Speaker
Description
Federico Commandino’s Latin editions of the mathematical works of the ancient Greeks constituted an essential point of reference for the scientific research of the moderns. Thanks to his tireless work of understanding and reestablishing the texts of Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Apollonius and Pappo, the mathematics of the moderns was able to lift its sails to overcome the Hercules columns of the geometry of the ancients. In his Latin editions of the Greek classics, Commandino cleverly integrated his philological skills with the mathematical ones. The two disciplines, moreover, nurtured each other. I analyze the manuscripts and the printed edition of Ptolemy’s De analemmate to evaluate the interaction between philology and mathematics characteristic of Commandino, but also to highlight in a specific case study the role of the editions of the classics in the renaissance of modern mathematics. After the publication of De analemmate there occurred a revival of interest in gnomonic studies, necessary for the understanding of the scientific principles underlying the construction of sundials.
