Giovanni Francesco Crivelli

Giovanni Francesco Crivelli (Venice, 1691 - 1743)

The father belonged all' order of the Secretaries of the Republic and did the diplomatic one. Crivelli was a priest member of Somasco holy order in the Cloister of the Health, then was provincial Father of the order and rector of the Seminar of Murano. He published two teaching books: the Elements of numeral and literal arithmetic (published in Venice in 1728) and the Elements of physics (published in Venice in 1731 and subsequently broadened in 1744). His manuscripts were lost.

The second book is particularly important for a number of reasons: It is a teaching-popular book whose first volume contains the same arguments that there are today in the classes of a Scientific High School (to exception of the electro-magnetic phenomena considered in that times little more than booth phenomena) the second discusses above all of astronomical matters. In this book is to not the full reception of the physics of Galileo and of Newton with Galileo called "the prince of the scientists", a full recognition of the importance of the Arabic.Muslin civilisation in the creation of the scientific method. The explanation of the operating way of scientists coincides practically with the positions of the neopositivism and of the scientific realism. Also the writing style is innovative and still present for the utilization of the Italian, for the large and precise descriptions of a lot of experiments also done outside the Europe , and for the exhibition of the varied hypothesis of the scientists about arguments still object of discussion in those years . It’s to note the recognition of the existence and of the equal dignity of the theoretical physics next to the experimental one too

His activity was highly valued also outside Italy and Crivelli was member of Royal Society of London (his books are in the library of Royal Society ) from 1734 until the death , but after his dead he was soon forgotten and he alone was only recently discovered