Giovanni Domenico Cassini (Perinaldo, 1625 / Paris, 1712) was a naturalized French Italian astronomer, geodest and engineer. Louis XIV of France appointed him in 1671 director of the Paris Observatory and member of the Academy of Sciences. Cassini would remain as director for the rest of his life. After forty years of observing the sky, he was completely blind. Cassini was a contemporary of Isaac Newton and made numerous observational contributions to the astronomy of the Solar System. From the Paris observatory he discovered Iapetus, Rhea, Dione, Tethys and a space between the rings of Saturn that would be called the «Cassini division».
