Twenty questions: the gross round

[mOctave]

Okay, so we now know that this person was: a real dead human man who was born in a no-Italian city, in a nation state with a standardized flag and lived in Italy for at least 5 years of his life. He died between 1300 and 1600. He has a Wikipedia page with a "long list" of works published. He wrote mainly in Latin, and had (not always positive) interactions with the Catholic Church. He was a scientist, philosopher, or person primarily involved in the gaining of knowledge, as well as a practitioner of medicine. He was not an aristocrat.

He was none of the following people:
Niccolò Machiavelli
Mondino de Luzzi
Luigi Galvani
Galen
Andreas Vesalius
Leonardo da Vinci

I believe this counts as a free guess...
Was he Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio?

[Spartaculous]

I believe this counts as a free guess...
Was he Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio?

No. I had never heard of him before your guess, but I am tempted to say that this feels like probably the best free guess so far.

[Jamiet99uk]

Okay, so we now know that this person was: a real dead human man who was born in a no-Italian city, in a nation state with a standardized flag and lived in Italy for at least 5 years of his life. He died between 1300 and 1600. He has a Wikipedia page with a "long list" of works published. He wrote mainly in Latin, and had (not always positive) interactions with the Catholic Church. He was a scientist, philosopher, or person primarily involved in the gaining of knowledge, as well as a practitioner of medicine. He was not an aristocrat.

He was none of the following people:
Niccolò Machiavelli
Mondino de Luzzi
Luigi Galvani
Galen
Andreas Vesalius
Leonardo da Vinci

I believe this counts as a free guess...
Was he Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio?

Where did the question master say he was not born in an Italian city?

[JECE]

Okay, so we now know that this person was: a real dead human man who was born in a no-Italian city, in a nation state with a standardized flag and lived in Italy for at least 5 years of his life. He died between 1300 and 1600. He has a Wikipedia page with a "long list" of works published. He wrote mainly in Latin, and had (not always positive) interactions with the Catholic Church. He was a scientist, philosopher, or person primarily involved in the gaining of knowledge, as well as a practitioner of medicine. He was not an aristocrat.

He was none of the following people:
Niccolò Machiavelli
Mondino de Luzzi
Luigi Galvani
Galen
Andreas Vesalius
Leonardo da Vinci

I believe this counts as a free guess...
Was he Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio?

Where did the question master say he was not born in an Italian city?

It's a typo for "now-Italian"

[mOctave]

Okay, so we now know that this person was: a real dead human man who was born in a no-Italian city, in a nation state with a standardized flag and lived in Italy for at least 5 years of his life. He died between 1300 and 1600. He has a Wikipedia page with a "long list" of works published. He wrote mainly in Latin, and had (not always positive) interactions with the Catholic Church. He was a scientist, philosopher, or person primarily involved in the gaining of knowledge, as well as a practitioner of medicine. He was not an aristocrat.

He was none of the following people:
Niccolò Machiavelli
Mondino de Luzzi
Luigi Galvani
Galen
Andreas Vesalius
Leonardo da Vinci

I believe this counts as a free guess...
Was he Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio?

Where did the question master say he was not born in an Italian city?

It's a typo for "now-Italian"

Yup, sorry. I meant "now-Italian" but only caught the typo after I had submitted it.

[Spartaculous]

So, the guessing seems to be slowing down. (Maybe everyone is stuck in February 2.)

By my count, there are 3 more questions to be asked and answered.

This might be a tricky one, but I think someone will get it. I have left several clues in my posts (some obvious, some subtle; some mentioned in mOctave's recent summary, some omitted from that post).

[mOctave]

Was he ever significantly involved in the construction of a notable building, clock, or weapon?

[Spartaculous]

Was he ever significantly involved in the construction of a notable building, clock, or weapon?

No, I don't see any reference to that in his biographies. (I did find a quote from a work of his that refers to clocks, but nothing that suggests that he built or invented a clock.)

[DougJoe]

Did this person's views on or methods of practicing medicine put him at odds with the Church?

[Spartaculous]

Did this person's views on or methods of practicing medicine put him at odds with the Church?

No; in fact, some important Church figures were very appreciative of his medical practice.

That's 19 questions!

[Jamiet99uk]

Does he appear on this list?

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/italian-physicians.php

[Spartaculous]

Does he appear on this list?

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/italian-physicians.php

Yes.

FIVE GUESSES REMAINING.

[DougJoe]

Does he appear on this list?

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/italian-physicians.php

Yes.

FIVE GUESSES REMAINING.

Nice one, Jamie. I was looking for a similar list but my Google-Fu was not up to the task.

[Jamiet99uk]

Guess:
Paolo Giovio

[Spartaculous]

Guess:
Paolo Giovio

No. (It looks like he served as a bishop in the Catholic church.)

FOUR GUESSES REMAINING

[JECE]

Gerolamo Cardano?

[Spartaculous]

Gerolamo Cardano?

The answer is Gerolamo Cardano!

Cardano was born in 1501 in Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, which was, at the time, occupied by France.

He has a case for being the greatest European mathematician of the 1500s. His textbook, Ars Magna ("The Great Art"), is a classic treatise on algebra, and contains the first published proofs of the general solutions of cubic and quartic equations. Wikipedia calls it "one of the three greatest scientific treatises of the early Renaissance". It also featured the first use of negative numbers in Europe, and the first appearance of complex numbers anywhere.

His involvement in the discovery of the cubic formula is pretty dramatic; you may enjoy reading https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-scan ... -20220630/.

While he is most remembered for his mathematics, his "day job" was practicing medicine. He was once paid a huge sum of money to travel from Italy to Scotland to treat an archbishop there.

Cardano's true love may very well have been gambling. He combined this with his study of mathematics and wrote the first book on mathematical probability.

He once published a horoscope of Jesus. This was a bad decision. He was arrested by the Inquisition and imprisoned for a few months.

Congratulations, JECE!

[JECE]

Thanks! From the list that Jamiet99uk posted (of questionable reliability given that Gerolamo Cardano is described as a "South African Politician and Zulu Tribal Leader Who Was Home Minister of South Africa from 1994 to 2004") it was pretty straightforward to narrow it down by process of elimination to Gerolamo Cardano and Girolamo Fracastoro, with the former better fitting your clues.

[Spartaculous]

Thanks! From the list that Jamiet99uk posted (of questionable reliability given that Gerolamo Cardano is described as a "South African Politician and Zulu Tribal Leader Who Was Home Minister of South Africa from 1994 to 2004") it was pretty straightforward to narrow it down by process of elimination to Gerolamo Cardano and Girolamo Fracastoro, with the former better fitting your clues.

Yes, the list definitely seemed suspicious, but it worked! (Also for clues: note my comments in post #60.)

[DougJoe]

Thanks! From the list that Jamiet99uk posted (of questionable reliability given that Gerolamo Cardano is described as a "South African Politician and Zulu Tribal Leader Who Was Home Minister of South Africa from 1994 to 2004") it was pretty straightforward to narrow it down by process of elimination to Gerolamo Cardano and Girolamo Fracastoro, with the former better fitting your clues.

Yes, the list definitely seemed suspicious, but it worked! (Also for clues: note my comments in post #60.)

I was gonna guess Fracastoro between the two. Didn't read Cardano's wiki page well enough to find the church beef, but I see it now.

Well done JECE.