Tetragonismus. Id est circuli quadratura per Campanum, Archimedem Syracusanum, atque Boetium mathematicæ perspicacissimos adinventa.—At the end, Impressum Venetiis per loan. Bapti. Sessa. Anno ab incarnatione Domini, 1503. Die 28 Augusti.
This book has never been noticed in the history of the subject, and I cannot find any mention of it. The quadrature of Campanus takes the ratio of Archimedes, 7 to 22, to be absolutely correct; the account given of Archimedes is not a translation of his book; and that of Boetius has more than is in Boethius. This book must stand, with the next, as the earliest in print on the subject, until further showing: Murhard and Kastner have nothing so early. It is edited by Lucas Gauricus, who has given a short preface. Luca Gaurico, Bishop of Civita Ducale, an astrologer of astrologers, published this work at about thirty years of age, and lived to eighty-two. His works are collected in folios, but I do not know whether they contain this production. The poor fellow could never tell his own fortune, because his father neglected to note the hour and minute of his birth. But if there had been anything in astrology, he could have worked back, as Adams and Leverrier did when they caught Neptune: at sixty he could have examined every minute of his day of birth, by the events of his life, and so would have found the right minute. He could then have gone on, by rules of prophecy. Gauricus was the mathematical teacher of Joseph Scaliger, who did him no credit, as we shall see.
In hoc opere contenta Epitome.…Liber de quadratura Circuli.…Paris, 1505, folio.
The quadrator is Charles Bovillus, who adopted the views of Cardinal Cusa, presently mentioned. Montucla is hard on his compatriot, who, he says, was only saved from the laughter of geometers by his obscurity. Persons must guard against most historians of mathematics in one point: they frequently attribute to his own age the obscurity which a writer has in their own time. This tract was printed by Henry Stephens, at the instigation of Faber Stapulensis, and is recorded by Dechales, &c. It was also introduced into the 'Margarita Philosophica' of 1815, in the same appendix with the new perspective from Viator. This is not extreme obscurity, by any means. The quadrature deserved it; but that is another point.
