David Eugene Smith
Published: 2015-08-04
Total Pages: 546
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Excerpt from Rara Arithmetica: A Catalogve of the Arithmetics Written Before the Year MDCI With a Description of Those in the Library of George Arthvr Plimpton of New York One of the first and most important questions for the student of mathematical history is that relating to the available sources of information. In the fields of higher mathematics scholars have been more or less successful in bringing together these sources, and in listing them in bibliographies; but in that humbler field in which primitive mathematics first found root, only a few bibliophiles have sought to preserve the original material, and no one has seriously attempted to catalogue it. Libri, it is true, brought together two large libraries of Rara Arithmetica, but he was neither a true book-lover nor a true scholar, for he gathered his treasures purposely to see them dispersed, his commercial spirit scattering at random what should have been kept intact for the use of scholars. Prince Boncompagni, the most learned of all collectors in this domain, lived to see an unappreciative city ignore his offer to make his magnificent library permanent, and at his death it was scattered abroad, as had been the lesser ones of Kloss and De Morgan. The third great collection of early textbooks which has been made in recent years is that of Mr. Plimpton. Of the libraries of arithmetics printed before the opening of the seventeenth century his is the largest that has ever been brought together, not excepting Boncompagni's, and it may well be doubted if another so large will again be collected by one man. De Morgan was able to examine, in the British Museum and elsewhere, less than a hundred arithmetics written before 1601, including all editions; but Mr. Plimpton has more than three hundred, a number somewhat in excess of that reached by Boncompagni. Indeed there are few arithmetics of much importance that are not found, in one edition or another, in his library. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
