João Delgado (priest)
João Delgado SJ (1553 – 30 September 1612) was a Portuguese Roman Catholic priest, mathematician, architect and astronomer.
Biography
João Delgado was born in Lagos, Algarve, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1574. He lived in Rome from 1576 to 1585, where he studied theology and mathematics with Clavius at the Mathematics Academy of the Roman College.
From 1586 to 1587 he taught mathematics in Coimbra, in a private course for Jesuit students, and from 1588 to 1589 at the College of Jesus.
In 1590 he formally begins the course of mathematics in the Class on the Sphere at the College of Santo Antão. He also held the position of architect of the Jesuit province of Portugal until his death on September 30, 1612.[1]
From his work we can highlight the beginning of the mathematical tradition in the Portuguese Province of the Society of Jesus, and, as an architect, the direction of the works at Santo Antão-o-Novo, the Cotovia Novitiate (later the Polytechnic School, in Lisbon), and the College of Arts in Coimbra.
Although he did not publish any books, several notes and lecture notes copied by his students, and some manuscripts have survived. From these sources we can know the content of his courses: besides an introduction to cosmography, he taught astronomy at a very advanced level, including the "theory of the planets". He also taught gnomonic on a technically advanced level.
According to Henrique Leitão "a more careful analysis of his texts shows not only his competence, but also the modernity of his ideas. Special mention should be made of his important defense of the value of mathematics in the debates around the certainty of mathematics known as quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum."[2]
Notes
- ↑ Leitão, Henrique (2008). Sphaera_mundi: A Ciência na Aula da Esfera. Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal.
- ↑ Leitão, Henrique (2007). "A Ciência na Aula da Esfera no Colégio de Santo Antão, 1590-1759." In: Comissariado Geral das comemorações do V centenário do nascimento de São Francisco Xavier. Lisboa, p. 46.
References
- Baldini, Ugo (2004), "The Teaching of Mathematics in the Jesuit Colleges of Portugal from 1640 to Pombal." In: Luis Saraiva & Henrique Leitão, eds., The Practice of Mathematics in Portugal. Acta universitatis conimbrigensis. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, pp. 293–465.
