Pedro Peralta y Barnuevo

Pedro Peralta y Barnuevo (Lima, 26 November 1663 – 30 April 1743) was an Enlightenment-era Peruvian mathematician, cosmographer, historian, scholar, poet, and astronomer, and was considered a polymath.

He was the brother of José de Peralta Barnuevo, Bishop of Buenos Aires.

He mastered Latin, Greek, French, Portuguese, Italian, English and Quechua, and had in his library works that reveal an all-embracing curiosity: grammar, poliorcetics, astronomy and metallurgy, among others.

He was a member of the Académie des sciences of Paris, because of his decision to collaborate in a very important Franco-Spanish geodesic expedition, and the head of the expedition, begun in 1735, was the French naturalist and geographer Charles Marie de la Condamine.

It was sought (and was done after long and very careful work), determine the length of the meridian arc, and numerous observations of the nature of that area were also carried out.