Giovanni Salvemini

Giovanni Francesco Mauro Melchiorre Salvemini di Castiglione, also known as Jean de Castillon or Johann Castillon, was born on 15 January 1708 in Castiglione del Valdarno, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His father was a diplomat and jurist, and his mother from a Pisani family. He received home tutoring and attended a seminary in Florence. He studied law and mathematics at the University of Pisa, earning a doctorate in 1730. He initially worked as a sub-chancellor but left due to his evolving religious views and fled to Switzerland in 1736 to escape the Inquisition. In 1737, he converted to Calvinism in Geneva. He settled in Vevey, near Lausanne, and became the principal of a school there until 1748. In 1751, he moved to the University of Utrecht to teach mathematics and astronomy, earning a second doctorate in 1754. He became a professor of mathematics and philosophy and served as rector. In 1763, Frederick the Great invited him to Berlin to teach artillery officers. He was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1764 and appointed First Astronomer at the Berlin Observatory in 1765. He remained in Berlin until his death on 11 October 1791. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1745. Salvemini studied conic sections, cubic equations, and problems of artillery, and is known for solving the Cramer–Castillon problem.