GIOVANNI DOMENICO CASSINI (1625-1712) was born at Peri naldo near Nice on June 8, 1625. Educated by the Jesuits at Genoa, he was nominated in 165o professor of astronomy in the University of Bologna. In 1671 he became director of the Paris observatory, and became a French subject in 1673. Between 1671-84 he discovered four Saturnian satellites, and in 1675 the division in Saturn's ring (see SATURN) ; made the earliest sus tained observations of the zodiacal light, and published, in Les Elements de l'astronomie verifies (1684), an account of Jean Richer's (163o-96) geodetical operations in Cayenne. Certain oval curves which he proposed to substitute for Kepler's ellipses as the paths of the planets were named after him "Cassinians." He died at the Paris observatory on Sept. I I, 1712.
A partial autobiography left by Giovanni Domenico Cassini was published by his great-grandson, Count Cassini, in his Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des sciences (i8io).