Born into an aristocratic family originally from
Siena, Rinaldini studied at the
University of Macerata and the
University of Bologna. He was in the service of
Pope Urban VIII and obtained the supervision of the fortresses of
Ferrara,
Bondeno, and
Comacchio from
Taddeo Barberini, the pope's nephew. He also tutored Barberini's children. Rinaldini was appointed
rector at the
University of Pisa, and subsequently a Professor of Mathematics there from 1649 to 1666. Rinaldini was a friend to
Galileo and
Borelli, who nicknamed him "Simplicio" for his fidelity to traditional
Aristotelianism. Rinaldini corresponded with
Vincenzo Viviani and with
Leopoldo de' Medici. The correspondence with Leopoldo de' Medici helped establish the experimental agenda for the
Accademia del Cimento, which was founded in 1657. As part of the Accademia, he proposed an experiment on the diffusion of heat. When a metal ball was frozen in ice, thermometers below the ball had the highest temperature drop; when a metal ball was heated, thermometers above the ball had the highest temperature rise. Rinaldini had numerous disagreements with his friends and with
Francesco Redi and
Evangelista Torricelli. Rinadini opposed the theory, advanced by Redi, that insects can be born from parent plant
galls. He thus anticipated the hypothesis that
gall insects were born from eggs laid by individuals of the same species, promulgated by
Malpighi. In 1667, Rinaldini left
Tuscany to go to the
University of Padua, where he held the chair of
Philosophy and published
Philosophia rationalis, atque identità naturalis. He tried in vain to return to Pisa. He then moved to
Venice, where he became the teacher of
Elena Cornaro Piscopia, who was the first woman in the world to obtain a
doctoral degree when Rinaldini declared her to be a in 1678. Rinaldini argued that the ice and boiling temperatures are universal, Rinaldini's degrees were calibrated by measuring known mixtures of boiling and freezing water, although that method was subsequently found to be unreliable. ==Selected works==