Lot 1331: MATHEMATICAL TRACTS--VIVIANI, VINCENZIO (1622-1703).

Enodatio problematum universis geometris propositorum a... Claudio Comiers... praemissis, horum occasione, tentamentis variis ad solutionem illustris veterum problematis de anguli trisectione. Florence: G. Gugliantini, 1677, [10], 63pp., illustration: 4 engraved plates with 63 figures, [Riccardi ii, 627]

Condition Note:

Jode, Cornelis de (1568-1600). De quadrante geometrico libellus. In quo quidquid ad linearum et superficierum, utpote altitudinum et latitudinum, dimensiones facit lucidissime demonstratur. Nuremberg: C. Lochner, 1594, [8], 63pp., illustration: folding engraved plate (printed on both sides) at p. 1, engraved illustrations (some full-page) in text, a few engravings shaved

[Frénicle de Bessy, Bernard (1605-1675)] Solutio duorum problematum circa numeros cubos & quadratos, quae tanquam insolubilia universis Europae mathematicis a... D. Fermat sunt proposita... a D.B.F.D.B. datis. Paris: J. Langlois, 1657, [4], 31pp., errata corrected (by V. Mandey?)

Biancani, Giuseppe (1566-1624), S.J. De mathematicarum natura dissertatio una cum clarorum mathematicorum chronologia... [with an index, part of 'Aristotelis loca mathematica... explicate', but sometimes found separately]. Bologna: G. Tamburini, 1615, 65, [5]pp., without the final blank, [Riccardi i, 127]

Calender historicall. Wherein is contained an easie declaration of the golden nombre... [Geneva]: J. Crespin, 1569, ff. [8], illustration: woodcut border on title-page, small woodcut illustrations, a few contemporary annotations, [part of STC 2106 (Bible, English); Gilmont, Bibl. de J. Crespin (1981), no. 69/3.4]

Machin, John (1680-1751). The solution of Kepler's problem. (London: for T. Woodward & C. Davis, printers to the Royal Society, 1739), pp.205-230

6 works in one volume, 4to (215 x 150mm.), binding: eighteenth-century mottled calf, gilt spine, red morocco lettering-piece, red edges

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CATALOGUE NOTE

Claude Comiers came from Embrun and was variously a military engineer, priest, teacher of mathematics and author. In 1677 he published La duplication de cube, la trisection de l'angle, etc., to which this work is a response.

Jode's book is extremely rare, and has appeared twice at auction in the last 25 years, in the Honeyman sale and in 1998 in a selection of books from the library of M. de Vitry.

"M. Frénicle de Bessy que vous connoissez par reputation pour ester extremement scavant dans les nombres" (Huygens, Oeuvres xi, 2). A number of the letters from early 1657 deal with the problem of cubes set by Fermat. In a letter to Claude Mylon, Fermat mentions that "M. Defréicle [sic] a resolu des questions, et M. Marin qui en a les solutions les fait imprimer a ce qu'on m'a dit" (Huygens, Oeuvres ii, 13).