IDLE SPECULATIONS: Dom Guido Grandi OSB Cam

Portrait of Guido Grandi (1671 - 1742)

From De infinitis infinitorum, et infinite parvorum ordinibus disquisitio geometrica.

Pisa: Ex Typographia Francisci Bindi, 1710

Special Collections, University of Wisconsin

Recently Pope Benedict XVI presided at vespers in the Roman monastery of San Gregorio al Celio (12th March 2012)

The occasion was perhaps overshadowed by the fact that with him was His Grace Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury who was on a visit to Rome (before he subsequently announced his retirement in October)

However most of the ceremony and the Pope`s homily was devoted to a ceremony marking the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the mother house of the Camaldolese Order of St. Benedict, the Feast of the Transit of St, Gregory

Of the Camaldolese Order, the Pope said:

"Through the faithfulness and benevolence of the Lord, the Congregation of Camaldolese monks of the Order of Saint Benedict has completed a thousand years of history, feeding daily on the word of God and the Eucharist, as their founder Saint Romuald taught them, according to the triplex bonum of solitude, community life and evangelization.

Exemplary men and women of God, such as Saint Peter Damian, Gratian – author of the Decretum – Saint Bruno of Querfurt and the five brother martyrs, Rudolph I and II, Blessed Gherardesca, Blessed Giovanna da Bagno and Blessed Paolo Giustiniani; men of art and science like Brother Maurus the Cosmographer, Lorenzo Monaco, Ambrogio Traversari, Pietro Delfino and Guido Grandi; illustrious historians like the Camaldolese Annalists Giovanni Benedetto Mittarelli and Anselmo Costadoni; zealous pastors of the Church, among whom Pope Gregory XVI stands out, have revealed the horizons and the great fruitfulness of the Camaldolese tradition"

We have already covered some of the works of Lorenzo Monaco in previous posts

But let us look at one other name mentioned by the Pope: Guido Grandi

Dom Guido Grandi, O.S.B. Cam., (October 1, 1671 – July 4, 1742) was one of the most celebrated mathematicians of his day and was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa

HIs reputation was international and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in London. He was in correspondence with Newton and Leibniz

See also Giammaria Ortes, Vita del padre D. Guido Grandi, abate camaldolese, matematico dello Studio Pisano, Venezia, Giambatista Pasquali, 1744.