page_title: Francesco Maurolico
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Francesco Maurolico / Life
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Quadrati fabrica et eius vsus, vt hoc solo instrumento, caeteris praetermissis, unusquisque mathematicus, contentus esse possit, per Franciscum Maurolycum nuper edita. .... - Venetiis&#160;: apud Nicolaum Bascarinum, 1546. - 11, [1] c.&#160;: ill.&#160;; 4º .
context_page_description: Francesco Maurolico was a mathematician and astronomer from Sicily. He made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy. He edited the works of classical authors including Archimedes, Apollonius, Autolycus, Theodosius and Serenus. He also composed his own unique treatises on mathematics and mathematical science.
context_section_description: Francesco was born in Messina with the surname of Marulì, although the surname is sometimes reported as "Mauroli". He was the son of Antonio Marulì, master of the Messina coin factory who had studied with the famous Neoplatonic Hellenist Constantine Lascaris. Francesco therefore received a "Lascarian" education through the father, and from Francesco Faraone and Giacomo Genovese, also disciples of Lascaris, whose influence is recognizable.
  In 1534 Francesco Marulì changed his surname to Mauro Lyco (from the meaning of "occult wolf"), after having adopted for eight years, uninterruptedly, the name of Mauro Lycio ("occult Apollo") as a member of a Messina academy.
  Having already obtained priestly ordination since 1521 and, consequently, some ecclesiastical benefit, he was appointed abbot of the monastery of Santa Maria del Parto (in Castelbuono) in 1550 by Simone Ventimiglia marquis of Geraci, pupil and patron of Maurolico.
  He died in 1575 of natural death, during a plague epidemic due to which the mathematician had retired to  Contrada Annunziata: a hilly area north of Messina, where the Marulì family owned a villa that probably had hosted, sometimes, the  academy of which the scientist-humanist had been part.
  He is buried in the church of San Giovanni di Malta in Messina, where his nephews Francesco and Silvestro Maurolico erected an artistic marble sarcophagus, accompanied by the uncle’s bust and Maurolico’s coat of arms with the wolf and the star Sirius.
caption: Quadrati fabrica et eius usus, 1546
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