CASSINI

CASSINI, name of a family of astronomers of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Italian origin; distinguished for their observations and discoveries affecting the comets, the planets, and the moon; they settled, father and son and grandson, in Paris, and became in succession directors of the observatory of Paris, the last of whom died in 1864, after completing in 1793 a great topographical map of France begun by his father.