Pierre Varignon (Caen 1654 – 23 December 1722 Paris) was a French mathematician. He was educated at the Jesuit College and the University in Caen, where he received his M.A. in 1682. He took Holy Orders the following year.Varignon gained his first exposure to mathematics by reading Euclid and then Descartes' La Géométrie. He became professor of mathematics at the Collège Mazarin in Paris in 1688 and was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences in the same year.