The Unfinished Mechanics of Giuseppe Moletti: An Edition and English Translation of His «Dialogue on Mechanics, 1576»

Charles R. Crawford, a former associate professor of computer science at
York University, is a computer-programming and mathematics consultant.

Guiseppe Moletti started his Dialogue on Mechanics when he was a tutor
to the son of the Duke of Mantua in the 1570s. It is in Italian rather
than Latin and written “in a way to recommend the study of mechanics
to princes and practical men.” When Moletti took up the chair of
mathematics at the University of Padua, however, a more academic
approach was necessary, and he did not finish the Dialogue. Moletti
immediately preceded Galileo in the chair at Padua, but he was—and
still is—considered a minor mathematician. Thus, although Galileo is
known for writing dialogues in Italian for a popular audience, he
probably did not read any parts of Moletti’s Dialogue. However, as
Professor Laird points out, it is through the works of authors such as
Moletti that “… we are able to judge the novelty and genius of men
[like] Galileo.”

This text is edited from manuscripts with a facing-page English
translation. The introduction is in five sections, the first a short
description of mechanics in the middle ages and 16th century, and the
second a short account of Moletti’s life and works. The third section
describes the mathematical content of the Dialogue, the structure of the
proofs, and the references to works of earlier writers. The fourth
section discusses the progress of mechanics after Moletti, with emphasis
on Galileo. In the final section, Laird describes how he solved the many
technical problems of printing the Italian text found on the various
manuscripts and translating it to English.