2S2

HISTORY OF

TRACT 19,

gonometiy, is in S books; it was written about the year 1464,and was printed in folio at Nuremberg, in 1533. And in the5th book are also various problems concerning rectilineartriangles, some of which are resolved by means of algebra—a prool that this science was not wholly unknown in Europebefore the treatise of Lucas de Burgo. Regiomontanus diedin 1476, at the age of 40 years only; being then at Rome,whither he had been invited by the Pope, to assist in the re-formation of the calendar, and where it was suspected hewas poisoned by the sons of George Trebizonde, in revengefor the death of their father, which was said to have beencaused by the grief he felt on account of the criticisms madeby Regiomontanus on his translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest.

Soon after .this, several other mathematicians contributed tothe improvement of trigonometry, by extending and enlarg-ing the tables, though few of their works have been printed;and particularly John Werner of Nuremberg, who was bornin 1468, and died in 152S, and who it seems wrote five bookson triangles.

About the year 1500, Nicholas Copernicus, the celebratedmodern restorer of the true solar system, wrote a brief treatiseon trigonometry, both plane and spherical, with the descrip-tion and construction of the canon of chords, or their halves,nearly in the manner of Ptolemy; to which is subjoined acanon of sines, with their differences, for every 10 minutes ofthe quadrant, to the radius 100,000. This tract is insertedin the first book of his “ Revolutiones Orbium Coelestium,”first printed in folio at Nuremberg, 1543. It is remarkablethat he does not call these lines sines , but semisses subtensarmn,namely of the double arcs.—Copernicus was born at Thomin 1473, and died in 1543.

In 1553 was published the “ Canon Foecundus,” or table oftangents, of Erasmus Reinhold, professor of mathematics inthe academy of Wurtemburg. Ide was born at Salfieldt inUpper Saxony, in the year 1511, and died in 1553.

To Francis Maurolyc, abbot of Messina in Sicily, we owethe introduction of the “ Tabula Benelica,” or canon of se-