Pietro Pitati

Who was Pietro Pitati?

Pietro Pitati was an Italian astronomer and mathematician. Bernardino Baldi, in his Cronica de matematici calls Pitati a noble Veronese who was trained in mathematics by a Benedictine friar named Innocentio da Novara.

It is known that he was the author of several astronomical works and almanacs. His Paschales atque nouiluniorum mensurni canones. De varia paschalis solemnitatis obseruatione...De Hebraica anni quantitate...Calendarium nouum cum noua aurei numeri positione, ortu quoque, & occasu stellarum fixarum is one of many sixteenth century attempts to reform the calendar, and establish, among other things, the correct day of Easter. This was his first work.

Pitati also wrote another book bearing on the length of the solar and lunar year, the fixed stars, and calendar reform, entitled: Compendium . . . super annua solaris atque lunaris anni quantitate Paschalis item solennitatis juxta veteres ecclesiae canones recognitione Romanique calendarii instauratione deque vero Passionis Dominicae die ortu quoque et occasu stellarum fixarum, in tres divisum Tractatus. Pitati's proposal for calendar reform "pleaded for the rule whereby three out of four centennial years be ordinary. This is [now] the Gregorian rule."