Profilul intelectual al lui Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli și rădăcinile familiei sale patriciene

The Bolognese scholar Luigi Ferdinndo Marsigli had a destiny marked by ups and downs, influenced by the military events during the Great Turkish War at the end of the 17th century. Then encouraged by the „call to crusade” by Pope of Rome due to the Ottoman danger that was about to conquer Vienna, the young hydrologist L.F. Marsigli dons military garb and makes himself useful to the imperials with his topographical and cartographic knowledge. On the occasion of these events which culminate in the brilliant victory of the House of Austria over the Turcs, the italian scholar stands out for his technical knowledge but also his rich political and diplomatic culture, so that he is chosen at the time of the signing of the peace by Emperor Leopold I, as the most suitable man to preside over the bilateral commission to draw new borders between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. For many historians, the success of the Italian scholar remains an enigma, given that he had many opponents and challengers at the Viennese Court. Marsigli’s intellectual genius is all the more difficult to understand since he is not much remembered in the sources of the time, the studies he completed and the teachers he worked with (many of them privately). Our opinion is that a good part of his general culture and scientific spirit, doubled by the curiosity to explore, he inherited from the family. Thus it was much easier for him to excel in the fields of exact sciences, which he would then apply in the field work required by the military campaigns of the imperials against the Turks, having as intellectual models his father and grandfather, as well as the doctor‑surgeon of the Vatican, Professor Marcello Malpighi, a distant relative of his family. All the Marsigli par excellence were prominent patricians involved in the governance of Bologna (the city that gave Europe’s first university) and many of them were very good mathematicians. L.F. Marsigli’s father, Count Carlo worked as a mathematics teacher, and his paternal grandfather was one of the most important Bolognese mathematicians and astronomers of the 16th century, sharing the ideas of his good friend Galileo Galilei. On the maternal line, L.F. Marsigli was related through the Ercolani family to many bishops and cardinals of the Catholic world. These relationships gave the young studious Marsigli access to the great libraries and collections of antiquities and art objects of the time, completing his intellectual universe.