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Mathematicians in the Sixteenth-Century French Academies: Some Further Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Natalie Zemon Davis
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Extract

Mathematical education was part of the encyclopedic program of Baïf's Academy and its ofishoot the Palace Academy, as Miss Frances Yates has aptly shown. But who were the teachers? She has speculated that the classical archeologist Louis de Montjusieu taught mathematics to the Duc de Joyeuse at the Academies rather than privately. An analysis of the interests and contacts of a number of mathematicians in the Paris area during the 1570's and 1580's adds to her speculation several masters of mathematics, three of whom will be discussed here.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 11 , Issue 1-Part1 , Spring 1958 , pp. 3 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1958

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References

1 Yates, Frances A., The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947), p. 24 Google Scholar (Mersenne's description based on data from his friend Jacques Maudit, once a member of the Academies); p. 103, n. 3.

2 Ibid., p. 95.

3 L'Arithmetique de Nicolas Tartaglia Brescian … Divisée en deux parties … Seconde Partie (Paris, 1578), a iiiiv.

4 Yates, p. 104, n. 4. Cf. Plato, Rep. vii 525: ‘Those who are to take part in the highest functions of state must be induced to approach it, not in an amateur spirit, but perseveringly, until, by the aid of pure thought, they come to see the real nature of number. They are to practise calculation, not like merchants or shopkeepers for purposes of buying and selling, but with a view to war and to help in the conversion of the soul itself from the world of becoming to truth and reality’ (tr. F. M. Cornford).

5 Archives municipales de Lyon, GG 87, pièce 4. Inventaire-sommaire des archives communales. Lyon (Paris, 1875), cc 150, CC 275.

6 De Norry, A ivr, A iir-A iiv. Italics mine. I have considered the impact of De Norry's arithmetic on a bourgeois audience in my forthcoming paper ‘French Commercial Arithmetics on the Business Life’.

7 La bibliothèque d'Antoine du Verdier (Lyons, 1585), p. 882. De Norry, A iv-A iiiV.

8 Les quatres premiers livres de l'Univers de M. De Norry … (Paris, 1583), a iiV-a iiiV, Bk. iv. L'Usage du Compos optique (Paris, 1588); L'Usage et Praticque de Compos à huict poinctes… Par M. Denorry professeur es Mathematiques (Paris, 1588).

9 Oeuvres poetiques de Iean Dorat, ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux (Paris, 1875), p. 3.

10 Les Institutions de l'Arithmetique de Iacques Chauvet Champenois, Professur és mathematiques en l'Université de Paris… (Paris, 1578), A iiv, A viiiv (signed ‘A.I.’). Onjamyn's presence at the Academies, Yates, p. 28.

11 Chauvet, A iir. Yates, pp. 327, 13, 35.

12 l'Arithmetique de Iaques Peletier du Mans… (Poitiers, 1552), 48v.

13 Chauvet, pp. 71, 160-161, 165-167.

14 La Pratique universelle de Geometrie … (Paris, 1585), a iiv, a iv. Ioannis Aurati… Epigrammatum, Liber I (Paris, 1586), pp. 63-64.

15 De arte magna, seu de occulta parte numerorum … (Paris, 1577), a vr. On Renaud de Beaune, Yates, p. 327. On the algebra, H. Bosnians, ‘Le “De arte magna” de Guillaume Gosselin’, Bibtiotheca Mathematica, vn, 2nd ser. (1906-1907), pp. 44-66

16 L'Arithmetique de Nicolas Tartaglia Brescian … Divisié en deux parties… Recueille et traduite d'Italien en François, par Guillaume Gosselin … (Paris, 1578). Premiere Partie, a viir-a viiv, a iiiv, a vv-a vir . Seconde partie, a iiiiv—a vr . The commercial material was much shortened by Gosselin. On Marguerite and the Academies, Yates, p. 33.

17 Premiere Partie, a iiiir-a viv.

18 Yates, p. 103, n. 3; p. 99, n. 3; p. 273.

19 Bloch, J.-R., L'anoblissetnent en France au temps de François Ier (Paris, 1934), 162.Google Scholar Verdier, Du (1585), p. 708; Cat. Bibl. Nat., vol. 62, pp. 487–488.Google Scholar Premiere Partie, a iiva iiir; Seconde Partie, a vir.

20 La Remonstrance de Pierre de La Ramee touchant la profession Royalle en Mathematique (Paris, 1568), pp. 13, 20, 45. Cf. the collaborative edition of Lefèvre d'Etaples, Clichetove, Josse, and de Bouelles, Charles, In hoc libro contenta, Epitome … in libros Arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii… (Paris, 1503)Google Scholar, especially Clichetove's apologies for the ‘De praxi numerandi', xxx iiir.

21 Yates, pp. 104, 227-278, 281.

22 Ibid., p. 24.