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John Baptist Riccioli was also known as Giovanni Battista Riccioli. He was born in Ferrara, Italy on April 17th in the year 1598, died in the 1671 in Bologna. He wrote many books on scientific as well as theological matters. His lunar map is at the entrance to the lunar exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute. John succeeded in making the pendulum perfect as an instrument to measure time. John was also an astronomer. His greatest achievement in astronomy is being known as the first person to study the acceleration rate of a free falling object. It wascareful drawn by another Jesuit, FrancescoMaria  Grimaldi and was published in Riccioli's Almagestum Novum (Bologna, 1651. Riccioli's chapter concerning the moon contains two large maps (28 cm in diameter), one of which shows for the first time the effects of very slow and introduces new lunar nomenclature. Almost all of his notes/ books for lunar objects are still in use today. Jesuit astronomers in Rome such as Riccioli were able to gather information from their former schools in China and India concerning lunar and solar eclipses as well as transits of Venus. This information enabled Riccioli to compose a table of 2,700 coordinate table objects, not able to compare more accurate than anything previously known.