Lazise Renaissance Mathematician Francesco Scolari and the «Scala Grimaldelli»
Among the illustri citizens of Lazise during the Renaissance period, alongside jurist Aleardo Gafforini (1374-1455) and scholar Antonio Partenio (1456-1506), there is also to be counted the mathematician Francesco Feliciano Scolari, born around 1470 and who died at an uncertain date between 1533 and 1541. The latter, having attracted the attention of specialists, published in Venice in 1517 the «Libro de abaco» and, ten years later, three books on arithmetic and geometry with the curious title «Scala Grimaldelli», because, with the «scale», one ascends upwards, and with the «gramaldello», one opens the sealed and closed places.
Works and Publications of Scolari
Beyond the rhetorical device, in reality, Scolari consistently addressed and explained «topics and procedures on which a growing environment, increasingly involved in affairs related to marking, required to be informed». The works proved, as highlighted in the biographical dictionary of Italians by the Istituto della Enciclopedia, «to be of great fortune, evidenced by the numerous editions following those years, including posthumous ones».
Such works, as early as the 18th century, Francesco Fontana, another distinguished citizen of Lazise, claimed to own and described as «very rare», but which had never reached the Municipality of Lazise through a testamentary inheritance. Precisely to fill this felt void, the Municipal Administration, taking advantage of a favorable offer, purchased the rare volume, which is 22 centimeters tall.
This fine copy is printed in octavo on fine paper, with a contemporary half parchment cover featuring a gold inlay on the spine. The volume has 8-240 pages, with many engravings, diagrams, and geometric figures inserted into the text and reproduced using xylographic technique.
The font used is a Renaissance round serif type reminiscent of the combinations of Francesco Griffo (Venetian printer of Aldo Manuzio editions) and the meticulousness of Claude Garamond; the page margins are also wide and well proportioned.
«An edition of the Scala Grimaldelli», notes Municipal Councilor Sergio Marconi, an expert in these matters, «very important due to the addition of “De problemi per l’algebra” at the end, which bears the acronym B.B., conjectured by Riccardi to be by Bernardino Baldi».
Alvaro Joppi