Introduction to Sabbatical 2 REDUX

 

Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) and Nicolo Tartaglia (1499-1557)

This post is coming to you from Venice. Four years after the initial attempt at this "sabbatical," I am finally able to finish what I started. I'd been granted a sabbatical for spring 2020. At this point we all know what spring 2020 held in store for our world. I was able to do a snippet of sabbatical that semester before Covid-19 closed our world down, but I never did make it to Italy. Here is a link to the description of "Sabbatical 2" from January 2020 if you're interested in the original intent.

St. Mark's Basilica as seen from the Doge's Palace

These travels will involve a different itinerary than that of the original plan and post - especially since the UK part of that plan has been completed. I'm doing a big triangle in northern Italy with the intent of following the life of mathematician Girolamo Cardano. Other mathematicians and scientists will come into this as well, including but not limited to: Tartaglia, Cavalieri, Bombelli, Dee, Galileo, Copernicus, and del Ferro.

San Giorgio di Maggiore as seen from the Doge's Palace

While in Venice I'll be focused mainly on Caradano and Tartaglia whose mathematical feud is the stuff of legend. I know that British mathematician John Dee also spent time here - as is testified to in his signature and note in the book pictured below. The book is Opus novum by Jacopo Silvestri and is either the first or second book ever printed on cryptography, a favorite subject (among many) of Dee.

British Library - 8495.a.9 - Silvestri, Jacopo - Opus novum

As well as what I've mentioned above, there's a story about Cardano that I'll have to tell in a future post that has to do with him being fished out of Venetian canal he'd fallen into, saved by passers-by in a gondola. I'll wait until I've taken a gondola ride myself so I can write a little more first-hand on that. 

My posts may be a bit slow in coming, but there will eventually be many of them. It may even be that I finish this project once I'm back home early this summer. Blogging takes lots of time, especially if internet gets slow, and I need to be out there following in these footsteps (or oar strokes as the case may be!) while I'm here and have the chance. If you know me, and if you are following in May 2024, you can find lots more pictures on facebook, which is much faster for me to upload to, so those posts will go up daily. But I do hope you'll stick around and not give up on this math history journey even if some days pass between posts. Welcome along and ciao! :-)