Giovanni Battista Audiffredi

Giovanni Battista Audiffredi (2 February 1714 – 4 July 1794) was an Italian Dominican scholar and scientist.

Life Giovanni Battista Audiffredi entered the Dominican Order, and soon attracted attention by his taste for books and his talent for the exact sciences. After being occupied in various houses as professor and bibliographer, he was at length transferred to the College of St. Thomas at the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the future Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum. He was placed in charge (1765) of the Biblioteca Casanatense, founded in 1700 by Cardinal Girolamo Casanata.

The predicted reappearance in the middle of the century of Halley's Comet intensified scientific interest in cometic orbits. The epoch was favored with a number of brilliant objects of this kind, and that of 1769 distinguished itself by its great nucleus and by the tail which stretched over more than half the sky. Audiffredi took observations of the positions of the comet and published his results under the title, (1770).