Restoro d'Arezzo

Ristoro or Restoro d'Arezzo was an Italian monk of the 13th century, author of the Composizione del Mondo^[1] of c. 1282.

This is the first astronomical work to be written in Italian (Tuscan).^[2] It contains also, as its title (The Composition of the World) suggests, geological theories: these covered the internal structure of a spherical shell Earth, fossils, and erosion, amongst others.

He observed a solar eclipse in 1239 and noted the exact time spend in totality.^[3]

It has been claimed that Dante was familiar with Ristoro’s work.^[4] Dante in the Quaestio de Aqua et Terra dated to 1320 did consider related matters.^[5]

References

• Alberto Morino (editor) (Lavis, La Finestra editrice 2006), La composizione del mondo, Restoro d'Arezzo

Notes

1. Called a ‘vernacular astronomy primer’
2. In fact the first scientific work in Italian; see the external link. Also it is the first Italian prose work.
3. Peter Pesic Sky in a Bottle Cambridge MA:2005- MIT Press Page 27
4. Dante Alighieri.
5. There has been some past scholarly controversy over whether this work really is by Dante.

External links

• (Italian) PDF on the mineralogy of the Compositione with English summary here as HTML