Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

(1608 - 1679)

Around 1641 the Senate of Messina sent Giovanni Alfonso Borelli on a trip around Italy to recruit scholars for the city’s university. While in Florence, Borelli met Leopold de’ Medici, brother of the grand duke of Tuscany, who shared Borelli’s admiration for Galileo. De’ Medici later became Borelli’s patron at the Accademia del Cimento, where Borelli announced the discovery of the elliptical orbits of Jupiter’s moons.