‘Secrets of Industry’ for ‘Common Men’: Charles de Bovelles and Early French Readerships of Technical Print

Abstract

Where Charles de Bovelles has a reputation at all, it is as a highly innovative philosopher in the intellectual mold of Nicolas of Cusa, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, or perhaps Giordano Bruno. 1 But beyond being possessed of a mathematical curiosity and turn of imagination, the Picard canon was also deeply invested in the early sixteenth-century efforts to rework French as a language with a distinctive cultural heritage. 2 He experimented with arithmetical and geometrical theory in French and wrote studies of the language itself, such as a collection of French proverbs and a short study of French's origins, via the ancient Druids, in Greek-like many other such theorists, he composed these theoretical studies of the vernacular in Latin. 3  Besides thanks to Sietske Fransen and Niall Hodson for inviting me and for their tireless diligence, I owe gratitude to Robert Goulding for overseeing this work at an early stage. I should also thank Pascal Brioist for sharing his forthcoming work on Bovelles. The final version of this chapter was partially funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (fp7/2007-2013)/erc grant agreement no. 617391. 1 Ernst Cassirer revived interest in Bovelles in Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, 2 vols., (Berlin: 1920), vol. I, 61-72, and especially his edition of Bovelles' De sapiente appended to Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance (Leipzig-Berlin: 1927). Bovelles's key insight included a Pican confidence in the intellectual powers of man to perfect and even co-create himself, a reading powerfully extended by Emmanuel Faye in

Oronce Fine and Sacrobosco: From the Edition of the Tractatus de sphaera (1516) to the Cosmographia (1532)

“…50 All three, and very likely also Fine himself, would have been disciples of Antoine Silvestre (Élie 1951). 51 On the illustrations in the Venetian editions of Sacrobosco, see (Gingerich 1999;Cosgrove 2007;Barker and Crowther 2013;Oosterhoff 2015).…”

“…Notwithstanding, the fact that, in the Protomathesis, music is in a sense "replaced" by gnomonics proposes a representation of mathematics which differs from the tradi-and practical knowledge (from Euclidean geometry and the theory of the sphere to the construction and use of surveying instruments and sundials), 21 the publication of the Protomathesis was important for the new image it provided of mathematics, in France and beyond. 22 As shown by Isabelle Pantin, the publication of this work, as well as of the many separate and successive editions of the different treatises that compose it, 23 also helped shape the Parisian style of printed scientific books (Pantin 2010, 2013a, Oosterhoff 2016. 24 Astronomy held a central role in Fine's mathematical work.…”

“…11 Bibliographical lists of Fine's works are proposed in (Ross 1971, 398-449;Ross 1974;Pantin 2013a;Axworthy 2016, 407-19). 12 On these authors and on their role in the diffusion of mathematics in the Parisian academic sphere, see (Rey Pastor 1934;Ross 1971, 11-15;Margolin 1976;Pantin 2009aPantin , 2013aOosterhoff 2015Oosterhoff , 2016Oosterhoff , 2018) (Chaps. 2 and 3).…”

“…ignorance of the students and masters of the Parisian Faculty of the Arts in mathematics (Dupèbe 1999, II, 523;Tuilier 2006a;Pantin 2006Pantin , 2009aOosterhoff 2015). 17 As the first royal lecturer in mathematics, Fine's main assignment was to offer greater visibility to the mathematical arts in France and to reform the traditional mathematical curriculum by introducing, in addition to the mathematical content generally taught within the universities (Boethian theories of numbers and of consonances, Euclidean plane geometry, and Ptolemaic geocentric astronomy), 18 more practical branches of mathematics, through which the utility of mathematics would be more easily displayed, both for the disciplines taught in the higher faculties (medicine, law, and theology) and for the moral and material aspects of human life.…”

“…A central role was also attributed to astronomy within Fine's mathematical teaching program, since the Cosmographia, sive mundi sphaera (of which four out of five books deal with spherical astronomy) stands, among the different treatises that compose the Protomathesis, simultaneously as the culminating point of the quadrivium, 28 tional model drawn from the model of the quadrivium (as represented, for example, by the mathematical section of the Margarita philosophica of Gregor Reisch, which Fine worked to edit around 1523) and which aims to promote practical mathematics. 21 On Fine's practical mathematics, see (Métin 2004;Guyot and Métin 2004;Dhombres 2006;Eagleton 2009;Dupré 2009;Brioist 2009a;Mosley 2009;Pantin 2006Pantin , 2009aPantin , 2010Oosterhoff 2014Oosterhoff , 2016Axworthy 2016, 249-300). 22 This work was translated into Italian (along with a treatise on burning mirrors, published in 1551) by Cosimo Bartoli in 1587 as Opere di Orontio Fineo del Delfinato divise in cinque Parti.…”