Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe

Philip Beeley is research fellow and tutor in the Faculty of History and Fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford. The focus of his research and publications is on correspondence networks and the history of mathematics in the seventeenth century. Yelda Nasifoglu is a historian of early modern mathematics and architecture, and an associate member of the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. Her research interests include mathematical diagrams, non-representational uses of drawing, and book collecting practices in the early modern period.Benjamin Wardhaugh is a historian and author based in Oxford, UK, and a former fellow of All Souls College. His interests range across the history of mathematics and the ways mathematics has been part of human cultures.

"This volume meets the highest standards for an academic publication, whilst remaining very accessible for the general reader. This book should definitely be read by all those interested in the history of mathematics in the Early Modern Period and in fact by anybody interested in the history of mathematics." Thony Christie, The Renaissance Mathematicus

• PrefaceIntroductionChapter 1 Did Euclid prove Elements I, 1? The early modern debate on intersections and continuityVincenzo De RisiChapter 2 Numbers and Paths: Henry Savile’s manuscript treatises on the Euclidean theory of proportionRobert GouldingChapter 3 Reading by Drawing. The changing nature of mathematical diagrams in seventeenth-century EnglandYelda NasifogluChapter 4 Interpreting Mathematical Error: Tycho’s problematic diagram and readers’ responsesRenee RaphaelChapter 5 Reading Mathematics in the English Collegiate-Humanist UniversitiesMordechai FeingoldChapter 6 Tutor, Antiquarian, and Almost a Practitioner: Brian Twyne’s readings of mathematicsRichard J. OosterhoffChapter 7 The Origin and Development of the Savilian LibraryWilliam PooleChapter 8 ‘A designe Inchoate’. Edward Bernard’s planned edition of Euclid and its scholarly afterlife in late seventeenth-century OxfordPhilip BeeleyChapter 9 ‘The Admonitions of a good-natured Reader’: Marks of use in Georgian mathematical textbooksBenjamin WardhaughChapter 10 Instrumental Reading: Towards a typology of use in early modern practical mathematical textsBoris JardineChapter 11 ‘Several Choice Collections’ in Geometry, Astronomy, and Chronology: Using and collecting mathematics in early modern EnglandKevin Tracey