Bartolomeu de Gusmão

EARLY CATHOLIC AVIATORS, part II: BARTOLOMEU DE GUSMAO

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Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685-1724) was a Brazilian-born Portuguese priest who invented the first working aerostat.

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In 1709, he gave a demonstration of a small hot-air balloon before the Royal Court in Lisbon. His designs for a larger, manned airship (which he named Passarola) were never realized. His original notebooks survive; select pages appear below.

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The LION & the CARDINAL

Yes, come tell me stories about how the Montgolfier brothers figured out, looking at their fireplace, that something that could retain hot air, could also rise up into the skies a given weight...

Bartolomeu de Gusmão have discovered it more that seventy years before... it was suficient to read his writings on the subject. Even if the Passarola gadget could never work, it launched the basic elements for a manned hot air baloon to be able to fly, once built.