This document describes a treasure hunting game where groups are given maps with descriptions of 8 historical scientists from the 16th-17th centuries in Europe. For each scientist, they must choose the correct name from 4 options and match 3 related pictures. The first group to correctly complete the map and answer a final question wins. It then provides the descriptions, multiple choice options, and 3 pictures related to each scientist to identify. The scientists included Pierre-Paul Riquet, Leonardo da Vinci, Andreas Vesalius, Galileo Galilei, Evangelista Torricelli, Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, and John Amos Comenius. It concludes with a final question about Marie Curie, Andy

1. Hunt
historical
characters
...Treasure hunting,
without treasure!
Teacher: Claudia Tomasi

2. Game’s rules
• Each group has one map and one images' box.
• In each map you can find eight descriptions of historical characters,
indeed here you can find famous scientists only.
• The men described lived in Europe, between 16th And 17th century
•You have to read the description and then you have to choice between
four options (A, B, C, D). The choice is very easy!
• Put the correct answer in the group's paper.
•To each character you have to link, following the text, three pictures
that you can find in the box.
• To win you have to answer to the big final question
•The first group that completes the map successfully, it gains the chance
to answer to the big final question.
• You can access to the big final question only if all eight answers and the
links are correct.
Attention: the final question is quite difficult and involves historical men
and women closer to us.
Good query and good luck!

3. 1. A thousand – year – old dream
I'm a man. I was born in Béziers, France, in 1609 (some sources say 1604) and
my death was in 1680. After a very ordinary education, thanks to my father's
influence, I entered the salt tax service and I started a lucrative career as a salt
tax collector of the Languedoc region.
As a youth, I was only interested in mathematics and science, but for you I'm
famous because I was an engineer and I was responsible for the most inspired
works of the 17th century. My best project, supported by Colbert, was a special
link between Two Seas. I never lived to see the completion of my masterpiece.
My family claimed to be descendant of Gherardo Arrighetti, an Italian aristocrat
who was exilled from Florence in 1268 and who, in France, changed his name to
….....
( _ _ __ETTI) the _ _ _ _ TY and finally in my name..........
PICTURE 1 is my portrait
PICTURE 2 is an example of lock chambre used in my masterpiece.
In the PICTURE 3 you can find the project of two structures still draw the
admiration of modern day engineers (oval lock basins).
A) Richelieu 
B) Georges Pompidou 
C) Pierre-Paul Riquet 
D) Michel François Platini 

4. 2 - I am the one and only genius!
I'm generally considered to have invented the locks used for his masterpiece by
the previous person (character 1). The PICTURE 1 shows project on the Arno
River. Yes, I’m an engineer…but I’m painter, sculptor, musician, scientist,
mathematician, architect, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist,
and writer!!!
I was born in Tuscany in 1452. When I was 14 years old I left my home and I
moved to Florence and I started to work in the Verrocchio’s workshop. In the
PICTURE 2 you can find my earliest complete work. During my apprenticeship to
Andrea del Verrocchio I began formal training in the anatomy of the human body.
As a successful artist, I was given permission to dissect human corpses at the
Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and
Rome.
I made over 200 pages of drawings and many pages of notes towards a treatise on
anatomy. These papers were left to my heir, Francesco Melzi. The PICTURE 3
shows an example.
I died at Clos Lucé, in France, on May 2, 1519. The king, Francis the first, had
become my close friend!
A) Michelangelo Buonarroti 
B) Leonardo da Vinci 
C) Nicolaus Copernicus 
D) Johann Gutenberg 

5. 3 - I’m founder of modern human
anatomy!
Exactly…I was an anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential
books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the
Human Body).
I was born on 31 December 1514, in Brussels. I studied at University of Leuven
(Belgium), University of Paris, University of Padua (for Italians Padova).
My carreer starts in Padua. Already the day after my graduation, I had my first
public lesson, explaining and dissecting a cadaver organs and the technique used.
The senate of Venice immediately gave me the chair of anatomy and surgery.
My main work (De humani corporis fabrica) was published in June 1543 - the same
year as another masterpiece in the history of the science (De revolutionibus
orbium coelestium) … don’t forget!!!) – contains many detailed drawings of human
dissections (see PICTURE 1).
Then I was named court physician to Emperor Charles V (see PICTURE 2, do you
recognize the emperor?)
My name is the Latinized form of Andries van Wesel.
In the PICTURE 3 you can find my portrait.
A) Hippocrates 
B) Andreas Vesalius 
C) Julius Caesar 
D) Vercingetorix 

6. 4 - My work changed the scientific
method!
I was born in Pisa on 15 February 1564. My father was a famous lutenist, composer,
and music theorist. My family was from Florence…don’t forget!
I died on 8 January 1642, aged 77. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II,
wished to bury me in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce (see
PICTURE 1).
I wrote a great Dialogue that the Inquisition found "vehemently suspect of heresy":
I’m philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th
century!
But I loved look at the sky, at the planets, at the moon (PICTURE 2 shows one of
my drawings that illustrates the play of light and shadows on the lunar surface).
And finally I made a number of contributions to what is now known as technology (in
PICTURE 3 you can see my thermoscope and its modern version).
ISAAC NEWTON 
FERDINAND MAGELLAN 
GALILEO GALILEI 
CRISTOFORO COLOMBO 

7. 5 – We live submerged at the bottom of an
ocean of air
I was born in Faenza in 1608, part of the State of Church. I studied mathematics
and philosophy into a Jesuit College until 1626.
I've been a big supporter of the character described above (at the number 4) and in
the last months of his life I lived in Arcetri, at his home.
I’m famous in the world (In the PICTURE 1 you can find a commemorative stamp of
the U.S.S.R) for my mercury barometer (please see PICTURE 2 and relative
schema PICTURE 3).
I died in Florence a few days after having contracted typhoid fever, and I was buried
in San Lorenzo. The asteroid 7437 was named in my honor and I am sure that
you have used my unit in vacuum measurements!
A) EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI 
B) THOMAS ALVA EDISON 
C) VLAD TEPES III 
D) JOSEPH-MICHEL MONTGOLFIER 

8. 6 - In honor of my scientific contributions, my name has been
given to the SI unit of pressure and to a programming language!
I was born on 19 June 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand. I was a French mathematician,
physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. I was a child prodigy and I
was educated by my father, a tax collector in Rouen. My earliest work was in
the natural and applied sciences where I made important contributions to the
study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by
generalizing the work of the character described above (at the number 5). I
measured the variation of atmospheric pressure with altitude (The PICTURE 1
shows the experiment – in the region of Massif Central).
In 1642, while still a teenager, I started some pioneering work on calculating
machines, and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes I invented the
mechanical calculator. I built twenty of these machines (the PICTURE 2 shows
an example of these machines). Following a mystical experience in late 1654, I
abandoned my scientific work and devoted myself to philosophy and theology.
My two most famous works date from this period are the Lettres provinciales
and the Pensées. I had poor health especially after my eighteenth year and my
death came just two months after my 39th birthday. I was buried in Saint-
Étienne-du-Mont, a church in Paris (PICTURE 3 shows this church).
A) Molière 
B) Pierre de Coubertin 
C) Nicolas Sarkozy 
D) Blaise Pascal 

9. 7 - I think, therefore I am.
"As a young man, when I discovered something, I wondered if I
were not able to find it alone, without learning it from books."
I was born in La Haye en Touraine on 31 March 1596. I was a French philosopher,
mathematician, and writer and I spent most of my adult life in the Dutch
Republic.
At the age of eight, I entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche
(see PICTURE 1…the building with French flag is my college!) where I studied
letters and Aristotle philosophy. After graduating in law I began to solve scientific
problems like the refraction of light (see PICTURE 2). In 1649 I moved to
Sweden, where I had been invited as a tutor for Queen Christina of Sweden (The
PICTURE 3 shows me and Queen Christina). On 11 February 1650 I died in
Stockholm. In 1633 the man described at the step number 4 was condemned by
the Roman Catholic Church for his Dialogue. In 1663, the Pope placed also my
works on the Index of Prohibited Books! I can say that while the application of
mathematics to experimental physics done by character number 4 was
innovative, my algebraic methods superseded his standard mathematical
methods.
A) Pythagoras of Samos 
B) Archimede 
C) Eratosthenes 
D) René Descartes 

10. 8 - Thanks to me, you are here today! School is a
workshop for humanity
I was born in 1592 in Moravia. Regarding my ethnicity, I described myself as
"Moravus ego natione, lingua Bohemus"; i.e. an inhabitant of the Margrave of
Moravia (probably with Slovak roots) who used the Czech language for daily
communication. My original family name (Szeges or Segeš) seems to be
Magyar and is relatively common in Western Slovakia both for Slovaks and
even for local Magyars. I’m very popular with Czechs and Slovaks. I have been
represented on a Czech banknote (see PICTURE 1) and the largest and oldest
University in Slovakia, in Bratislava, was dedicated to me. (see PICTURE 2).
I have become a symbol of the European Union!
Like the previous historical character (number 7) I was involved in the events of
the Thirty Years War and, after the Battle of White Mountain (see PICTURE 3),
outside Prague, in November 1620, I moved to Poland. I lived in England,
Sweden, Hungary, Germany and finally I died in 1670, in Amsterdam, where I
where I published my main work, Didactica Magna.
I was teacher, educator and writer. I had cosmopolite ideas: in my opinion man,
through education, he could show his full potential and lead a harmonious life.
A) Lazzaro Spallanzani 
B) John Amos Comenius 
C) Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier 
D) Francis Bacon 

11. BIG FINAL QUESTION

12. Marie Skłodowska-Curie
SHE WAS THE FIRST
FEMALE PROFESSOR AT
THE UNIVERSITY
OF__________________

13. Andy Warhol
WHERE WERE HIS
PARENTS FROM?
(WHICH COUNTRY?)

14. Nicolae Paulescu
IN 1921 PAULESCU, FIRST
IN THE WORLD,
DISCOVERED HOW TO
CURE DIABETES, SO THAT
NEXT YEAR, NAMELY APRIL
10, 1922, HE OBTAINED A
PATENT FOR THE
DISCOVERY OF
PANCREINA.
WHERE IS HE FROM?

15. Hermann Julius Oberth
HERMANN JULIUS OBERTH
(25 JUNE 1894 – 28
DECEMBER 1989)
HE IS CONSIDERED ONE
OF THE FOUNDING
FATHERS OF ROCKETRY
AND ASTRONAUTICS.
HE WAS BORN
IN_________________