m Venetiis per Ioan. Bapti. Sessa. Anno ab
incarnatione Domini, 1503. Die 28 Augusti.

{43}

This book has never been noticed in the history of the subject, and I
cannot find any mention of it. The quadrature of Campanus[27] takes the
ratio of Archimedes,[28] 7 to 22 to be absolutely correct; the account
given of Archimedes is not a translation of his book; and that of Boetius
has more than is in Boet_h_ius. This book must stand, with the next, as the
earliest in print on the subject, until further showing: Murhard[29] and
Kastner[30] have nothing so early. It is edited by Lucas Gauricus,[31] who
has given a short preface. Luca Gaurico, Bishop of Civita Ducale, an
astrologer of astrologers, published this work at about thirty years of
age, and lived to eighty-two. His works are collected in folios, but I do
not know whether they contain this production. The poor fellow could never
tell his own fortune, because his father neglected to note the hour and
minute of his birth. But if there had been anything in astrology, he could
have worked back, as Adams[32] and Leverrier[33] did when they caught {44}
Neptune: at sixty he could have examined every minute of his day of birth,
by the events of his life, and so would have found the right minute. He
could then have gone on, by rules of prophecy. Gauricus was the
mathematical teacher of Joseph Scaliger,[34] who did him no credit, as we
shall see.

BOVILLUS ON THE QUADRATURE PROBLEM.

In hoc opere contenta Epitome.... Liber de quadratura Circuli....
Paris, 1503, folio.

The quadrator is Charles Bovillus,[35] who adopted the views of Cardinal
Cusa,[36] presently mentioned. Montucla is hard on his compatriot, who, he
says, was only saved from the laughter of geometers by his obscurity.
Persons must guard against most historians of mathematics in one point:
they frequently attribute to _his own_ age the obscurity which a writer has
in _their own_ time. This tract was printed by Henry Stephens,[37] at the
instigation of Faber Stapulensis,[38] {45} and is recorded by Dechales,[39]
etc. It was also introduced into the _Margarita Philosophica_ of 1815,[40]
in the same appendix with the new perspective from Viator. This is not
extreme obscurity, by any means. The quadrature deserved it; but that is
another point.

It is stated by Montucla that Bovillus makes [pi] = [root]10. But Montucla
cites a work of 1507, _Introductorium Geometricum_, which I have never
seen.[