{"title":"Mathematics","description":"\u003cp\u003eArithmetic, geometry, algebra, and the study of numbers, structures, and mathematical theory.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"reisch-gregorius","title":"REISCH, Gregorius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Gallucci s translation of Gregorius Reich s celebrated and beautifully illustrated encyclopedia with additional material in this edition by Gallucci and including the revisions by the mathematician Oronce Fine from 1535, and some of the additions of the 1512 Strasbourg edition, such as Martin Waldseemüller's treatises on architecture and perspective, and Masha'allah's composition of the astrolabe. The Margarita philosophica (the Philosophic pearl) is a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia which was widely used as a university textbook in the early sixteenth century, particularly in Germany; it takes the form of a dialogue between master and pupil - the pupil asks elementary questions and the master answers them in depth. It gives us an intriguing insight into the university curriculum and state of learning and scientific knowledge at the start of the C16th and here in a much revised form in the late C16th. Its author, Gregor Reisch (c.1467-1525), a Carthusian monk and a friend of many of the most celebrated Humanists of his era including, Erasmus, Beatus and Rheananus, was prior of the Charterhouse of St John the Baptist near Freiburg-im-Breisgau from 1503 to 1525 and was confessor and counsellor to the Emperor Maximilian I. He was educated at the University of Freiburg where he received the degree of magister in 1489 and also taught there. The Margarita was conceived as a textbook for his students at Freiburg, among whom were many influential figures of the German Renaissance, notably the theologian Johann Eck. Reisch's text is divided into twelve chapters. The traditional subjects of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy) each have a chapter devoted to them. Four of the five remaining chapters are concerned with natural philosophy and cover such things as the elements, meteorology, alchemy, the plant and animal kingdoms, optics and memory as well as heaven, hell and purgatory. The final chapter concerns moral philosophy. The additions in this edition are added at the end, a further 300 odd pages, each supplementing a chapter of the main work. The usefulness of the book as an educational tool is much enhanced by a detailed index and the liberal use of marvelous woodcut illustrations. There are two issues of this edition, with apparently no priority, one with Barezzi's imprint, and another with Somascho's which is more common institutionally. A very good copy of this wonderful and beautifully illustrated educational encyclopedia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REISCH, Gregorius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068096335,"sku":"L1138","price":7250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1138-1.jpg?v=1781795327"},{"product_id":"briggs-henry","title":"BRIGGS, Henry","description":"\u003cp\u003e1st edn. of the first complete set of trigonometrical tables, \"containing the natural sines, tangents and secants to the one hundredth part of a degree and to 15 places, which have never been superseded by any subsequent calculations\". The work arose out of discussions between Briggs, professor of geometry at Gresham College, and the great Scots mathematician John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, who in 1614 had published his 'Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio'. Napier agreed to suggestions by Briggs for adapting his invention more readily to the construction of tables, and the result, entailing prodigious labour, was Briggs's 'Arithmetica Logarithmica' (1624) and the present work. It is clear that the scale of logarithms now in use, in which 1 is the logarithm of the ratio 10 to 1; 2 that of 100 to 1, etc., is due to Briggs, and that Napier's role consisted simply in advising him to commence at 1 and make the logarithms increase, rather than decrease, with the natural numbers. Briggs is certainly the originator of the principle of logarithms having 10 for their base. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n On his death in 1630 the 'Trigonometria' was still unfinished, but was completed by his friend Henry Gellibrand, professor of astronomy at the same college, who added a preface explaining the application of logarithms to plane and spherical trigonometry. They also proved highly useful in the advance of systematic geography and navigation, and among the pioneers in this field who benefited from Briggs's friendship and special knowledge were Samuel Purchas, Capt. Luke Fox and Edward Wright. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"He [Briggs] was a man of the first importance in the intellectual history of his age  He published many books on arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry, as well as tables for navigation . But, significant though Briggs was as a mathematician in his own right, his greatest importance was as a contact and public relations man\". He was at the center of a group that included William Gilbert, Edward Wright, Thomas Blundeville, Aaron Rathborne, Mark Ridley, Robert Hues, Hackluyt, and John Pell amongst many. \"Briggs seems to have been the first person to appreciate the significance of Napier's invention of logarithms  and from his interview with Napier onwards Briggs used all Gresham College's resources to popularise this discovery  It has recently been claimed that in calculating his logarithms Briggs used results equivalent to the Binomial Expansion, whose discovery is normally attributed to Newton.\" ..\"Gellibrand (1597-1637) another friend and prot ég é of Brigg's, completed his master's work on logarithmic trigonometry tables: wrote on navigation; and demonstrated the secular variation of magnetic declination. His work was known to Mersenne. \" C. Hill. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy with excellent provenance; Lord Arundell of Wardour (1606- 1694) commanded gallantly for Charles I in the civil war, was employed by Charles II in arranging the negotiations for the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV, was imprisoned for five years in the Tower during the Titus Oates hysteria, appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal under James II and remarkably died in his bed at the age of 88.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRIGGS, Henry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816077599055,"sku":"L1000","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1000-Briggs-3.jpg?v=1781795323"},{"product_id":"meursius-johannes","title":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this neo-pythagorian treatise on numbers by the renowned classicist Johannes Meursius in a lovely contemporary armorial binding from the extraordinary collection of Jacques Auguste de Thou. De Thou (1553-1617), scholar and historian, the greatest French book collector of his day, of whom it was long said that a man had not seen Paris who had not seen the library of de Thou. He of course died before 1631, but his son frequently added to his father s collection and continued to use the final form of his father s arms on the bindings of his acquisitions. Johanne Meurius (Van Meurs) was a Dutch classical scholar and antiquary. In 1610 he was appointed professor of Greek and history at Leiden, and in the following year historiographer to the States-General of the Netherlands. As a result of the upheavals caused by the eighty years war he accepted the offer, in 1625, of Christian IV of Denmark to become professor of history and politics at Soro, in Zealand, combined with the office of historiographer royal, in which role he produced a Latin history of Denmark (1630 38), Historia Danica. This rare and unusual neo-pythagorian work is a short treatise on the significance of numbers.  Photius, in his Bibliotheca, has preserved to us part of a valuable work, written by Nicomachus the Pythagorean, entitled Theological Arithmetic; in which he ascribes particular epithets, and the names of various divinities to numbers, as far as to ten. There is likewise a curious work of the same title, by an anonymous writer, which is extant only in manuscript. From these two, and from occasional passages respecting numbers according to Pythagoras, found in the Platonic writers, Meursius has composed a book, which he calls Denarius Pythagoricus; and which is an invaluable treatise to such as are studious of the ancient philosophy.  Thomas Taylor.  The hymns of Orpheus.  George J Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover, (1797-1833) was a British politician and man of letters. He was elected a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society in 1816. In 1824 Agar-Ellis was the leading promoter of the grant of ¬£57,000 for the purchase of John Angerstein s collection of pictures, which formed the foundation of the National Gallery. A very good copy with most distinguished provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816083628367,"sku":"L1529","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.30.22PM.png?v=1782581507"},{"product_id":"moleti-giuseppe","title":"MOLETI, Giuseppe","description":"\u003cp\u003eMoleti (1531 - 1588) studied mathematics at the Jesuit college in Messina where he was a pupil of Maurolico, and published several works on geography and astronomy prior to his appointment as scientific tutor to the young prince of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga. His important Dialogue on Mechanics discusses the problem of the speed of falling bodies of different weights and anticipates the famous Tower of Pisa experiment of Galileo. In 1577 he took up the chair of mathematics at Padua and that year was asked his opinion by the Roman Congregation appointed  by Pope Gergory XIII to reform the Calendar: His response was the second work comprised here, composed to provide technical arguments in support of the exact correction of the calendar and its astronomical tables he named the 'Tabulae Gregorianae' in deference to the Pope. This treatise was then published as an appendix to the astronomical tables of the motions of the fixed stars, the sun and the moon, accompanied by an explanation of the rules of astronomical calculation of the Canons for the Gregorian Tables' proper use. Moleti rejected the traditional computation cycles, rebasing the calendar on the real motions of the stars. Moleti's work did not find favour with his scientific peers but was much appreciated in Rome (to the tune of 300 Ducats) where the Pope asked him to continue his computations with the motions of the other planets. Moleti's tables were calculated on the basis of the Copernican system which, he was the first to realise, Copernicus had based on the exact movements of the heavenly bodies, which was not the case with the earlier Alphonsine tables. This was the earliest practical use by an Italian astronomer of Copernican theory. The resulting Gregorian calendar of course, remains standard to this day. A most attractive copy of an important and very handsome book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MOLETI, Giuseppe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816113611087,"sku":"L1734","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0078.jpg?v=1781795309"},{"product_id":"zuchetta-giovanni-battista","title":"ZUCHETTA, Giovanni Battista","description":"Rare first and only early edition of this handsomely produced, important, arithmetical textbook devoted to practical and commercial arithmetic and a leader in its field. Although described as 'Prima Parte' it is in fact the only part ever printed.\r \r Zuchetta was a mathematician from Genoa; in his preface he apologizes to the reader for writing in his provincial 'Genoese' rather than the by now general Tuscan. \"The 'Prologo' is a curious dissertation on the 'Arti Scienze, \u0026amp; altro,' with some ninety-eight arguments to show the need for arithmetic on the part of all classes of humanity. The farmer, the musician, the thief, the cook, the prelate, all are shown to have need of number; and Nature, Intelligence and even God himself make use of it. The book presupposes a knowledge of the arithmetic of integers, and opens with a treatment of fractions. The rule of three, in all of its forms, and with the most unbusinesslike numbers, is then discussed at great length and this is followed by various complications of the Regoladel Cattaino, 'cosi detta da gli Arabi inventori di quello, ch'in lingua nostra significa falso posizione'. The latter part of the book [everything after p. 175] treats of such topics as partnership, barter and alligation.\"(Smith, cit. infra) Much of the text deals with mercantile transactions, especially those involving more than one currency and tables of exchange rates are given for all the major trading centres likely to be of interest to Italian merchants - a full page is given of the currency rates in London, 'sterlini' against the principal Italian currencies. Apart from its obvious mathematical interest (though it produced or developed no new theories) the work is obviously of considerable interest to the social, economic and legal historian.\r \r Antonio Orsetti evidently had a significant library, particularly of scientific and mathematical works, as an appreciable number can still be traced. He was clearly acquiring quite systematically in the first part of the 17th C, regrettably however we have discovered nothing more about him.\r \r Scevolini Domenico, mathematician of XVI century was one of the last and most thoughtful proponents of judicial astrology in Italy before the suppression of the art by the index and the inquisition.","brand":"ZUCHETTA, Giovanni Battista","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816116429135,"sku":"L946","price":4750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L946-1.jpg?v=1781795307"},{"product_id":"sfortunati-giovanni","title":"SFORTUNATI, Giovanni","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of this influential arithmetic. Sfortunati  was a popular writer, as the seven editions of his book go to prove. His work is fairly complete as to the operations with integers and fractions, and is satisfactory as to the examples illustrating the Italian business life of the 16th century. The treatise closes with some work in practical mensuration and some mercantile tables  Smith.  The elaborate introduction to Giovanni Sfortunati's 1534 New Beacon, a Book of Arithmetic pointed to these new linguistic and market conditions. Sfortunati (b. ca. 1500) introduced himself as a Sienese schoolmaster who had taught arithmetic all over Italy and Sicily. He was a native speaker of Tuscan, then, but one with broad experience of other Italian students. This self-advertisement quickly turned into a claim that he was uniquely qualified to review the older arithmetic books on the market by way of recommending his own. He praised Luca Pacioli's Summa but noted that it contained too much that was not useful for merchants. Similarly Filippo Calandri's book was very learned but did not explain elementary notions well enough to be truly useful for beginners.   Sfortunati then turned to Borghi's Libro de abacho. Fifty years old and well established in the market, Borghi's manual was the principal competition for any new elementary arithmetic book in 1534. Sfortunati claimed to have read it many times, implying perhaps that he had been constrained to teach from it. He rejected it because it was written in rough Venetian dialect and described Venetian business practices that were of little use to Tuscans or other Italians. Despite his claims, however, Sfortunati's arithmetic book was also highly traditional. There was little to differentiate it from Borghi's treatment except his good Tuscan.  Humanism for Sale. Making and Marketing Schoolbooks in Italy, 1450-1650. A lovely copy bound in a beautiful early vellum leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SFORTUNATI, Giovanni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126456143,"sku":"L1827","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.44.06PM.png?v=1782582292"},{"product_id":"gunter-edmund","title":"GUNTER, Edmund","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy, remarkably complete with all parts as issued, including the volvelle in an uncut state, of this important scientific work, in a contemporary binding. This is effectively the first edition of the collected works of Gunter.  Gunter was a firm advocate of the use of instruments in mathematics for easing the work of various mathematical practitioners, notably surveyors and navigators. His instruments were designed with these aims in mind. In particular his work on logarithms, their applications to trigonometry, and their inclusion on instruments greatly simplified the processes of mathematical calculation. His books were popular for many years after his death: an edition of all his works was produced by Samuel Foster in 1636 and this had three more editions, the last in 1680 .  DNB.  Gunter's works, written in English, reflected the practical nature of his teaching and linked the more scholarly work of his time with everyday needs; the tools he provided were of immense value long afterward.  DSB. As an undergraduate, Gunter developed a strong interest in mathematics and in mathematical instruments. He wrote a manuscript  New Projection of the Sphere  in his final year and this brought him to the attention of a number of leading mathematicians of the time including Henry Briggs. Gunter published seven figure tables of logarithms of sines and tangents in 1620; an English translation was published in the same year. Although the words sine and tangent were already in use, Gunter invented the words cosine and cotangent. This was the first ever publication of logarithms of trigonometric functions and Gunter deserves much credit for this innovation. He also made a mechanical device, Gunter's rule, to multiply numbers based on the logs using a single scale and a pair of dividers. It was called the 'gunter' by seamen and was an important step in the development of the slide rule. Gunter published his description in 1623 in the  Description and Use of the Sector, the Crosse-staffe and other Instruments . This book must be reckoned, by every standard, to be the most important work on the science of navigation to be published in the seventeenth century. It opened the whole subject of mathematical application to navigation and nautical astronomy to every mariner who was sufficiently interested in devoting time to the perfecting of his art.  C H Cotter,  Edmund Gunter (1581-1626), Journal of Navigation .  What Briggs did for logarithms of numbers, Gunter did for logarithms of trigonometrical functions. In fact, he introduced the terms cosine, cotangent and cosectant for the sine, tangent and secant of complementary angles. Gunter's most important book was his Description and use of the Sector. .. A sector is a mathematical instrument which consists of two hinged rulers on which there are engraved scales. The scales allow various questions in trigonometry to be resolved by using the property that two similar(equiangular) triangles have sides in a constant ratio. The issue of who first invented by the sector is not without controversy. ... What singles out Gunter's sector is that it is the first mathematical instrument to be inscribed with a logarithmic scale to facilitate the resolution of numerical problems. This is not a slide rule in any sense of the term; the single logarithmic scale is used in conjunction with a pair of compasses. Such a rule is frequently referred to as a Gunter line. A two foot long boxwood ruler inscribed with a variety of scales was a standard navigator's tool up until the end of the nineteenth century. \" C J Sangwin; Edmund Gunter and the Sector. ; The English Experience. Isaac Newton owned a copy of this 1636 edn. purchased for 5 shillings in 1667 now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. A fine copy of this most important work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GUNTER, Edmund","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816140972367,"sku":"L2518","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2518.jpg?v=1781795179"},{"product_id":"peverone-giovan-francesco","title":"PEVERONE, Giovan Francesco","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce treatises on practical arithmetic and geometry, with important discussions of mathematical probability and geodetic triangulation. Born in Cuneo from a noble family, Giovan Francesco Peverone (1509-59) held numerous public offices including expert counsellor for the construction of hydraulic structures and fortifications. For his services to the city he was awarded the medal decorating the t-p of all editions of this work.  Arithmetica e geometria  is a reprint of  Due breui e facili trattati, il primo d arithmetica: l altro di geometria , first published by de Tournes in 1558. Whilst it reprised the structure and content of other such manuals produced on the Continent, it was the most influential which issued from the Piedmontese scholarly world an unusual and original background surfacing in many mathematical demonstrations referring to operations with  fiorini di Piemonte  or mathematical calculations of the area and physical shape of the Cuneo territory. The first part deals with practical arithmetic, i.e., basic operations, fractions ( broken numbers ) and roots applied to everyday situations, such as games. Peverone was among the first to examine the question of mathematical probability concerning the subdivision of money during a game of cards. Had he reached the correct conclusion one of the  great near misses of probability mathematics  he would have anticipated the results of Fermat and Pascal by over a century (Kendall,  Studies in the History of Probability , 1956). The second part is devoted to geometry and accompanied by handsome illustrations explaining how to measure towers, ditches and aqueducts. It is important for the description of contemporary instruments employed for measuring the land (e.g., the  planispherio geometrico  of Peverone s own invention) and the discussion of geodetic triangulation using Cuneo and other surrounding cities as reference points (Riccardi I\/1, 266). A scarce, unusual and original fruit of Renaissance mathematical culture in the North-Italian provinces.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEVERONE, Giovan Francesco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156176719,"sku":"L2886","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5085-copy.jpg?v=1781794910"},{"product_id":"jean-alexandre","title":"JEAN, Alexandre","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and charmingly executed didactic manual of commercial arithmetic in three parts; in this second edition Jean added a printed explanation of the working of the tables. The engraved title of the second part still bears the date of 1636 as it was probably made using sheets left over from the first edition, or the plates were reprinted from the original, without changing the dates. Alexandre Jean was a master writer and master of French arithmetic, born in about 1580, he was accepted, in 1609, in the  Communaut é des ma√Ætres  écrivains jur és  or the Company of master writers or calligraphers. He was renowned for making use of the the feather pen, with which he used to execute ornaments with thick lines in his calligraphy. He was a very good the example of those master writers who were also active in teaching and accounting, and he published several methods of arithmetic. He died in 1670 at Paris. This work is very finely executed, in the manner of a calligraphic work by a master writer.  In this second edition of the ready reckoner, a letterpress title page and introduction have been added to the engraved tables. The original engraved title page remains bound in after the introductory material. The work is a ready reckoner for the price of goods in multiples (from 1 to 20,000), and the second is a similar table for fractional amounts (if one unit costs 8 francs, then a half will cost 4 francs, etc.). Part 1 has an engraved title page bearing the date 1636, with the colophon dated 1637. There are also a few small tables of other items (squares etc.). All the tables are beautifully engraved, and many show the figures in what appear to be apothecary jars, palm leaves, etc. It is possible that the tables in part 2 actually represent the value of various measures of cloth as their heading (Fractions de Laune) can be interpreted as La une (one) or L aune (ells of cloth).  A rare work. USTC locates four copies of this enlarged edition. A very good copy from the exceptional mathematical library of Erwin Tomash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JEAN, Alexandre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156471631,"sku":"L3016\/2","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190406_155950.jpg?v=1781794909"},{"product_id":"jean-alexandre-1","title":"JEAN, Alexandre","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and charmingly executed didactic manual of commercial arithmetic in two parts all finely engraved. In this first edition the engraved title bears the date of 1636 but has the date 1637 on the colophon of the first part. Alexandre Jean was a master writer and master of French arithmetic, born in about 1580, he was accepted, in 1609, in the  Communaut é des ma√Ætres  écrivains jur és  or the Company of master writers or calligraphers. He was renowned for making use of the the feather pen, with which he used to execute ornaments with thick lines in his calligraphy. He was a very good the example of those master writers who were also active in teaching and accounting, and he published several methods of arithmetic, and a writing book. He died in 1670 at Paris. This work is very finely executed, in the manner of a calligraphic work  by a master writer.  This completely engraved work is in two parts. The first part is a ready reckoner for the price of goods in multiples (from 1 to 20,000), and the second is a similar table for fractional amounts (if one unit costs 8 francs, then a half will cost 4 francs, etc.). Part 1 has an engraved title page bearing the date 1636, with the colophon dated 1637. There are also a few small tables of other items (squares etc.). All the tables are beautifully engraved, and many show the figures in what appear to be apothecary jars, palm leaves, etc. It is possible that the tables in part 2 actually represent the value of various measures of cloth as their heading (Fractions de Laune) can be interpreted as La une (one) or L aune (ells of cloth).  An extremely rare work. USTC locates only one copy of this first edition at the BNF. A very good copy from the exceptional mathematical library of Erwin Tomash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JEAN, Alexandre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156569935,"sku":"L3016\/1","price":2000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190406_160523.jpg?v=1781794909"},{"product_id":"cataneo-pietro","title":"CATANEO, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eA most appealing copy of the first edition of this influential treatise on arithmetic and geometry  fairly practical and in many respects in advance of its time  (Smith,  Rara , 242). Pietro Cataneo (1510-74) was a mathematician from Siena with a side interest in architecture.  Le pratiche  provides fundamental knowledge of arithmetic and geometry for accounting. The first part discusses the four mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) including their applications in the counting of currency of different value and weight as well as applied problems based on real life e.g., the three jealous husbands who want to cross a river with their wives on a boat which can only hold two people at a time. The second is concerned with basic geometry, with a thorough examination of geometrical triangulation applied to measuring and subdividing allotments. The Florentine influence of his background surfaces in the choice of the word  biricuocolo  to mean multiplication (Smith,  Rara , 242). The slightly later annotator of this copy wrote on the final blank the procedure to extract the square and cube root of specific numbers. He also highlighted sections concerning gold and silver e.g., calculating the number of carats before and after refinery, and the proportion of precious metals in alloys. He was probably a teacher. For a couple of sections on the calculation of the quantity of wool as compared to the bags to transport it, the quantity of silver in coins and the payment of house rents he added his own alternative method, calling it  better  or  clearer for beginners . In another, on fractional subtraction, he said it seemed to him that  the author had not considered  the issue of what are known today as  continued fractions , a study of which did not appear in print until 1579.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATANEO, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156864847,"sku":"L3011","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/wholebook_053fb059-23f4-4394-aa8b-bd4bcb010789.png?v=1781794907"},{"product_id":"recorde-robert","title":"RECORDE, Robert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare early edition of this most important mathematical work of the sixteenth century in England, with Record s dedication to King Edward, edited and augmented after the author s death by John Dee. It was the standard arithmetic textbook of the period, passing through numerous editions until 1673, long after the work should have been obsolete. Dee s contributions were of a practical nature, being sections on foreign exchange and on foreign weights and measures. Dee also added a long poem  I.D. to the earnest Arithmetician  in which he promoted his  Mathematical Praeface  to Billingsley s English translation of Euclid (1570). Robert Recorde s Arithmetic: or, The Ground of Arts was one of the first printed English textbooks on arithmetic and the most popular of its time. The first edition of 1543 was preceded only by two other anonymous mathematical texts in 1537 and 1539. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Robert Recorde was born in Wales and attended both Oxford and Cambridge. Little is known of his early life, but records show him graduating Oxford in 1531 and elected a Fellow of All Souls College shortly thereafter. He disappears until 1545, when he graduated in medicine from Cambridge. Early in his career, he seems to have been physician to King Edward VI and Queen Mary. Two years later he had moved to London, and by 1549 he had been given the job of comptroller of the Bristol Mint. He undertook a position supervising the mint s silver mines in Ireland from 1551 to 1553. Evidently this enterprise was a failure in that the mines were unproductive and expenses high. By 1556, Recorde was attempting to reestablish himself in court life. Presumably because of circumstances in Ireland, he laid charges against the Earl of Pembroke. Doing this proved to be a strategic error because whatever the truth of the situation, Pembroke was a powerful nobleman. Recorde lost his case and in turn was sued for libel by Pembroke. Being unable to pay the judgment of ¬£1,000 against him, he was put into the King s Bench prison, where he died a year later. A summary of this sad tale was written by a former owner on a blank page just before the beginning of the text on arithmetic. Record is known to have published a number of textbooks on mathematical subjects and at least one on medicine. He is said, by others, to have had several more in manuscript that are now lost. He is most famous for his mathematical books and is usually considered as the founder of English mathematical writing. He was a scholar of Latin and Greek who attempted to find appropriate English terms for technical words in those languages. His books were always logically arranged, with the fundamental principles discussed before addressing more sophisticated questions. Recorde published his books in the order in which he considered their study to be most appropriate. First came The Ground of Artes, an arithmetic text, in 1543. The Pathway to Knowledge, a translation of the first four books of Euclid s Elements, followed in 1551. The Castle of Knowledge, an astronomy text, introduced the Copernican system to English readers in 1556. Last in the sequence, The Whetstone of Witte was the second, more sophisticated part of his arithmetic and introduced the subject of algebra and equations in 1557. This volume, first published in 1543 and enlarged for the edition of 1552, was written in the form of a dialogue between master and pupil, proved to be very popular.. The work was transitional in nature and considers arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic notation as well as the table abacus. The first edition covered the basic operations and the conversion of money (i.e., reduction of pounds, shillings and pence into pence, etc.) and the rule of three (here called the golden rule). The later editions included discussion of fractions, the rule of false position and similar refinements. There is also a small section on the use of finger numerals. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Extremely rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RECORDE, Robert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816157258063,"sku":"K162","price":24000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K162-1.jpg?v=1781794907"},{"product_id":"tagliente-giovanni-antonio-and-girolamo","title":"[TAGLIENTE, Giovanni Antonio and Girolamo.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eRemarkably good copy of this very scarce edition of a most important treatise on arithmetic.  There were few textbooks as influential as this in shaping the subsequent teaching of arithmetic  (Smith,  Rara , p. 114). The brothers Giovanni Antonio (c.1460-1524) and Girolamo (fl. late C15-early C16) Tagliente were Venetian mathematicians; the former was also a printer known for the production of very successful manuals on calligraphy, embroidery patterns, methods for learning reading and accounting. First published in 1515 and reprinted at least twenty times in the course of the C16,  Libro  was addressed to Venetians wishing to learn the  virtu della Arithmetica  and the  arte de la Geometria  in order to practice the  arte de la mercantia . After a discussion of notation and the ancient practice of counting with finger symbols, illustrated with woodcut tables, it proceeds to the four mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication) discussing additionally the proof of seven, fractions and the rule of three. Specific applications to problems are presented in narrative form and illustrated with woodcuts of everyday life situations: e.g., a Jewish moneylender s interest for a given time and a given sum, the differing speed of a boat heading to Cyprus using 40 or 36 oars and gain from the sale of a variety of goods. A second section explains how to use geometry to measure allotments or buildings, whilst the final pages present a conversion table for Venetian ducats in relation to Italian and foreign currencies. A fascinating work illuminating arithmetical education for the Venetian mercantile classes at the commercial apex of the Serenissima.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[TAGLIENTE, Giovanni Antonio and Girolamo.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816157421903,"sku":"K164","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K164-8.jpg?v=1781794904"},{"product_id":"fabri-ottavio","title":"FABRI, Ottavio","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the first edition of this important work on the application of triangulation. Ottavio Fabri (fl. late C16-early C17) was an Italian mathematician of whom little is known. His greatest contribution to the discipline, immortalized in this work, was the invention of the  squadra mobile , a brass geometrical instrument to  measure, level and transfer onto paper every distance, height and depth , with applications in astronomy, geometry and the measuring of terrain. The edition was printed in two issues with differing preliminaries, though no priority has been established. The first section is devoted to measurements and includes comparisons between units used in different cities (the  Braccio toscano  in Florence, the  Tornadure  in Cervia) or countries ( Piedi  in France and the Trevigian  Pertica  in Cologne). He proceeds to explain the construction of the instrument; this part was illustrated by an engraved plate portraying the  squadra mobile , absent in most copies. The best material for the instrument, he found, is copper, a piece of which  as thick as a knife s back  can be bought  from any ironmonger in town . He even advertised the best craftsman in Venice to assemble the instrument,  M. Battista degli Horologli  in his Spadaria shop, who made clocks and scales. The rest, illustrated with handsome engravings, explains the most common applications of the instruments in measuring from various positions the distance, depth and height, in relative and absolute terms, of buildings, hills, allotments, etc. The  squadra mobile  could even be used to map a city s area without a compass both from inside or outside its walls. Illustration XIII pasted on p. 37 appears to have been an editorial afterthought as it is also found in the NYPL copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FABRI, Ottavio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160207183,"sku":"L3013","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Fabri-L3013-1.jpg?v=1781794900"},{"product_id":"gellibrand-henry","title":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this important and influential work on trigonometry, with most interesting contemporary provenance. Gellibrand had been a student at Trinity College, Oxford, when he was introduced to mathematics and became acquainted with Henry Briggs. After graduation he was ordained and took a job as curate in a small town in Kent. When Edmund Gunter died in 1626, Gellibrand applied for his post as professor of astronomy at Gresham College and was elected in early 1627. One of his sponsors was Henry Briggs, and Gellibrand repaid the debt by completing the second volume of Briggs  Trigonometria Britannica and seeing it through the press after Briggs died in 1630.  He .. became a friend of Henry Briggs, on whose recommendation he was chosen professor of astronomy at Gresham College, 2 Jan. 1626 7. Briggs dying in 1630 he left his unfinished  Trigonometria Britannica  to Gellibrand. Gellibrand held puritan meetings in his rooms, and encouraged his servant, William Beale, to publish an almanack for 1631, in which the popish saints were superseded by those in Foxe s  Book of Martyrs.  Laud, then bishop of London, cited them both into the high commission court. They were acquitted on the ground that similar almanacks had been printed before, Laud alone dissenting, and this prosecution formed afterwards one of the articles exhibited against him at his own trial. In 1632 Gellibrand completed Briggs s manuscript, and published it in 1633 as  Trigonometria Britannica  According to Ward, an English translation of Gellibrand s book was published in 1658 by John Newton as the second part of a folio with the same title. During 1633 he also contributed  An Appendix concerning Longitude  to  The strange and dangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas James,  4to, 1633, which has been frequently reprinted. Gellibrand died of fever 16 Feb. 1636, and was buried in the church of St. Peter the Poor, Broad Street, London.  DNB. Gellibrand is also known for his discovery of magnetic declination and for application of mathematics and astronomy to practical problems of navigation. This book contains two brief expositions on plane and spherical triangles followed by a major section consisting of trigonometric functions, logarithms and navigational and astronomical tables. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Sir Lewis Dyve (1599 1669) was an English Member of Parliament and a Royalist during the English Civil War; he was knighted in 1620 and was one of the attendants of Prince Charles at Madrid. He was elected MP for Bridport in the Parliaments of 1625 and 1626, and for Weymouth in that of 1628. Dyve fought for the Royalist cause and was captured at the siege of Sherborne, later imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1645 to 1647. Being moved to the King s Bench, he escaped, but was recaptured at Preston. Imprisoned in Whitehall he escaped once more, according to his own account on the very day he was to have been executed; John Evelyn records in his Diary on 6 September 1651 that Dyve dined with him and related the story of his  leaping down out of a jakes two stories high into the Thames at high water, in the coldest of winter, and at night; so as by swimming he got to a boat that attended for him, though he was guarded by six musketeers. Dyve then made his way to Ireland where he once more served with the Royal forces; in 1650 he published an account of events in that country during the previous two years. He lost much of his fortune through his loyalty to the Crown, but also in part due to heavy gambling: in 1668, the year before he died, Samuel Pepys called him disapprovingly  a great gamester . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of this rare work. ESTC cites two copies recorded in the US only; at the Folger and Huntington.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160403791,"sku":"L3015","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3015-2.jpg?v=1781794899"},{"product_id":"euclid-2","title":"EUCLID","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis outstanding copy was printed on blue paper for presentation. No copies on blue paper of this edition are recorded in major bibliographies or at US libraries. Intended as a substitute for parchment, blue paper was first employed by Aldus, and perfected by Giolito, for  deluxe  copies prepared for important personalities. It became an increasingly widespread practice with selected copies of particularly scientific and architectural works in the course of the C16. The translator and commentator of this edition, Federico Commandino, had also overseen the printing on blue paper of a limited Latin edition of Euclid s  Elements  in 1572. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very rare copy, on blue paper, of the first Italian translation of Euclid s  Elements  edited by Federico Commandino. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the works of ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin (and later vernacular) renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical theories from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. The fifteen books of the work, the last two of which are now considered spurious, discuss plane and solid geometry, the theory of proportion and the properties of rational and irrational numbers. Euclid s  Elements  was commonly used in schools for centuries and is  the oldest mathematical textbook in the world  (PMM 25). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to an early mathematician who wrote a long marginal re-phrasing of a corollary. Between the late C18 and early C19, it was in the collection of the bibliophile Count Remigio Filiberto Costa della Trinit√†.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EUCLID","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160862543,"sku":"K135","price":39500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K135-5.jpg?v=1781794897"},{"product_id":"digges-leonard-digges-thomas","title":"DIGGES, Leonard [DIGGES, Thomas]","description":"Second and best edition of Thomas Digges  fundamental mathematical work, revised and expanded from the edition of 1571, and the first description of many important theories and techniques in English. Digges (1546-1595) was the son of the mathematician and surveyor Leonard Digges (1520-1559), inventor of the theodolite and perhaps also of the telescope. Thomas produced revised or augmented editions of several of his father s works.\r \r  This edition is essentially identical to the first with two significant additions by Thomas Digges: the Mathematicall discourse of the five Platonicall solides  and the first treatment of the science of ballistics in English. Also added to Book I is a short chapter (three leaves) on surveying in mines. Leonard Digges published a small book on practical surveying in 1556, but this more ambitious work was still in manuscript when he died. Thomas, his son, further extended the work and had it published. The early material is essentially that to be found in the works of such authors as Gemma Frisius and Peter Apian (quadrants, astrolabes with shadow scales, etc.). However this book, and his earlier work Tectonicon, are the first descriptions of the application of these instruments written in English. All of the early instruments rely on the use of right-angle triangles in establishing a survey. Digges deals with a different type of survey instrument in a later part of this volume. This is the first description and illustration of the theodolite the name being coined by Digges in this work. This device consisted of a table with an angle- sighting device mounted above it. .  Another intriguing feature of this work is that Digges, in Chapter 21 of the first book, discusses the use of various optical devices and claims that:    ye may by applycation of glasses in due proportion cause any peculiare house, or roume thereof dilate and shew it selfe in as ample fourme as the whole towne firste appeared, so that ye shall descerne any trifle, or read any letter lying there open   Digges senior had obviously been experimenting with a magnifying lens, and it seems very likely that he invented the telescope about a half-century before it was unambiguously described in Holland in 1608. The first book, titled Longimetra, is a treatise on surveying using the quadrant, square and theodolite. The subsequent books, Planimetra and Stereometra, cover plane and solid geometry and their use in the calculation of area and volume particularly gauging.  Tomash \u0026amp; Williams\r \r The Pantometria provides a complete course in practical geometry, from the fundamentals ( A Line is a length without breadth or thicknesse ) to the most complex theorems. Digges provides numerous examples throughout, taking the reader through the steps of each calculation. The work concludes with the first appearance of Digges  work on ballistics, a new addition to the present edition.  He was able, on the basis of his own and his father s experiments, to disprove many commonly held erroneous ideas in ballistics but was not able to develop a mathematical theory of his own. These appendixes constitute the first serious ballistics studies in England  (DSB).\r \r A very fine copy of this most important work.","brand":"DIGGES, Leonard [DIGGES, Thomas]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162107727,"sku":"K158","price":50000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K158-3.jpg?v=1781794892"},{"product_id":"wingate-edmund","title":"WINGATE, Edmund","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the third edition of this rare work on logarithms. In 1624, when Wingate was in France, he produced a short tract on logarithms in which he indicates:  I had the happinesse to be the first transporter of the use of these inventions into those parts.  In 1626, he translated his French work into English and it became the first edition of this book. In the preface he indicates that it is nothing more than a condensation of the work of Henry Briggs  Arithmetic logarithmica, which he must have acquired shortly before he left London as it was only published in 1624. This is the third edition (all of them edited by Wingate). It consists of a series of twenty-eight problems covering everything from simple multiplication to spherical geometry, followed by an appendix containing another forty-six problems in which he briefly discusses, usually in one sentence, the rule for finding the answer. The tables were apparently printed separately, perhaps for a French edition in 1635. They have French titles on both the tables and the column headings. The paper also has a different watermark from that used to print the text. Wingate s work on arithmetic  Of natural and artificial arithmetick  was used in many English schools and remained in print for more than a century. It established Wingate s name as a writer of texts and did more for his reputation than any of his more advanced works on logarithms or instruments. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Wingate was born in Yorkshire and studied law at Oxford. Although he remained a lawyer, he was an avid amateur mathematician and writer of mathematical texts. He spent twenty-six years in Paris, where, among other things, he was tutor to the French princess Henrietta Maria. It was during his early days in Paris that he published two works (Construction, description et usage de la règle de proportion, 1624, and Arithm étique logarithmique, 1626) that introduced logarithms to the French. He returned to England in 1650 and entered politics but continued to write on mathematical subjects. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  After groundbreaking publications by the British mathematicians John Napier and Henry Briggs, Edmund Wingate, an English mathematician who was temporally based in Paris, emphasised the power of the combination of decimal fractions and common logarithms   that is to say, logarithms to the base of 10   to assist practitioners, such as surveyors navigators and carpenters , to make the kind of calculations that they were likely to need to make in their daily workplace. On returning to England, Wingate wrote a text designed for use in schools, in which he advocated the application of decimal fractions and logarithms as a way of simplifying calculations. M.A. Clements  Thomas Jefferson and his Decimals 1775 1810.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WINGATE, Edmund","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164139343,"sku":"L3024","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190622_175801.jpg?v=1781794880"},{"product_id":"tunstall-cuthbert-1","title":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first English book wholly on arithmetic, by the great Catholic humanist, Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559). The work was Tunstall s farewell to secular scholarship as he was made Bishop of London a few days after its publication, and thereafter Lord Privy Seal. He wrote it so that his friends could make their own calculations and no longer be cheated by money changers. It is designed as a practical work on arithmetic with the emphasis on commercial transactions, undoubtedly based on models Tunstall encountered during his studies in Padua.  The book includes many business applications of the day, such as partnership, profit and loss and exchange. It also includes the rule of false, the rule of three and numerous applications of these and other rules. It is, however, the work of a scholar and a classicist rather than a businessman.  Smith p.134, It is dedicated to his particular friend Thomas More, who, the previous year had been appointed sub-Treasurer of England, because there was no more appropriate dedicatee than the man engaged in supervising the finances of the King This was also the return of the compliment which, six years earlier, More had paid Tunstall in the opening lines of the Utopia. The work was actually rather too scholarly for ordinary businessmen and it was not reprinted in England. However, it achieved some success on the continent and Rabelais (Oeuvres II 222) mentions it as required reading for the young Gargantua in Paris; it was also prescribed as an arithmetical study text in the Oxford statues of 1549, (together with Cardano). The dedicatory epistle to M[ore], gives an interesting picture of M[ore] and Tunstall  Gibson 157. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Cuthbert Tunstall began his studies in Oxford but soon moved to Cambridge because of the plague. He later studied Canon and Roman law at Padua. He held several appointments in Henry VIII s court and was made Bishop of London only a few days after this work was published. This is the first complete work on arithmetic to be published in England. It was preceded only by a chapter in Caxton s Myrrour of the World, published in 1481. .. In content and structure the work resembles that by Luca Pacioli and other Continental arithmetics, which Tunstall undoubtedly encountered in Padua or during his extensive travels for Henry VIII. An unusual feature in the book is the separate tables for addition and subtraction as well as those usually found for multiplication. .. Robert Recorde s English language arithmetic appeared fifteen years later in 1537 and seems to have eclipsed Tunstall s work, at least in England. The title page is a revised version of one by Hans Holbein, whose initials can be seen on the left border. The woodcut was first used by a printer in Basel in 1516.  Erwin Tomash. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Michael Wodhull studied at Winchester school when Joseph Warton was second master; he later attended Brasenose College Oxford. He was high sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783. Wodhull wrote poetry, collected first editions of classics and incunabula, and contributed many items to the Gentleman s Magazine under the signature  L. L.  One of his Euripides translations appeared in an Everyman s Library edition. The character  Orlando  in Thomas Frognall Dibdin s Bibliomania is supposed to represent Wodhull. Dunn was a bibliophile who amassed a splendid library with particular strengths in early printing, law books and medieval manuscripts. His remarkable collection was sold in a number of sales between 1913 and 1917.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166007119,"sku":"K165","price":32500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_150525.jpg?v=1781794874"},{"product_id":"regiomontanus-iohannes","title":"REGIOMONTANUS, Iohannes.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very handsome copy of the rare enlarged third edition; De triangulis was Regiomontanus s most important scientific contribution. Completed in 1464, it remained in manuscript for nearly seventy years before being published in 1533 in Nuremberg by Johann Petri. It contains the earliest statement of the cosine law for spherical triangles, stating the proportionality of the sides of a plane triangle to the sines of the opposite angle. This fundamental proposition of spherical trigonometry appears as theorem 2 in book V of the treatise. In the second part, Regiomontanus proves the errors of Nicolaus de Cusa s theory of squaring the circle, which had a profound effect on the history of navigation. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The first systematic treatise on plane and spheric trigonometry to be published in Europe. Although it drew heavily on Arabic sources, those earlier treatises had been either lost or forgotten by 1533 when Regiomontanuss work was first printed. Among the notable contents of this work are the sine law and perhaps the first European application of algebra to trigonometry. Indeed with De triangulis trigonometry was established as an independent discipline. Regiomontanus  original purpose, however, had been to furnish astronomers with a mathematical technique essential for their studies, and in this De triangulis had a success perhaps greater than its author could have dreamed of. For in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus presented a copy of the work s 1533 edition as a gift to Copernicus. The great astronomer had already written the trigonometrically-based portion of his De Revolutionibus without knowledge of his predecessor s treatise. After reading the new book, Copernicus modified the presentation of several of his own indispensable theorems by inserting two leaves in the manuscript of the De Revolutionibus. Hence, Rheticus  remark that Regiomontanus began the reconstruction of astronomy that Copernicus completed takes on a fuller meaning  Rose,  The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics,   This edition is enlarged with by two early complementary treatises the  Tabula sinuum ad 6000000 partes per I. de Regiomonte computata  and the  Tractatus super propositiones Ptolemaei de sinubus et chordis  by Peurbach. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The second work in this volume is the first appearance of an expanded treatise by Santbech on astronomy. It deals with instruments for astronomical observation, and details various methods of measurement using Regiomontanus  work on triangles, described in the first work. It is interesting for its post Copernican perspective, who is cited in the work. Thomas Digges also cites the work in his  An Arithmeticall Militarie Treatise ; see Military Books, p. 23. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy from the extraordinary scientific library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REGIOMONTANUS, Iohannes.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816168989007,"sku":"L3088","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6668-scaled.jpg?v=1781794859"},{"product_id":"wells-john-with-briggs-henry","title":"WELLS, John [with] BRIGGS, Henry.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this important mathematical work, even rarer as the variant including the volume of Henry Briggs's Table of logarithms. Wells wrote this book on dialling in 1622, when it was read by his friends Briggs and Gunter, who urged him to publish. A preface \"To the Lover of the Mathematiques\" was contributed by Henry Gellibrand. According to ESTC, this is a \"variant\" of Wells's work \"issued with unsold sheets of logarithmic tables by H. Briggs and A. Vlacq, published at Gouda by P. Rammaseyn, 1626\", the title of which is, unusually, present here though slashed for cancellation. \u003cbr\u003e\n  John Wells was a London mathematician who specialized in the design of sundials. He was in close touch with the Gresham College mathematicians (Henry Briggs, Edmund Gunter and Henry Gellibrand) who worked with him on the more sophisticated issues that arose in designing accurate sundials, e.g., determining the correction needed due to variation of the compass, etc. In 1622, Wells wrote this book on dialing, which was so well regarded by Briggs and Gunter that they both urged him to publish it. Both men were particularly anxious to see it published because it represented a useful application of their newly calculated logarithmic tables (logs of numbers by Briggs and trigonometric logs by Gunter). Both Gresham professors died before this publication was accomplished, and it was at Henry Gellibrand s urging that Wells finally published this work. Of course it was necessary to have a set of logarithm tables bound in with the book. Adriaan Vlacq had worked with Ezechi‚àö¬¥l de Decker to produce logarithms of the integers. These had been published prior to Vlacq s famous 1628 tables. These tables had title pages in Dutch and French (and other languages). Unbound copies of these tables were obtained for binding with this volume. The plan was to bind them without their original title pages, and these were cut as a signal for the binder to discard them. This copy was accidentally bound with the cut title page (the French edition). Wells  intention that the title page be omitted is supported by the fact that it makes no reference to the logarithms of the trigonometric functions that follow the decimal logarithms. These latter are set in a different type and do not appear to be from de Decker or Vlacq. A likely attribution is to Edmund Gunter because the log sin of 0¬¨‚à´ 30 min. is correct in this table (as it is in Gunter s table of 1636 but is incorrect in Vlacq s table of 1628). Further information may be found in Tracts for Computer, No. XIII,  Bibliotheca Tabularum Mathematicarum (Part I Logarithmic Tables)  by James Henderson, Cambridge University Press, 1926.   Tomash, Williams,  The Erwin Tomash Library on the History of Computing. An Annotated and Illustrated Catalog  (This copy). \u003cbr\u003e\n An excellent copy of this rare work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WELLS, John [with] BRIGGS, Henry.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820343140687,"sku":"L3022","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7083-scaled.jpg?v=1781794831"},{"product_id":"magini-giovanni-antonio-1","title":"MAGINI, Giovanni Antonio.","description":"\u003cp\u003eUncommon important ephemerides. Giovanni Antonio Magini (1555-1617) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and cartographer. A supporter of the geocentric system, in 1588 he was preferred to Galileo Galilei as professor of mathematics at Bologna. His copious production includes works on quadrants, commentaries on Ptolemy, Regiomontanus and Vi√®tes, and an atlas of Italy. In the 1580s, he began to publish  Ephemerides  numerical tables providing the trajectories and positions of celestial bodies at regular intervals, over the course of several years. He kept updating his calculations and they were reprinted seven times. The first, spanning the years 1611-30, was first published in 1612. The tables were created from the  Tabulae Prutenicae  first published by the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold in 1551, calculated from the position of Venice. This edition also includes a critique of J. Stadius s calculations, an introduction to judicial astrology, and treatises on the use of ephemerides, annual planetary movements, and fixed stars. The  Supplementum , here in its first edition, includes new tables based on Tycho Brahe s observations, including eclipses, and revised calculations of the previous  Ephemerides . For these, Magini relied on Kepler s  Tabulae Rudolphinae , making the  Supplementum   the first ephemerides calculated according to Kepler s principles  (Cantamessa 4747). A short epistolary exchange between him and Magini was also included in this work, and printed for the first time. He also followed a few Copernican theories using  the exentricities and different epicycles which Copernicus had substituted to those of Ptolemy  (Delambre,  Histoire , 508).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAGINI, Giovanni Antonio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346417487,"sku":"L3293","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6363.webp?v=1781794813"},{"product_id":"euclid-with-archimedes","title":"EUCLID. [with] ARCHIMEDES.","description":"The superb binding bears the monogram and arms (a fess, two stars in chief, a crescent in point) of Louis Bizeau (fl. first half of C17), a prominent bibliophile of whom little is known (Olivier,  Manuel de l amateur de reliures , V, pl. 486). Some of his bindings c.1645-50 have been linked to the same workshop as worked for Dominique S éguier (Quaritch,  Examples of the Art of Book-Binding , 108-9). His books, like this, had ruled pages, gilt edges and marbled pastedowns.\r \r Excellent, well-margined copies, in fine impression, of Francesco Commandino s Latin translations of Euclid s  Elements  and Archimedes s  opera omnia , with Commandino s commentary, the last two issued together. These texts provided the foundations of modern mathematics and physics. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4 th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical findings from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. Archimedes (287-12BC) was a mathematician, inventor, astronomer and engineer from Syracuse. The  Opera non nulla  includes all his recorded writings, except for the treatise on floating bodies and that on the method of mechanical theorems, which was discovered later. This edition the sole Aldine of Archimedes s works illustrates superbly his theorems on the area of circles, parabolae, spirals, spheres and cones, concluding with the famous  De arenae numero , a calculation of the amount of sand grains needed to fill the universe. It is followed by Commandino s commentary on Archimedes s works, where geometrical diagrams are substituted by numerical calculations.\r \r Charles Bruce (1682-1747), Earl of Ailesbury, Viscount Bruce of Ampthill and Baron Bruce of Whorleton, was a keen book collector. A catalogue of his vast library, comprising over 8,000 volumes, at Tottenham in Wiltshire, was printed in 1733 the second earliest catalogue of an English private library ever published (Pollard \u0026amp; Ehrman, 274-75), this copy being n.17, p.83. The library was eventually sold at Sotheby s in 1919. His first-born, who died in 1738 before succeeding his father, is probably the Robert Bruce who signed the copy in 1729.","brand":"EUCLID. [with] ARCHIMEDES.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347171151,"sku":"K124","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9470.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"blagrave-john-1","title":"BLAGRAVE, John","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this absorbing manual of mensuration by renowned English scholar John Blagrave (c.1560-1611). Blagrave s mathematical studies at St John s College, Oxford resulted in his earliest and most celebrated work, the Mathematical Jewel (1585) which describes his design for a planispheric astrolabe. The present work explores the many uses of a mathematical  staffe  of Blagrave s invention which could be used to calculated distances and height in different circumstances. The work commences with a dedicatory letter to his patron Sir Frances Knollys (c.1511\/14-1596), a prominent English courtier who served Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Blagrave enjoyed the patronage of this important figure from 1589 and 1596. The enterprising device is described in detail beginning p. 7: it is composed of two rulers with pointed tips, attached with a rounded joint and designed to open and shut. A series of diagrams describe the varying uses of the instrument, where the two rulers are opened to differing degrees and employed to measure an immense variety of conditions including the flatness of ground, a gunner s quadrant, and how to safely scale a wall or a tower. Uses range from scholarly, to military, to naval, and each is described with charming clarity and accompanied by detailed woodcuts demonstrating geometrical calculations within differing landscapes. The device would have been particularly useful for artillerymen (Erwin Tomash p. 157). The invention and publication of such instruments was a fashionable practice during Blagrave s era, with other contemporary notable innovations including the flushing toilet, the revolver and the backstaff. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An ornate bookplate indicates the ownership of Sir Peter Thompson (1698-1770). Thompson was an English merchant, MP, antiquarian and collector. He was both a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Thompson was born in Poole, Dorset, and travelled to London to seek a fortune. Following his successes, he was made High Sheriff of Surrey in 1745-6 and received his knighthood the same year. He relocated to St Albans where he was MP from 1747-1754. In his later years he accumulated a significant collection of books and antiquities, which he kept in his impressive town house in Poole.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BLAGRAVE, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351201615,"sku":"L3376\/2","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-37.jpg?v=1781794795"},{"product_id":"bobynet-pierre","title":"BOBYNET, Pierre.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lovely copy, remarkably preserved in two volumes in its original vellum, of this most interesting popular work on sundials by Pierre Bobynet, printed in the town of La Fleche undoubtedly for the students of the celebrated Jesuit college there. Indeed the approbation and permission, signed by Jean Filleau, provincial of the Society gives permission to print the work to George Griveau on behalf of the College Royal de La Fleche. The Jesuit father Pierre Bobynet [1593-1668] was a professor of philosophy and rector of La Flèche and several other Jesuit colleges. He was born in Montluçon to a relatively poor family, his father was a tanner, though he was recognised very young as having aptitude, and joined the Jesuits at the age of 12. He became rector of the Jesuit colleges at Moulins and Quimper before he moved to La Fleche, where he taught Philosophy, Theology, and Rhetoric for over 24 years. It seems, however, his passion was for mathematics. This was his first published work and he went on to publish two more on the subject and another on longimetry. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work is a very complete treatise on sundials with sections on the terminology used, the instruments required in their fabrication, and theoretical and practical gnomonics describing numerous wall, garden or pocket sundials. Bobynet s work was one of the first to discuss Dialing scales which were used to lay out the face of a sundial geometrically. They were first proposed by Samuel Foster in 1638, and later produced by George Serle and Anthony Thompson in 1658 on a ruler. There are two scales: the latitude scale and the hour scale. They were used to draw all gnomonic dials and reverse engineer existing dials to discover their original intended location. These scales remained virtually unchanged for 250 years. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Most copies of this work were bound as a single volume or are found without the plates. This copy is remarkably preserved in its original vellum as a two volume set. We have not been able to discover the P. Trouard de Riolle but it seems probable that he was the first owner of the work and was probably a student at the Royal College at La Fleche.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOBYNET, Pierre.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859643408719,"sku":"L3715","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4566-copy.jpg?v=1781793746"},{"product_id":"hume-james-2","title":"HUME, James.","description":"Rare work by the Scottish mathematician James Hume, a very complete treatise on the construction of sundials with over two hundred woodcut illustrations. It appears there was a pevious issue of this work with a slightly different title page; this edition uses the same sheets, omitting the dedication to the Marquis de Cinq-Mars. It is probable the dedication was abandoned as a consequence of the Marquis  beheading, on Richelieu s orders, at Lyon in 1641 for rebellion, along with Francois-Auguste de Thou (son of Jacques the celebrated bibliophile) who was unlucky enough to be caught up in the conspiracy against the king. In this treatise on how to build sundials, Hume apologies in his preface for his French which is not his \"natural language  stating that he preferred to speak in a clear and scientifically precise language which was not always easy on the ear. He also remarks that he wanted to \"give France what she had only seen in Latin, until now.\" Hume was a Scottish mathematician who spent most of his life in Paris. Most of his publications were on advanced mathematics and trigonometry and he is perhaps most remembered for his  Une alg√®bre de Vi√®te, d'une methode nouvelle, claire, et facile.  published in 1636.  In 1636 Hume (also) published at Paris 'Trait é de la Trigonom étric pour resoudre tous Triangles rectilignes et sph ériques,' \u0026amp;c At the end of the latter volume appears a list of nine mathematical works which Hume had written in Latin   There are besides 'De Horologiis' and 'Grammatica Hebr‚àö¬∂a,' proving that Hume's attainments were not purely mathematical.  DNB. This work gives a theoretical and practical study of all the types of sundials then known: horizontal, equinoctial, vertical, southern and polar, but includes much additional mathematical material and what the author terms as  beaucoup de chose, qui seront assez curieuse et utiles.  It is in effect more a theoretical mathematical treatise than a work on sundials, introducing the reader to mathematical theory, including the use of algebra and trigonometry, via a practical work on sundials.","brand":"HUME, James.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859643474255,"sku":"L3513","price":1450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3515b-1.jpg?v=1781793745"},{"product_id":"ramus-peter-snel-willebrord","title":"RAMUS, Peter. SNEL, Willebrord","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Peter Ramus popular work on arithmetic for students with the commentary by the dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell. “Willebrord Snell, .. astronomer and mathematician who discovered the law of refraction, which relates the degree of the bending of light to the properties of the refractive material. This law is basic to modern geometrical optics. In 1613 he succeeded his father, Rudolph Snell (1546–1613), as professor of mathematics in the University of Leiden. His Eratosthenes Batavus (1617) contains the account of his method of measuring the Earth. The account of Snell’s law of refraction (1621) went unpublished, capturing attention only when the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens related Snell’s finding in Dioptrica (1703).” Enc. Brit. “This is a reprinting of the first part (the arithmetic, without the geometry) of Ramus’ 1569 publication, Arithmeticæ libri duo: Geometriæ septem et viginti … Snel was a proficient computer and improved the classical method of finding the value of π by use of polygons. Using his method, he was able to find π t_ 35 places using a polygon of 230 sides rather than the 262 sides used earlier by Ceulen. Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée) was primarily a teacher of mathematics who was a central figure in the early stages of the Scientific Revolution. He was born into a noble family that had lost its fortunes in war. When, at the age of twelve, he entered the University of Paris, he was obliged to work as a servant to a wealthy student. He graduated in 1536, defending a thesis on Aristotle, and was engaged as a teacher at the university. His teaching, however, was anti-establishment in nature, for he attacked Aristotle, particularly his logic, and defended a thesis in which the works of Aristotle (and particularly his contemporary followers) were brought into question. After he published these views in Aristotelicae animadversiones, he was forbidden by Francis I to teach and publish philosophy. Because of this ban, Ramus turned to the study and teaching of mathematics. He was reinstated in 1547 and thereafter managed to rise swiftly in French academic circles, due in part to the vacancies caused by the plague. He continued to have problems with the authorities because of his views and in 1562 left the Catholic Church and converted to Calvinism. He was killed as part of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, despite having explicit royal protection. There is some reason to believe his death was at the hands of assassins hired by his academic rivals. This book is part of Ramus’ campaign to improve the teaching of science and mathematics. He was of the opinion that science in general, and in particular mathematics, had lost its focus on practical needs. The teaching of the arithmetic of Boethius had concentrated attention on the properties of numbers to such an extent that practical arithmetic and geometric skills had been neglected” Erwin Tomash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RAMUS, Peter. SNEL, Willebrord","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859650519375,"sku":"L3068b","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3068b-3.jpg?v=1781793723"},{"product_id":"fine-oronce-5","title":"FINE, Oronce","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeautifully printed first edition, of this rare treatise on astrology by one of the most influential mathematical teachers of his time. The work is essentially concerned with the twelve houses of the zodiac and their interpretation for judicial astrology. “Oronce Fine (1494–1555), a French mathematician from the Dauphiné, is chiefly known to historians of science for having been the first to teach mathematics as a royal lecturer within the institution founded by François I in March 1530, but also for his work as a cartographer, as a designer and maker of mathematical instruments, as well as an engraver and an editor of scientific books. .. A central role was attributed to astronomy within Fine’s mathematical teaching program, since the Cosmographia, sive mundi sphaera.  (However) .. it would be reasonable to think that Fine also viewed his editorial work on Sacrobosco’s Sphaera as a contribution to the training of astrologers, to help them learn how to calculate the positions of planets in relation to the zodiacal signs and the celestial houses, an activity in which he himself engaged as a court astrologer and which he later promoted through the publication of the ‘Canons des ephemerides’ 1543 and the De duodecim caeli domiciliis 1553. These works respectively deal with the art of producing almanacs (including their astrological features) and with the division of the celestial houses and of the planetary hours necessary to the casting of horoscopes. Fine also published in 1529 an Almanach novum aimed to help produce elections in the context of medicine, church duties, banking, and many other important functions. ..(the second part of the present work) considers the distinction between the equal and the unequal hours that divide artificial days and nights according to the latitude of the viewer and shows how to calculate the length of unequal hours for the latitude of Paris, as well as how to reduce unequal hours to equal hours and vice versa. Fine also explained at this occasion the correspondence between the planets (and their rising in the first hour of the artificial day) and the names of the days of the week (Saturn on Saturday, the sun on Sunday, etc.), which he represented through a little table also indicating the planets ruling the first hour of the night, as well as the means to determine the planets ruling the other planetary hours for any day of the week.” Angela Axworthy. “Oronce Fine and Sacrobosco: From the Edition of the Tractatus de sphaera (1516) to theCosmographia (1532).”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA handsome copy of this rare astrological work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FINE, Oronce","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859650650447,"sku":"L3914","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3914-1.jpg?v=1781793722"},{"product_id":"swineshead-richard","title":"SWINESHEAD, Richard.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A fine wide-margined copy of the second edition of this most important C14 theoretical mathematical work -  the first to apply mathematics to natural science  (Leibnitz). Incunables on applied or theoretical mathematics, and works on these subjects written by English authors and published before 1500, are very rare. Richard Swineshead (or Suiseth or Suisset, fl.1340-54) was a mathematician and natural philosopher, and a member of the  Oxford Calculators  at Merton College. The  Liber Calculationum  (c.1350) was first printed in 1477 and here edited by the medicine professor Giovanni da Tollentino, probably comparing the first edition with a manuscript preserved in Pavia, preserving the frequent medieval abbreviations. The  incipit  of  Liber calculationum  (c.1350) calls it  a very useful golden book on calculations which can be applied to all the sciences .  Swineshead presupposes an Aristotelian\/Neoplatonic physics, and searches for a logically adequate, mathematically precise account of it  . He considers imaginary, physically impossible cases as long as they are not logically contradictory    (Longeway, p.468). The 12 chapters begin by analysing the degrees of qualities (intension and remission), e.g. heat, according to whether their degree is uniform or not uniform; rarity and density (I.e.,  the proportion of quantity of matter to volume ); the power of an action (maximum and minimum) and of resistance when a body interacts with another; the movement of a body towards the centre of the earth (which, albeit moving slower and slower, it will never reach); light and how it illuminates and reflects over a body or medium, a theory based on  simple geometrical visualization  and influenced by Grosseteste; and local motion, considering  force, resistance and velocity  as well as  the mean-speed theorem  (Longeway, p.468). Most interesting is the  registrum  at rear, which does not specify the number of leaves in each gathering, but rather specifies the first one or two words on the recto of the leaves in the first half of each gathering. The C16 annotator was interested in local motion and resistance, glossing the beginning of the chapter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SWINESHEAD, Richard.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859663528271,"sku":"L4106","price":45000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4106-2-1.jpg?v=1781793699"},{"product_id":"baker-humphrey","title":"BAKER, HUMPHREY.","description":".A rare edition of this important and most influential arithmetic by Humphrey Baker, one of the most popular of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Humphrey Baker was a teacher in sixteenth-century London, the translator of a book on almanacs, and the author of the very successful arithmetic primer,  The Welspring of Sciences , embodying its author s infectious enthusiasm for its subject (he once compared arithmetic to good wine, which needed no  garlande  to persuade buyers of its merits). First published in 1562  The Welspring  went into many editions down to 1670: the later versions were simply called  Baker s Artithmetick . \u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e  .The author rewrote it in his later years and editions from 1580 onwards are more complete.  The final section of the book gave a selection of mathematical amusements, some of the first pieces of recreational mathematics to be printed in England . Benjamin Wardhaugh  A Wealth of Numbers . Humphrey Baker was a specialised teacher of mathematics and his method of teaching differed from the traditional approach.  The curriculum of London's schools and academies was surprisingly wide-ranging and included basic instruction as well as guidance in more specialised subjects. .. In addition to the guild based training of apprentices, London also posted a variety of more specialised academies, including foreign-language schools, mathematics schools and schools that taught the art of navigation. Humphrey Baker, a well-known mathematical writer, took boarders into his house on the north side of the Royal Exchange to facilitate their immersion in his mathematical curriculum.\nOne of the reasons for the success of Baker s work was that he insisted on the usefulness of mathematics, particularly for merchants.  In the preface to the 1574 edition (reprinted in this edition) of his The Well spring of Sciences, dedicated to the company of Merchant Adventurers, Humphrey Baker was sure he could appeal to a widely held opinion among the London commercial  élite with regards to the usefulness of practical arithmetic for business purposes.  And heerein I am sure yee are good witnesses with mee, howe foolishe and vayne is their opinion whiche beside youre most commendable affaires, suppose and affirme that Arithmeticke is of small use unto any other men, seynge that the lawes of sundry Realmes well instituted and guyded have deservedly accompted for fooles, and unfit members (to rule or deale in a Common welthe) all suche as wanted the skill of natural Arithmeticke, deprived them bothe of Landes and livinge, whiche as it tendeth unto no small prayse and credit of Arithmeticke.   Raffaele Danna  A Numerical Revolution: The diffusion of practical mathematics and the growth of pre-modern European economies . The work's practical appeal to merchants can be seen in the appended table of exchange rates and measures in Europe. As with most practical school books, they were often heavily read and abused and are rarely found in such good condition.  The only English rival to Recorde s .Ground of Artes    and it was in many respects better than that popular work.  (Smith p. 327) .  \u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"BAKER, HUMPHREY.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868702482767,"sku":"L2105","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2105-Baker-3.jpg?v=1781793440"},{"product_id":"delmedigo-joseph-solomon-2","title":"DELMEDIGO, Joseph Solomon.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this extensively illustrated, most important Hebrew work on astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy, music and geometry, written by ‘the first Jewish Copernican’, student of Galileo and a major influence on Spinoza. Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591-1655) was a rabbi, physician and polymath from Crete. At Padua, he studied medicine and attended Galileo’s astronomy lectures 1609-10. After a brief stay in Venice, he journeyed the Middle East, eventually settling in Amsterdam in 1623, where he wrote ‘Sefer Elim’, his only known work. It is divided into two separately titled parts—‘Sefer Elim’ and ‘Ma’ayan Ganim’—the latter subdivided into four essays on astronomy, mathematics, the consonance of music and biblical passages in relation to the scientific method. ‘Sefer Elim’ is a reply to 12 broad and 70 specific questions posed in letters, reproduced at the beginning, by the Karite scholar Zerah. Delmedigo’s answer discusses Aristotelian natural philosophy, spherical trigonometry, celestial bodies, comets and the workings of the lever, illustrated with diagrams and illustrations. Whilst Delmedigo’s in-depth analysis of Copernican theories was left unpublished and is now lost, his circumscribed references in ‘Sefer Elim’ are nevertheless revealing. ‘Part of Delmedigo’s support for the Copernican model is to be found in his criticism of the Aristotelian conception of the universe […] By rejecting this idea, Delmedigo not only took on the accepted scientific views of the past, but also challenged the Jewish model of the universe, which was based on Aristotle’; he also stated that the universe was possibly infinite and included other solar systems (Brown, ‘New Heavens’, 70). He mentions studying with ‘his teacher Galileo’, as he describes their observation of the sky and planets through the famous telescope; however, scholars believe Delmedigo became familiar with Copernicanism elsewhere, as until 1610 Galileo was not publicly or privately endorsing this theory (Brown, ‘New Heavens’, 74). The epistemological inconsistencies of ‘Sefer Elim’ derive from Delmedigo’s complex relationship to the Scientific Revolution and Cabala-informed Jewish culture, resistant to the new method. As proved by the very title—a reference to the fountains of wisdom—he linked ‘Jewish-hermetic revelation with Copernican cosmology and sought material objects such as ancient Hebrew mss that, purportedly, maintained a stronger connection to the revelation’, seeking to connect Jewish theology and Copernicanism (Ben-Zaken, ‘Cross-Cultural’, 78). The work ‘became suspect in the eyes of the elders of the Sephardic community, and a committee was formed to investigate the matter. The book had to be translated orally into Portuguese’; the printer had to declare officially that certain portions would not be published, though by then Delmedigo had moved elsewhere (Heller, ‘C17 Hebrew Book’, 471).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis copy preserves the Latin dedication to the reader, often absent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DELMEDIGO, Joseph Solomon.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868705038671,"sku":"L4443","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6368.webp?v=1781793436"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-18_at_6.07.12_PM.png?v=1781802452","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/mathematics.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}