astronomy

Giovan Battista Nicolosi

Giovan Battista Nicolosi is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Giovan Battista Nicolosi rather than just read about it. In short: Giovan Battista Nicolosi (14 October 1610 – 19 January 1670) was a Sicilian priest and geographer. Nicolosi proposed a new projection for the construction of the world map in two hemispheres, known today as the Nicolosi globular projection, in which the parallels and meridians are arcs of the circle and equidistant along the equator and central meridian.

Key takeaways

Giovan Battista Nicolosi belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Giovan Battista Nicolosi to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Giovan Battista Nicolosi from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Giovan Battista Nicolosi (14 October 1610 – 19 January 1670) was a Sicilian priest and geographer. Nicolosi proposed a new projection for the construction of the world map in two hemispheres, known today as the Nicolosi globular projection, in which the parallels and meridians are arcs of the circle and equidistant along the equator and central meridian.

Biography

Early life Giovan Battista Nicolosi was born in Paternò, on October 14, 1610, of poor parents. He was the second child in a family of ten siblings. In 1640 Nicolosi moved to Rome, where he devoted himself to the study of mathematics and geography and quickly gained favor with the city's most powerful families. In 1642, he published his Teorica del Globo Terrestre ("Theory of the Terrestrial Globe"), a small geographical treatise in which he adopts the tripartite division of the subject into mathematical, physical, and political geography, usually credited to Varenius. Although in his unpublished works he showed leanings towards the new views of Copernicus, he does not here venture to break away from the Ptolemaic system, no doubt owing to his character as a devout son of the Church.

Career

The Theory of the Terrestrial Globe brought Nicolosi to the attention of broader scientific circles and earned him the Chair in Geography at Sapienza University of Rome. In late 1645, Nicolosi travelled to Germany at the invitation of Ferdinand Maximilian, margrave of Baden, where he remained until 1647. In 1647 he returned to Rome, and was appointed chaplain at Santa Maria Maggiore. In 1652, possibly motivated by Nicolas Sanson's new collection of maps, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) hired Nicolosi to compose a new atlas. After twelve years of study and research, he published the Dell’Hercole e studio geografico, in two volumes with maps and directions for making maps and globes. The first volume was principally occupied with a detailed description of the countries of the world, while the second formed an atlas of twenty-two newly devised maps — two of the hemispheres, and four devoted to each of the five continents. In this atlas Nicolosi was the first to employ the so-called polyconic or pseudo-perspective projection on a printed map. This projection technique was suggested in the eleventh century by the Persian mathematician al-Bīrūnī. Nicolosi reinvented al-Bīrūnī's projection as a modification of Fournier's first projection. It is unlikely Nicolosi knew of al-Bīrūnī's work, and Nicolosi's name is the one usually associated with the projection. This became a standard method of showing the two hemispheres of Earth during the nineteenth century after the equatorial stereographic projection popularized by Gerardus Mercator finally fell into disuse. Nicolosi also undertook for Pope Alexander VII and the Emperor Leopold I the mapping of the States of the Church and the Kingdom of Naples, besides making five large maps for Prince Borghese. Nicolosi's last published work is Guida allo studio geografico ("Guide to geographic study"), a small treatise designed to supplement and explain the other two. He died in Rome on January 19, 1670.

Works

Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1642). Teorica del globo terrestre et esplicatione della Carta da Navigare. Roma: per Manelfo Manelfi. Retrieved 12 September 2019. Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1660). Dell'Hercole e studio geografico. Vol. 1. Roma: Nella stamperia di Vitale Mascardi. Retrieved 12 September 2019. Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1660). Dell'Hercole e studio geografico. Vol. 2. Roma: Nella stamperia di Vitale Mascardi. Retrieved 12 September 2019. Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1662). Guida allo studio geografico. Roma: Appresso Vitale Mascardi. Retrieved 12 September 2019. Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1670). Hercules Siculus sive Studium Geographicum (in Latin). Vol. 1. Roma: typis Michaëlis Herculis. Retrieved 12 September 2019. Nicolosi, Giovan Battista (1671). Hercules Siculus sive Studium Geographicum (in Latin). Vol. 2. Roma: typis Michaëlis Herculis. Retrieved 12 September 2019. There exists in the Biblioteca Casanatense a considerable collection of Nicolosi’s unpublished work. This includes a large chorographic map of all of Christendom, commissioned by Pope Alexander VII, as well as a full geographic description and map of the Kingdom of Naples, which was sent to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I in 1654 and an important relation of his trip to Germany (Viagio di Germania in tante lettere al cardinale Rinaldo d’Este e Parentele della casa di Baden con le corone e principi di Europa).

Gallery of images

References Notes

Bibliography

External links

Ottaviani, Alessandro (2013). "NICOLOSI, Giovan Battista". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 78: Natta–Nurra. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-88-12-00032-6. Almagià, Roberto (1934). "NICOLOSI, Giovan Battista". Enciclopedia Italiana. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 30 January 2025.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Giovan Battista Nicolosi

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Giovan Battista Nicolosi claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Giovan Battista Nicolosi before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Giovan Battista Nicolosi ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Giovan Battista Nicolosi

In research: Giovan Battista Nicolosi appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Giovan Battista Nicolosi in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Giovan Battista Nicolosi is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1610 births, 1670 deaths, 17th-century Italian cartographers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Giovan Battista Nicolosi outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Giovan Battista Nicolosi” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Giovan Battista Nicolosi in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Giovan Battista Nicolosi means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Giovan Battista Nicolosi out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Giovan Battista Nicolosi in simple terms?

Why does Giovan Battista Nicolosi matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Giovan Battista Nicolosi?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Giovan Battista Nicolosi.