Euler's beta integral in Pietro Mengoli's works (Q1031944)

Pietro Mengoli (1626--1686) was a Bolognese mathematician and priest, a colleague of the famous Bonaventura Cavalieri. After Cavalieri died in 1647, Mengoli succeeded him as a professor at the University of Bologna, where he remained for the rest of his life. As described in the current paper, one of Mengoli's aims was to calculate the area of a semicircle with a unit diameter, which corresponds to evaluating the integral \(\int_0^1 \sqrt{x(1-x)}\,\text{d}x\). But Mengoli has in fact solved a much more general problem of evaluating integrals \(\int_0^1 \sqrt{x^p(1-x)^q}\,\text{d}x\), where \(p\), \(q\) are arbitrary integers. His results were published in two works, \textit{Geometriae Speciosae Elementa} (1659) and \textit{Circolo} (1672). If not completely rigorous, Mengoli's method is highly original. First, by a combination of the method of indivisibles and his own theory of ``quasi-proportions'', he has obtained the result \[ \int_0^1 x^n(1-x)^{m-n}\,\text{d}x={1\over (m+1){m\choose n}} \] (where \(m\), \(n\) are integers). Second, he was able to interpolate the binomial triangle to obtain the values of \({m/2\choose n/2}\). The previous result then generalizes to \[ \int_0^1 \sqrt{x^n(1-x)^{m-n}}\,\text{d}x={1\over (m/2+1){m/2\choose n/2}}. \] Seventy years later, the integral \[ \int_0^1 x^{p-1}(1-x)^{q-1}\,\text{d}x \] (where \(p\) and \(q\) are arbitrary positive numbers) was considered by Leonhard Euler and is now well known as the beta function. The authors point out that Mengoli's results are difficult to read; they were certainly known to Leibniz, but probably not to Euler. Nevertheless, Mengoli should be considered as one of the pioneers in the history of the beta integral and beta function.