De Arithmetica

Lorenzo da Morgiani and Giovanni Thedesco da Maganza|Filippo Calandri|Lorenzo de' Medici

January 1, 1491 · Printed book with woodcut illustrations · Drawings and Prints

This is one of the first inexpensive illustrated textbooks making it available to many more students than earlier teaching materials, which had been written by hand on vellum. The small size and the many diagrams made it easier to use, while the pictures must have made math more bearable to young students. The woodcuts, which range from ornamental classicizing borders framing multiplication tables to lively depictions of people and animals that illustrate word problems, are exquisite examples of the flowering of Florentine woodcut illustration in the 1490s. On this page, we see a series of hand gestures that signify numbers.

Artist

Lorenzo da Morgiani and Giovanni Thedesco da Maganza|Filippo Calandri|Lorenzo de' Medici

Date

January 1, 1491

Medium

Printed book with woodcut illustrations

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1919