Many references in this part of the database benefit from the scholarship and imagery within David Eugene Smith's RARA ARITHMETICA, Ginn, Boston and London, 1908; based on examples of rare works on mathematics in the Library of George Arthur Plimpton.

VISUAL CODES AND THE ABACUS

ALGEBRA... LOGARITHMS

Thomas Hariot, Artis Analyticae Praxis, Barker and Haered London 1631 Published posthumously by the author's patron the Duke of Northumberland who, like many others, believed that Heriot (usually associated with his History of the colonisation of Virginia was the inventor of algebra and not Vieta.

John Napier, Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Hart Edinburgh 1614
 
 

CALCULATING HANDS

Multiplication tables from the 1488 edition of Boethius' ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOTHIUS published in Augsberg. "The work was the standard in the Church Schools throughout the Middle Ages." Smith/Plimpton.
 
The mathematician Adam Riese was a pioneer in replacing counter computation with figure reckoning. His book Rechnung , was published in Leipzig in 1538. Two adjacent pages are here stacked vertically for convenience.
 
from the Abate requeno, Parma, 1797, the left hand indicates any number up to ninety but only the right hand can signal beyond.

 
Title Page to Thomas and Leonard Digges' Stratioticos , London, 1579 (military considerations).
 
 

VARIANTS ON THE PAGE
 
Multiplication tables from the 1488 edition of Boethius' ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS published in Augsberg. "The work was the standard in the Church Schools throughout the Middle Ages." Smith/Plimpton.
 
 
an illustrated page from Euclides, Mathematicarum Disciplinarium Janitors... published in Venice by Jo.Tacuinus in 1545. The original page is 11" x 8"
 
an illustrated page from Luca Paciuolo, De Borgo San Sepolcro, Summa de Arithemtica geometria... , published in Toscolano in 1523.