Giovanni Antonio Magini (in Latin, Maginus) (13 June 1555 – 11 February 1617) was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician.

[2] In 1588 he was chosen over Galileo Galilei to occupy the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna after the death of Egnatio Danti.

The Maginian System consisted of eleven rotating spheres, which he described in his Novæ cœlestium orbium theoricæ congruentes cum observationibus N. Copernici (Venice, 1589).

[3] As a cartographer, his life's work was the preparation of Italia or the Atlante geografico d'Italia (Geographic Atlas of Italy), printed posthumously by Magini's son in 1620.

The Duke of Mantua, to whom the atlas is dedicated, assisted him with this project and allowed for maps of the various states of Italy to be brought to Magini.

Magini collaborated closely with Valentine Naibod, and in this book he published De annui temporis mensura in Directionibus[5] and De Directionibus[6] from Naibod's unfinished manuscript Claudii Ptolemaei Quadripartitae Constructionis Apotelesmata Commentarius novus et Eiusdem Conversio nova.