Some twenty years after the Gregorian calendar reform, towards the end of his life, François Viète published his own calendar proposal. This treatise contains a sharp attack against the Jesuit scholar Clavius, the mathematical mind behind the reform. Understandably enough, Clavius prepared a negative reply. Viète heard of it and exploded in a fit of rage, ``I demonstrated that you are a false mathematician [ . . . ], and a false theologian.'' Sadly, Clavius' rejection, added as a chapter to his monumental apology of the Gregorian reform, appeared when Viète had already passed away. Viète seriously believed that the true aim of the Gregorian reform has been betrayed and he was furious about some logical inconsistencies which he claimed to have found in Clavius' calendar. Clavius apparently confused solar day and epactal day (or ``tithi''), the thirtieth part of a lunar month. This is the very core of Viète's attack against Clavius whom he accused of having introduced a false lunar period (``falsa periodus lunaris''). But his own work has some logical inconsistencies too. For instance, he reproaches Clavius for having introduced lunar months of 31 days which, indeed, are unrealistic. Grievously, his own rules can likewise give rise to lunations of unnatural lengths. In order to understand these subtle twists reader and author must work largely through both Clavius and Viète's methods of Easter reckoning. The fruit of all those efforts might be an insight into Viète's clear mathematical thinking. His calendar, however, was never considered.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Thesis
Abram Kaplan;
(2018)
The Myth of Greek Algebra: Progress and Community in Early-Modern Mathematics
(/isis/citation/CBB202265617/)
Article
Paolo Freguglia;
(2022)
Marinus Ghetaldus’s Supplementum Apollonij Galli. An Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB325369886/)
Article
Christián C. Carman;
(2022)
François Viète's method for calculating the eccentricity in a bisected model and its possible application to Kepler's Vicarious Hypothesis
(/isis/citation/CBB642303099/)
Article
Meskens, Ad;
(2002)
Some New Biographical Data about Michiel Coignet
(/isis/citation/CBB000411057/)
Chapter
Luigi Maierù;
(2012)
L'héritage arabe sur le problème des parallèles: un patrimoine culturel des Christoph Clavius (1589) à Gerolamo Saccheri (1733)
(/isis/citation/CBB536552867/)
Article
Karen Hunger Parshall;
(2017)
A Plurality of Algebras, 1200–1600: Algebraic Europe from Fibonacci to Clavius
(/isis/citation/CBB964219676/)
Chapter
Rommevaux, Sabine;
(2012)
Qu’est-ce que l’algèbre pour Christoph Clavius?
(/isis/citation/CBB001200515/)
Book
Agustín Udías;
(2014)
Jesuit Contribution to Science: A History
(/isis/citation/CBB032367683/)
Article
Hiraoka, Ryuji;
(2009)
Clavius and His Astronomical Data during the “Christian Century” in Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB000953467/)
Article
Stedall, Jacqueline;
(2008)
Notes Made by Thomas Harriot on the Treatises of François Viète
(/isis/citation/CBB000774066/)
Article
Sheila J. Rabin;
(2014)
Early Modern Jesuit Science. A Historiographical Essay
(/isis/citation/CBB309649349/)
Book
Robin B. Barnes;
Klaus D. Herbst;
(2018)
Die deutschen Kalenderschreiber im Zeitalter der Konfessionsbildung 1531-1630: Register und Analyse
(/isis/citation/CBB196767222/)
Book
Schiavo, Armando;
(1993)
La meridiana di S. Maria degli Angeli. (Nel IV centenario della riforma Gregoriana del calendario)
(/isis/citation/CBB000035494/)
Article
Panza, Marco;
(2006)
François Viète: Between Analysis and Cryptanalysis
(/isis/citation/CBB000642094/)
Article
Freguglia, Paolo;
(2019)
François Viète’s Apollonius Gallus: An Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB337065862/)
Book
Rommevaux, Sabine;
(2005)
Clavius: Une clé pour Euclide au XVIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000740223/)
Article
Hiraoka, Ryuji;
(2008)
Clavius in Nanban Cosmology: Astronomical Data in Pedro Gomez's Compendium catholicae veritatis and Its Sources
(/isis/citation/CBB000930014/)
Article
Cifoletti, Giovanna;
(2006)
From Valla to Viète: The Rhetorical Reform of Logic and Its Use in Early Modern Algebra
(/isis/citation/CBB000772987/)
Article
Joaquín Guerola Olivares;
(2022)
Clavius, Pitiscus y la primera demostración del teorema del coseno para los lados de un triángulo esférico cualquiera
(/isis/citation/CBB055471330/)
Article
Helbert E. Velilla-Jiménez;
(2022)
Francisco Sánchez and the Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum: A sceptical approach
(/isis/citation/CBB323676635/)
Be the first to comment!