Lalín is land of artists and Art lovers. It is obvious in its streets. A good way of crossing Lalin village is discovering its sculptures. Some of them have turned into symbols of the municipality, as the dedicated one to Loriga, the aviator, or the statue of the pork.
Some of them monumental, different and discreet another ones...figuratives or abstracts, all of them have a history behind...make up your mind and come to discover it!
This bust is placed in the parish where he was born in 1770. He was a person with a travelling spirit, always with desire to learn.
He was graduate in theology. He studied mathematics, being University of “Santiago de Compostela” professorship with 31 years.
He travelled to Paris where he lived for three years. For 2 years he took part in geodesic uprising of Mediterranean coast. Later he was in “Cádiz” where he was employed mapping Spain and doing the weight and measure system.
In 1809 he travelled to England where he wrote an article, published in 1812, with a powerful international resonance because with it he demonstrates that terrestrial meridians are elliptical, so, William “Mudge's” studies (he said the Earth was flattened by the Ecuador) were incorrect.
He returned to teaching in “Santiago de Compostela”, but in 1814 he travelled to Germany, where he maybe was in touch with Gauss and where he showed interest in natural sciences, specially for botany and crystallography.
He travelled again to France and from there to Italy and Switzerland.
In Paris he worked to obtain valuable instrumentation for the University of Santiago de Compostela.
He rejected the offer of Czar Alejandro I of Russia to take charge of the Observatory of Saint Petersburg for being the director of the Astronomic Observatory of Madrid and teaching astronomy in the Museum of Natural Sciences.
Also he was part of policy being delegated of the Spanish Parliament of the State.
He expired in Santiago de Compostela in 1924.
The best biography of him was written by Ramon Maria Aller Ulloa and published in 1929, in the Files of the Seminar of Galician Studies.
