Oronce Fine
French mathematician and cartographer (*1494 – †1555)
Oronce Fine (or Finé; Latin: Orontius Finnaeus or Finaeus; Italian: Oronzio Fineo; 20 December 1494 – 8 August 1555) was a French mathematician, cartographer, editor and book illustrator.
Life
Born in Briançon, the son and grandson of physicians, he was educated in Paris (Collège de Navarre) and obtained a degree in medicine in 1522.
Fine grew up in an academic household, and his parents' contribution to the sciences was notable in France at the time. Much of Fine's early childhood was shaped by his father's involvement and support of sciences. Fine's father in addition to being a physician was a strong student in astronomy. He had created many astronomical instruments and published a treatise which was one of the few astronomical incunabula of French origin.
Fine's university was known as a leading center at Paris for the study of scholastic philosophy and theology. There he fostered his editing ability and later printed many editions of writings from scholars. It is believed that his career ended abruptly when he was imprisoned, for reasons that are highly disputed.
In 1531, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal (the present Collège de France), founded by King Francis I, where he taught until his death.
“Oronce Fine” enters the record as french mathematician and cartographer (*1494 – †1555). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oronce, Fine and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q983291. VIAF identifies the subject as 39442060. The Library of Congress control number is n85006470. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1494, 1555, 1522 and 1531.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oronce Fine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.