Lot 780: FINÉ, ORONCE.

Arithmetica practica, in compendium per authorem ipsum redacta, multisque accessionibus locupletata. Paris: Simon de Colines, 1544, ff. 95, [1], illustration : woodcut border on title-page, woodcut initials and headpieces, [Renouard, Colines, p.396]

Condition Note:

[Oughtred, William (1575-1660)] Arithmeticae in numeris et speciebus institutio quae tum logisticae, tum analyticae, atque adeo totius mathematicae, quasi clavis est. [London: T. Harper, 1631], first edition, [8], 88pp., illustration : woodcut diagrams, [STC 18898; Norman 1621], title-page cropped at head, paper manuscript pasted over imprint, G2 torn

2 works in one volume, 8vo (155 x 92mm.), binding : eighteenth-century calf, spine gilt in compartments, green morocco lettering-piece, manuscript annotations, some headlines and printed and manuscript marginalia cropped

Oughtred's brief mathematical treatise introduced "x" as the mathematical symbol for multiplication.

The manuscript notes in the work by Oughtred are in the hand of John Greaves (1602-1652). These (as in the Copernicus, Macclesfield Science A-C, lot 557) are in both pencil and ink, written in his small neat hand. On p. 9 there is a lengthy note on multiplication and division by the algebraic method ('Multiplicationis et divisionis algebraicae seu speciosae demonstratio'), on p. 17 a longish note on fractions ('fractiones duae purae vel mixtae sint addendae, sive subtrahendae, sive dividendae sint ad idem nomen prius reducantur...'), on p. 22 a reference to Viète: 'Facta continue sub magnitudinibus vel ex ijs continue orta [sc. Perdivisionem] esse aequalia, quacunque magnitudinum ordine ductio [1. Multiplicatio] vel applicatio [1. Divisio] fia'. On p. 24 is a note on pyramidal numbers with a table and note ('in hac tabula omnes numeri in linea transversali sunt progressiones arithmeticae; quae si continuantur, siunt numeri heptagoni, octogoni, enneagoni, &c.'. There are some other notes of various lengths in both margins and at the foot of the page as far as p. 58.