Paolo Guidotti

He was described as having a ingegno bizzarro, brave or whimsical depending on your interpretation, since he claimed to have designed a flying machine, or parachute, but succeeded only in breaking a leg.

He completed a series of sculptures for Pope Paul V, who allowed him to adopt the surname Borghese, and made him conservator of the Campidoglio and leader (principe) of the Accademia San Luca.

Somewhat of a polymath, he made the preparations for the ornamentation surrounding the canonization in 1622 of Isidore the Laborer, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Filippo Neri, and Saint Teresa of Ávila.

He contrived wings of whalebone in the most ingenious manner, which he covered with down, and giving them sufficient folds by means of springs, joined them under his arms; and having made a number of trials in private, determined at length to make a public exhibition.

Oliver of Malmesbury, an English Benedictine, and good mechanic, in 1060, Bacville, a Jesuit of Padua, a Theatine of Paris, and a number of others, have all been thus desirous of soaring into the regions of air, and have all been equally successful.