Applied Mathematics in Boscovich’s Papers

From 1742, the Jesuit R. G. Boscovich began to undertake work as consultant on applied mathematics on behalf of the Papal State and of the principle Italian courts. In his first public office, Boscovich was required to give his opinion on the stability of St. Peter’s dome in Rome. Many papers on applied mathematics, especially hydraulics, followed this first consultation on an architectural work. In 1750 he was commissioned to measure the meridian between Rome and Rimini. Boscovich travelled to the lands of the Papal State with Father Christopher Maire, cartographer and astronomer. The journey took place between October 1750 and November 1752. In the same years, Boscovich was asked for his first works on the science of waters: an examination of the Fiumicino harbour near Rome, the regulation of the course of the Tiber, and the access to the Valleys of Comacchio. The science of waters in the 18th century was a subject that still lacked clear rules, and the figure of an engineer to deal with the regulation of the rivers did not exist, so mathematicians were called in as experts in hydraulics. In this field Boscovich displayed all his talent. He wrote reports on the regulation of some rivers (the Tiber, Po, Adige) and streams, the reclamation of extensive marshlands (the Pontine marshes in Latium, the lake of Bientina in Tuscany), but his main contributions concerned the settlement of harbours placed at the river mouth (Fiumicino, Magnavacca, Rimini, Savona). From the second half of the 18th century Boscovich addressed his studies to applied mathematics, astronomy, optics and hydraulics. He collected his work on optics and astronomy in the Opera pertinentia ad opticam et astronomiam (1785), but was unable to make a collection of all his papers on hydraulics before he died.