Antonio Schinella Conti
Antonio Schinella Conti (1677–1749), also known by his religious title as Abate Conti, was an Italian writer, translator, mathematician, philosopher and physicist. He was born in Padua on 22 January 1677 and died there on 6 April 1749. Life In 1699 Conti became an Oratorian Father in Venice but ceased to fulfil priestly duties after 1708. His placement, however, had allowed him to follow studies in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, science and medicine. This strengthened his belief in the ability of the human intellect to investigate reality and to come to conclusions at odds with the traditional religious interpretations current until then and to formulate his own theories. In 1713 he left for Paris, where he befriended the scientific thinkers Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Nicolas Malebranche and Charles François de Cisternay du Fay. In 1715 he left for London to observe an eclipse of the sun and to visit Isaac Newton, for whom he acted as intermediary in the Leibniz-Newton calculus controversy. During this period he also began a lasting friendship with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose poems he translated, and who made him the recipient of her more philosophical Turkish Embassy Letters (1717–18). Starting in autumn 1716, he left