New Perspectives on Commercial Arithmetic in Renaissance Spain

Old Arithmetic Books: Mathematics in Spain in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century

“…More than three decades later, in 1546, the book Suma de Arithmetica practica y de todas mercaderias con la horden de contadores was printed in Valladolid (Figure 3 shows the cover of the book). Its author was Gaspar de Texeda, a priest according to (Salavert, 1990) although Ausejo (2015) discovered that he was a scrivener from Zaragoza, who wrote several other books that were not related to mathematics.…”

“…Juan de Yciar was a well-known calligrapher who published a large number of books. In addition to his work as a calligrapher, Juan de Yciar was also an occasional teacher (Ausejo, 2015;Picatoste, 1891).…”

“…This book is considered one of the arithmetic books that were likely being used during the second year of teaching Astrology at the University of Salamanca since 1561, in order to explain arithmetic from scratch and up to square and cube roots (Carabias, 2012). Ausejo (2015) considered that the fact that the book was printed in folio suggests that it was a book to be consulted and preserved, perhaps a book for the teacher, but maybe not a student manual.…”

“…The last book studied was written by Juan Gutierrez, a priest from a small Castilian town (Ausejo, 2015). Its title is Arte breve y muy provechoso de quenta castellana y Arithmetica, donde se muestra las cinco reglas de guarismo por la quenta castellana, y reglas de memoria, and it was printed in Zaragoza in 1564 ( Figure 5 shows the cover of the book).…”

“…• Juan Gutierrez: Arte Breve y muy provechoso de quenta castellana y Arithmetica (Brief and very useful art of Castilian count and arithmetic). Some authors considered that its first edition was printed in Toledo in 1531 (Salavert, 1990), but recent studies state that its first edition was printed in 1539 (Ausejo, 2015). The edition analysed was published in 1564.…”