Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (...) was an Italian mathematician, engineer (designing fortifications), a surveyor (of topography, seeking the best means of defense or offense) and a bookkeeper from the then-Republic of Venice (now part of Italy). He published many books, including the first Italian translations of Archimedes and Euclid, and an acclaimed compilation of mathematics. Tartaglia was the first to apply mathematics to the investigation of the paths of cannonballs, known as ballistics, in his Nova Scientia (A New Science); his work was later partially validated and partially superseded by Galileo's studies on falling bodies." [Wikipedia]