Paolo Frisi (13 April 1728 – 22 November 1784) was an Italian priest, mathematician and astronomer. Frisi's work laid the foundation for understanding angular velocity as a vector, which is crucial in analyzing rotational dynamics.
Biography
thumb|A 19th century medallion of Paolo Frisi on the facade of Palazzo Beccaria in via Brera street, [[Milan (birthplace of Cesare Beccaria)]]
Frisi was born in Melegnano in 1728; his sibling Antonio Francesco, born in 1735, went on to be a historian. Frisi was educated at the local Barnabite monastery and afterwards in that of Padua. When twenty-one years of age he composed a treatise on the figure of the earth, and the reputation which he soon acquired led to his appointment by the King of Sardinia to the professorship of philosophy in the College of Casale. He succeeded Hyacinthe Sigismond Gerdil, who had been appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Turin. His friendship with Radicati, a man of liberal opinions, occasioned Frisi's removal by his clerical superiors to Novara, where he was compelled to do duty as a preacher. he became an associate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, and in 1758 a member of the Academy of Berlin, in 1766 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and in 1770 of the Academies of Copenhagen and of Bern. From several European crowned heads he received, at various times, marks of special distinction, and the empress Maria Theresa granted him a yearly pension of 100 sequins.