Cabeo, Niccolo

1. Dates

Born: Ferrara, 26 Feb. 1586

Died: Genoa, 30 June 1650

Dateinfo: Dates Certain

Lifespan: 64

2. Father

Occupation: No Information

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: Italy

Career: Italy

Death: Italy

4. Education

Schooling: Religous Order, D.D.

He attended the Jesuit college in Parma. Heilbron says Ferrara. I did not find any mention of university study. He clearly received the equivalent of a B.A. within the order and as a full Jesuit he would have had a theological degree.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Catholic

He was a Jesuit, having entered as a novice in 1602.

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Magnetism, Natural Philosophy, Electricity

Subordinate: Mechanics

Cabeo is remembered partly because he was acquainted with Giovanni Battista Baliani, who experimented with falling weights, and wrote about Baliani's experiments. His interpretation that two different weights fall in the same length of time without regard to the medium became the indirect cause of other experiments conducted by Vincenzo Renieri.

He experimented with pendulums.

He published two major works, Philosophia magnetica (1629) and In quatuor libros meteorologicorum Aristotelis commentaria (1646), an anti-aristotelian work.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Church Life, Patronage

Cabeo taught theology and mathematics in Parma until 1622, and was then a preacher in various Italian cities. He was in Genoa for a time. He was for a time in the service of the Dukes of Mantua and of the Este in Ferrara. Ultimately he returned to the Jesuit college in Genoa where he taught mathematics.

8. Patronage

Types: Court Official, Eccesiastic Official

Service with the Gonzagas in Mantua and the Este in Ferrara.

He dedicated the first book of his Meteorology to Carlo II, Duke of Mantua, the second book to Card. Spada, and the fourth book to Vincenzo Caraffa, General of the Jesuits.

9. Technological Involvement

Type: Hydraulics

He was employed by the Gonzaga on hydraulic projects. He differed with Castelli on the management of the Po at Ferrara.

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

He was a friend of Baliani and of Riccioli.

Sources

1. Carlos Sommervogel, ed. Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, (Brussels, 1891), 2, 376-84.
2. Dizionario biografico degli italiani.
3. G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 8, pt. 1, 249f.
4. Caverni, 2, 257-265-71; 4, 237, 279; 5, 9, 27.
5. S. Magrini, "Il 'De magnete' e i primordi della magnetologia in Italia," Archivo di storia della scienza, 8.2 (1927), 17-39.
6. L. Thorndike, History or Magic and Science, 7, 61, 422f, 685; 8, 204, 207, 430.
7. J. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries, (Berkeley, 1979), pp. 180-3.

Not Available and Not Consulted

1. L. Barotti, Memorie di letteratura ferraresi, 2, 262-9.

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

Note: the creators of the Galileo Project and this catalogue cannot answer email on geneological questions.