Giovanni Domenico Maraldi (April 17, 1709 – November 14, 1788) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

-born astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

, nephew of Giacomo F. Maraldi

Giacomo F. Maraldi

Giacomo Filippo Maraldi was an French-Italian astronomer and mathematician. His name is also given as Jacques Philippe Maraldi....

.

Born at Perinaldo

Perinaldo

Perinaldo is a comune in the Province of Imperia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 120 km southwest of Genoa and about 30 km west of Imperia....

, Liguria

Liguria

Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...

, Maraldi came to Paris in 1727 and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 in 1731. There, while observing Comet De Chéseaux with Jacques Cassini

Jacques Cassini

Jacques Cassini was a French astronomer, son of the famous Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini.Cassini was born at the Paris Observatory. Admitted at the age of seventeen to membership of the French Academy of Sciences, he was elected in 1696 a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and...

 in 1746, he discovered two "nebulous stars", which later turned out to be globular cluster

Globular cluster

A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is...

s M15

Messier 15

Messier 15 or M15 is a globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus. It was discovered by Jean-Dominique Maraldi in 1746 and included in Charles Messier's catalogue of comet-like objects in 1764...

 and M2

Messier 2

Messier 2 or M2 is a globular cluster in the constellation Aquarius, five degrees north of the star Beta Aquarii...

. Maraldi retired to Perinaldo, Italy in 1772. He was poshumously honored, along with his uncle, by the naming of lunar crater Maraldi

Maraldi (lunar crater)

Maraldi is a worn, eroded crater on the western edge of the Sinus Amoris, in the northeast part of the Moon. To the west-southwest is the crater Vitruvius, and to the northwest lies the worn Littrow...

in 1935.