Well-Versed Mathematics

by Arielle Saiber

Overview

Measured Words investigates the rich commerce between computation and writing that proliferated in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy.

Arielle Saiber explores the relationship between number, shape, and the written word in the works of four exceptional thinkers: Leon Battista Alberti’s treatis on cryptography, Luca Pacioli’s ideal proportions for designing Roman capital letters, Niccolò Tartaglia’s poem embedding his solution to solving cubic equations, and Giambattista Della Porta’s curious study on the elements of geometric curves. Although they came from different social classes and practiced the mathematical and literary arts at differing levels of sophistication, they were all guided by a sense that there exist deep ontological and epistemological bonds between computational and verbal thinking and production. Their shared view that a network or continuity exists between the arts yielded extraordinary results. Through measuring their words, literally and figuratively, they are models of what the very best interdisciplinary work can offer us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802039507
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/30/2011
Series:	Routledge Research in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Arielle Saiber is an associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Introduction Well-Versed Mathematics

Chapter One Cryptographica:
Leon Battista Alberti’s De componendis Cifris (1466)

Chapter Two Divine Characters:
Luca Pacioli’s “degno alphabeto Anticho” (1509)

Chapter Three A Poetic Solution to the Cubic Equation:
Niccolò Tartaglia’s “Quando chel cubo” (1546)

Chapter Four Hidden Curves:
Giambattista Della Porta’s Elementorum curvilineorum libri tres (1601/1610)

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Martin McLaughlin

Arielle Saiber has written an indispensable volume on a still overlooked aspect of the Italian Renaissance, namely the importance of the relationship of mathematics to the broadly literary aspects of Renaissance humanism. Richly illustrated, the　book draws on Saiber’s meticulous study of the manuscripts and printed editions of these early mathematical work. From its arresting first sentence (‘There were computers in Renaissance Italy…’) to the final conclusion, the book grabs our attention, and Saiber herself, like the thinkers she writes about, both understands the mathematical complexities of her subject and is able to discuss them with admirable clarity and elegance. This is a major contribution to our knowledge of Renaissance mathematical writers.

Carla Mazzio

"Saiber opens the door to an entirely new understanding of four seminal Renaissance writers whose literary works are already well known to scholars and students of diverse disciplines. Measured Words is an illuminating study surrounding the relationship between mathematical computation and the ‘humanistic’ disciplines."

Christopher S. Celenza

"Arielle Saiber has brought to this endlessly interesting book her deep knowledge of the history of mathematics, immersion in the literature of the Italian Renaissance, and crystal-clear writing style. Spanning two centuries, Saiber covers the Italian thinkers Leon Battista Alberti, Luca Pacioli, Niccolò Tartaglia, and Giambattista Della Porta. She illuminates their thinking and writing on computation; and she goes beyond that laudable aim to make important connections to the ways that computational thinking inflected their beliefs on language. As such the book is as much a unique examination of the four thinkers in question as it is a call for cross-disciplinary work in our world today."