Born Perinaldo near Imperia, (Liguria, Italy), 21 August 1665
Died Paris, France, 1 December 1729
As one of the earliest members of the Paris Observatory staff, astronomer and geodesist Giacomo Maraldi, sometimes identified as Maraldi I, conducted the first systematic observations of the surface features of Mars. The son of Francesco Maraldi and Angela Cassini (sister of Giovanni Cassini), Maraldi studied near his hometown until 1687 when, at his uncle's request, he moved to Paris and joined the observatory staff as an observer. Maraldi's main task was the production of a new stellar catalog that remained incomplete on his death; it was never published. He appears to have been a careful observer and was certainly a mainstay in the observatory's work. Maraldi observed a wide variety of phenomena, including planets, satellites, eclipses, and variable stars (including the discovery of R Hydrae). He observed six comets, calculating several orbits. It was he who first realized that the...
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Taton, René (1974). “Maraldi, Giacomo Filippo (Maraldi I).” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 9, pp. 89–91. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
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Jarrell, R.A. (2007). Maraldi, Giacomo Filippo. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_899
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