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 chapter six Calculus for the Believer The Olivetan monk Ramiro Rampinelli arrived in Milan at the end of 1740, having been dispatched to teach mathematics at the monastery of San Vittore in Corpo. Rampinelli was already a well-known teacher and one of the few credited with being able to lecture on the new analysis of Leibniz and Newton. Once in Milan, the monk soon came into contact with the Agnesi circle, probably through his fellow Olivetan Luigi Stampa, a frequenter of the Agnesi conversazione. These monks, like others in the Benedictine tradition , believed that the teaching of mathematics was essential to the education of ecclesiastics as well as the Catholic young. They were convinced not only that mathematics was necessary to philosophy but also that it had a positive, “fortifying” effect on the pupil’s spirit.1 Rampinelli was born in 1697 into a notable and affluent family in Brescia , a city within the borders of the Venetian Republic but with strong cultural and economic connections to Milan. After completing a philosophy course at a Jesuit college, he began the study of law, in line with his family’s expectations. However, his biographers tell us, he soon became bored with the subject and, in about 1718, began spending much of his time inspecting fortresses and studying the principles of their construction, including the imposing Brescia castle, where, to the amusement of his friends, he began wandering atop the bastions with a pair of compasses and a huge iron ruler hidden under his cloak. He eagerly read Euclid, the fifteenth-century editions of Greek geometry, and the recent French literature on fortifications . That was quite enough for his father who, still hoping for a law degree , destroyed his son’s books and forbade him to pursue this line of study any further. In desperation, Rampinelli told his family and friends that he wanted to join the Venetian army. This threat, and the mediation of local Jesuits, eventually forced Ram105 pinelli’s father to agree to let him study geometry and algebra and their applications . This Rampinelli did, at first privately, then at the University of Bologna, where he spent three years studying with Gabriele Manfredi, the author of De constructione equationum differentialium primi gradus (1707) and one of the few Italian mathematicians competent in the new mathematical techniques of calculus. “Through calculus and analysis,” a friend and biographer wrote, “a series of many sublime truths was revealed to him, as when the curtain is raised in a theatre.”2 This discovery was, for Rampinelli, a type of religious enlightenment, which eventually led him to decide to enter the cloister as a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Monte Oliveto (1722). He took his vows at the monastery of San Michele in Bosco, which overlooks the city of Bologna. As was customary, his being reborn into a new life was marked by the abandonment of his previous given name, Ludovico, and the adoption of a new one, Ramiro.3 Rampinelli’s life can be seen as yet another story of a difficult relationship between an ambitious father and a brilliant son who was irresistibly attracted to the mathematical sciences. Ludovico/Ramiro’s conversion follows the traditional hagiographic pattern, according to which an exuberant young man who enjoys the company of friends and indulges in mundane pleasures suddenly retires from the world to lead a contemplative life. Indeed , Rampinelli became known for his self-control and concise discourse, apparently limiting himself to the use of “short and exact sentences.”4 What is interesting in this story is the importance attributed to the study of mathematics . Like Gaetana some years later, the young Rampinelli had become convinced that geometry was the science that could nourish religious piety most effectively. Hence he accompanied his theological study with continuous geometrical exercise. Although now a monk, Rampinelli continued to study with Manfredi in Bologna, and he eventually embarked on a journey that took him to the other main centers for the study of calculus in Italy: the Venetian mainland and, to a lesser degree, Rome. By 1727, he had moved to a Venetian monastery, and in 1728 he was in Padua, where he could visit local practitioners such as Marquis Giovanni Poleni and Count Jacopo Riccati and his son Giordano, who hosted him for a few months at their palazzo in Castelfranco. In 1731, Rampinelli moved to Rome, where he remained for a year, frequently meeting with such ecclesiastics as Celestino Galiani and Antonio...

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