Francesco Maurolico (in Latin, Franciscus Maurolycus) (1494-1575) was an Italian mathematician and astronomer. Born in Messina of a family of Greek origin that settled in Messina after the Turkish invasions, Maurolico received a good education and in 1521 took holy orders. In 1550, he entered the Benedictine Order and became a monk at the Monastero di Santa Maria del Parto a Castelbuono. Two years later, he was consecrated as abbot at the Cattedrale San Nicolò di Messina.
Works
Maurolico's Photismi de lumine et umbra concerns the refraction of light and attempted to explain the natural phenomenon of the rainbow.
Other works include Arithmeticorum libri duo (1575), the first work to mention mathematical induction.
His Opuscola mathematica (1575) attempted to calculate the barycenter of various bodies (pyramid, parabola, etc.). In his Sicanicarum rerum compendium, he presented the history of Sicily, and included some autobiographical details.