Riccioli's plate presents a highly stylised image, bare and cartoon-like. He charts resemblances between objects, forming a standardised visual language to represent similar phenomena: craters of different sizes are represented exactly the same way, as though printed from the same cut block, indicating to the viewer that they are 'the same type of thing'. ... [It] is a compiled picture, the result of several successive viewings by different individuals, masked and subsumed into one plate presented without a visible history. ... Riccioli cannot only depict perceived relationships between lunar features, but can also tell us 'what the moon is' by means of 'what it is not': it is lunar, not earthly.

The longest of the books is 'Systems of the World' containing around 350 pages. It is in this book that the 126 arguments for and against the Copernican system, mentioned above, are given. These are scientific arguments, but Riccioli also adds Scriptural arguments. In perhaps one of the most telling passages he writes (see [4]):-

If the liberty taken by the Copernicans to interpret scriptural texts and to elude ecclesiastic decrees is tolerated, then one would have to fear that it would not be limited to astronomy and natural philosophy, and that it could extend to the most holy dogmas; thus it is important to maintain the rule of interpreting all sacred texts in their literal sense.

The work also includes an argument by Riccioli supporting the decision of the Inquisition against Galileo. It is a useful section for it contains original documents relating to Galileo's trial which might not otherwise be available.

Another project on which Riccioli was assisted by Grimaldi was a survey, using triangulation, undertaken to determine a meridian line for Bologna. In addition to Grimaldi, he was also assisted by Ovidio Montalbini (1601-1672), a professor at Bologna University and the custodian of its science museum, and Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who had been appointed as professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna in 1650 following the death of Bonaventura Cavalieri. The project was completed by 1655 and the results published by Riccioli in Geographiae Hydrographiae Reformatae (1661). Although a theologian, Riccioli had always felt that his main work and publications should be on astronomy. When he was young he had argued that there were many Jesuits publishing on theology but very few on astronomy so he should concentrate on astronomy publications. However, by 1662 he had completed a work on theology, namely on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. He considered this his most important work but the Inquisition refused to allow the work to be published. This made Riccioli very angry and one might suppose that this would have made him think again about his wholehearted support for the position the Inquisition took over Galileo. In fact it was quite the reverse and, after this, Riccioli went even further in condemning Galileo than the Inquisition had done - his views seem to become more and more hardened against Galileo. One possible reason for this may not have been for scientific reasons, but rather an attempt to get on the right side of the Inquisition so that they might agree to the publication of his work on the Virgin Mary.

Riccioli's book defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary against a Dominican who had rejected it. He wrote another theological book defending the infallibility of popes in supporting the doctrine [25]:-

Opinions in the Congregation of the Index [Inquisition] were divided, some arguing that the second book should not be printed because it defended papal infallibility with dubious arguments, and that there was no point to attacking the Dominicans. However, Riccioli went ahead and published the papal infallibility book with an altered permission to print, thus angering the Dominican inquisitor at Bologna. Then the Congregation of the Holy Office ordered the book placed on the Index of Prohibited Books and confiscated most of the copies.

Riccioli published another astronomy book, Astronomia reformata (1665) dedicated to Ferdinand, Duke of Bavaria. This work had considerable overlap with Almagestum novum but also contained much new information, particularly on the changing appearance of the planets Saturn and Jupiter. He gives details of observations of the changing appearance of the bands of Jupiter made by Grimaldi and himself, as well as reporting on observations of the bands by others. Although he did not realise that Saturn had a ring system, he did publish in Astronomia reformata many drawings of the appearance of Saturn, some of which depict the planet inside a ring.

Among the many discoveries made by Riccioli which we have not yet mentioned, is his first recorded observation a double star, namely the star Mizar in Ursa Major. Although he is the first to record observing a double star, it is believed that Castelli had discovered this double in 1617. We also did not mention Riccioli's early publication Prododia Bononiensis. This two-volume treatise (Volume 1, 1639; Volume 2, 1640) showed the range of Riccioli's expertise for this book was on metrics and Latin prose style.

Throughout his life, Riccioli corresponded with many leading scientists, for example: Johannes Hevelius, the Polish astronomer living in Danzig, now Gdańsk; Christiaan Huygens; Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who had learnt much from Riccioli while in Bologna; and Athanasius Kircher, the German Jesuit priest and scholar who lived in Rome from 1634 onwards and acted in a similar way to Mersenne in corresponding with a wide range of scholars. Riccioli became quite emotional when his ideas were challenged, for example he became very upset when Stephano degli Angeli challenged his "proof" that the earth was stationary. It was not only his science that degli Angeli attacked, however, also attacking his status as a scientist and philosopher. Riccioli's character was described by his contemporaries as sanguine, fiery, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. His health was not good and we have already indicated how he was glad to have Grimaldi do the more demanding physical work. Even in 1639 his health was described as weak and, ten years later, he was said to be frail. In fact by 1651, when Almagestum novum was published, he was described as crippled.

Finally, let us record that Louis XIV awarded him a prize in recognition of the totality of his activities and their relevance to the culture of the day.