Biography of Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681)

Tito Livio Burattini (see the calculating machine of Burattini) was born in a noble family in Agordo, northern Italy, on March 8th, 1617. He studied in Padua and Venice, winning a comprehensive knowledge of mathematics and physical sciences, architecture and others.

In 1637 he went abroad to Egypt, where he stayed until 1641. During this period he measured many pyramids, obelisks and monuments and tried to classify them.

After returning to Europe, he stayed initially for some time in Germany, and in 1642 was invited to serve at Polish Royal Court. Burattini lived in Poland up to his death, serving the Polish Kings Vladislav IV and Ian Casimir as an architect, engineer and mechanic. He carried out experiments of optics and astronomy, manufactured lenses for microscopes and telescopes, constructed devices of various types, designed several important buildings.

In 1658 he received the lease of the royal mint, which drew substantial profits. In Ujazdowie he arranged a observatory, in which in the 1665 discovered spots on Venus. In 1660 he designed a palace for the Polish King in Krakow (see the photo bellow).

In 1660 Burratini was appointed as the builder and architect of the royal palace in Krakow, Poland

In 1647 Burattini sent to the Polish king a treatise (Dragon Volant) with drawings os a flying dragon—a complex ornithopter, trying to arose his interest and to be sponsored. In this difficult for Poland wartime, the king didn't show particular interest, but nevertheless Burattini managed to produce at least three working models of the machine and to make several successful indoor flights (see the sketch).

A sketch from the treatise Dragon Volant by Burratini

In his book Misura Universale, published in 1675, Tito Livio Burattini first suggested the name meter as the name for a unit of length. He chose the word meter after metron, a Greek word for measure. Burattini's meter was a universal unit of measurement, based on the length of a pendulum, beating one second. He named this unit metro catholico, which simply means universal measure. Burattini actually was not the first to propose the adoption of a decimal metric system, but he was the first to advance a project that received wide attention and was the one, who first suggested the name meter for the basic unit of length.

Tito Livio Burattini died on 17th of November, 1681, in Krakow, Poland.