Rome, Father Athanasius Kircher was
summoned to Rome and began his scientific work there, which included
contributions to every department of physical and even some of the
biological sciences. For some five years about the middle of the
seventeenth century Father Kircher devoted himself to astronomy and
the result was the publication, in 1656, of an astronomical treatise
called _Iter Celeste_. A second volume on astronomy appeared in 1660.
Anyone who is inclined to think that these contributions of the great
professor of science at the Roman College were only reviews of the
passing scientific opinions of the time, is not fully acquainted with
Father Kircher's work. He never failed to illuminate anything that he
set himself to study. His book on astronomy is of course a text-book,
but it is magnificently illustrated; it is a very large work which
shows the author's familiarity with the scientific literature of the
time, but at the same time reveals his own scientific genius. Father
Kircher was encouraged in every way by the Popes and high
ecclesiastics of Rome and by his own Order, and his great text-books
are among the bibliographic treasures of the history of science. Some
idea of {478} his industry may be gathered from the fact that he wrote
altogether some forty volumes folio on scientific subjects. He made
many original observations, invented a number of valuable scientific
instruments that are still in use, among others the vernier and magic
lantern, and was productively occupied with nearly every branch of
science in his time.

During the eighteenth century, before the suppression of the Jesuits,
another distinguished mathematician and astronomer, famous throughout
Europe, was working at the Roman College. This was Father Boscovitch,
to whom we owe the plans for the erection of an observatory above the
great pillars of the Church of the Gesu at Rome, which were not
destined to be executed until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Boscovitch is famous for a series of important works in mathematics
and astronomy. He wrote books on Sun Spots, the Transit of Mercury,
the Aurora Borealis, the Figure of the Earth, the Various Effects of
Gravity, the Aberration of the Fixed Stars, and other astronomical
problems. Pope Benedict XIV commissioned him and his brother Jesuit,
Father Le Maire, to carry out several precise meridian arc
measurements. He is the inventor of the rock crystal prismatic
micrometer, the ring micro