MATHEMATICS AND THE CRAFT OF THOUGHT IN THE ANGLO -DUTCH RENAISSANCE

"Geometry had a mercurial nature in the sixteenth century. Transmitted from antiquity in the form of Euclid's Elements, it was many years before geometry moved from the scholastic sphere and before its language and logic began to be used in an explicitly practical context. In 1570, Henry Billingsley translated Euclid's Elements into the English vernacular. In 1604, Jan Pieterszoon Dou followed suit and produced the first translation in the Dutch vernacular. These were both seminal moments in what is now known as the scientific revolution, but they were also part of a broader shift towards the establishment of geometry as a practical and analytical tool. Mathematics and the Craft of Thought in the Anglo-Dutch Renaissance sheds light on the remarkable culture shift that occurred around the turn of the seventeenth century, and on the geometrical imagination which followed. It shows how the visual language of early modern European geometry was constructed by borrowing and quoting from contemporary visual culture. Practical geometry in this period was built out of craft metaphors. The verbal and visual language of this form of mathematics, far from being simply immaterial, is designed to tantalize with material connotations"-- Provided by publisher The development of a coherent, cohesive visual system of mathematics brought about a seminal shift in approaches towards abstract thinking in western Europe. Vernacular translations of Euclid's Elements made these new and developing approaches available to a far broader readership than had previously been possible. Scholarship has explored the way that the language of mathematics leaked into the literary cultures of England and the Low Countries, but until now the role of visual metaphors of making and shaping in the establishment of mathematics as a practical tool has gone unexplored. Mathematics and the Craft of Thought sheds light on the remarkable culture shift surrounding the vernacular language translations of Euclid, and the geometrical imaginary that they sought to create. It shows how the visual language of early modern European geometry was constructed by borrowing and quoting from contemporary visual culture. The verbal and visual language of this form of mathematics, far from being simply immaterial, was designed to tantalize with material connotations. This book argues that, in a very real sense, practical geometry in this period was built out of craft metaphors.