Mathematical Works Printed in the Americas, 1554–1700

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments This book has been shaped by many people. Back in 1996, my good friend Ed Sandifer gave me the idea of doing something with Spanish colonial mathematics books, and he has been involved all along the way. He was there the first time I requested rare books from a library, and he taught me what to look for; he read several early drafts of this book and provided valuable comments; he worked with me at both the Yale and the John Carter Brown libraries and helped me to understand some of the Latin texts; and he was generally full of encouragement and good ideas. In the fall of 2000, Richard Ring made me realize the nature of my project . “You’re doing a bibliography?” “Yes . . . I . . . am!” “Oh, that will be very useful.” My colleague Joel Silverberg always seemed able to tease out the answer to whatever I asked from the World Wide Web. Alex Scorpan was ever ready to help me with TeX. Thanks also to the rest of the Mathematics Department at Roger Williams University—Earl Gladue, Annela Kelly, Ruth Koelle, and Yajni Warnapala-Yehiya—for putting up with me. One advantage of being on the faculty of a small- to medium-sized university is the chance to meet colleagues from diverse disciplines and exchange ideas. Peter Thompson read an early version of the manuscript and helped me make my Spanish (and English!) more correct. Many others had an influence on this book or were generally helpful and encouraging . A partial list includes Adam Braver, Avelina Espinosa, Christine Fagan, Ernie Greco, Tony Hollingsworth, Jeffrey Meriwether, Jim Tackach, and Mel Topf. There are many more that I’m unable to mention here. Thanks go to some of my former students. Erin Smith assisted me with my research at the Biblioteca Nacional de México on a grant for under- acknowledgments x graduate research from RWU. Rory Plante wrote a fine senior thesis on Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, which is cited in the references. The history of mathematics community has been supportive, encouraging , and tremendously helpful. Ed Sandifer was already mentioned. Shirley Gray read an early version and made extensive and highly useful comments. Larry D’Antonio set me straight about congruent numbers. Pier Daniele Napolitani made me realize that I had overlooked Maurolico’s Computus Ecclesiasticus, even though I had looked right at it. Some others are Rob Bradley, Sandro Caparrini, Ximena Catepillan, Tom Drucker, Barney Hughes, Clara Nucci, Danny Otero, Kim Plofker, Fred Rickey, Glen Van Brummelen, and Greisy Winicki-Landman. Heather Vincent and Sin Guanci helped me with some Latin translations . Norton Starr and Norman Fiering read early drafts and made comments that resulted in significant improvements in this book. Thanks also go to Brian Raines and to Allison Sandman for their help. My mother, Cathie Burdick, read a draft and helped me to pay more attention to my commas. Thanks, Mom! Roger Williams University has supported this project in many ways. Two important ways are through the Professional Development Committee and the Foundation to Promote Scholarship and Teaching. Thanks to all who have served on these committees over the years. RWU also granted me a sabbatical for the academic year 2004–2005, and this greatly accelerated the progress of my research. In those fifteen months alone, I was able to visit more than fifty libraries and to rewrite the draft of this book several times. Thanks especially to all of the wonderful librarians and curators at all of the many libraries and museums that I visited or contacted in the course of researching this book. It is impossible to mention everybody. Private collectors also have been universally helpful in supplying me with information about their holdings. There is an Index of Libraries and Collections beginning on page 357, listing everywhere that has an original copy of any item in my lists of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century American mathematical printed works. At the end of that, I have listed all of the other libraries that I visited during the course of this project. I hope that a general thank-you to all of the staff members at all of these institutions, and to all of the collectors, will assure everyone that their enthusiastic assistance is still greatly appreciated. Mathematical Works Printed in the Americas, 1554–1700 This page intentionally left blank ...