La Trigonometrie rectiligne et spherique, ou il est traité de la construction des Tables de Sinus, Tangentes, Secantes, & Logarithmes

Key Properties

Edition: Paris, Claude Jombert, 1720 (privilege dated 10 May 1720)

Language: French

Format: c. 20 x 13 cm

Plates: 4 folding engraved plates (Trigonometrie Planches 1-4)

Binding: Contemporary full calf, gilt title and ornaments on the spine, marbled endpapers, red edges

Provenance: Revolutionary prize inscription, 15 Fructidor Year VII (1 September 1799), Nièvre

Annotations: Two pages of manuscript corrigenda to the printed tables

Collation & Technical Description

[VIII], 103, [1], [286] pp., with 4 folding engraved plates (Trigonometrie Planches 1-4).

Title; Au Lecteur; privilege (dated 10 May 1720, registered 15 May 1720); Traité de trigonométrie in four parts, pp. 1-96; Table des matières from p. 97; separate title "Tables de sinus, tangentes et secantes ... et des logarithmes des sinus et des tangentes"; the trigonometric tables and the table of logarithms of numbers to 10000; "Catalogue des livres qui se vendent chez Claude Jombert", 1720.

Condition

Contemporary full calf, gilt spine, well preserved. Leaves in very good condition overall, with the usual signs of use and age. Some staining to the final blank leaves.

Description

Ozanam's French edition of the trigonometric and logarithmic tables of Adriaan Vlacq (1600-1667), the Gouda-born mathematician and publisher whose tables were the standard of their time. The work explains the construction of the tables of sines, tangents, secants and logarithms, their use in solving plane and spherical triangles, and their application to astronomical questions, followed by the full tables calculated on a radius of 10,000,000 parts. The address to the reader explains that the tables were printed from Vlacq's edition of The Hague, 1665, corrected against the Amsterdam edition of 1683, and the sines checked against Pitiscus and the logarithms against Briggs.

This copy has two layers of later history. In 1799 it was given as a prize for the study of arithmetic to the citoyen Lamorlie, in the presence of the administrators of the département of the Nièvre, signed and stamped by the departmental administration. At the end, after the publisher's catalogue, a contemporary hand has written two pages of errata to the printed tables, headed "erata" and listing natural sines, tangents and secants with "au lieu de ... lisez ...": the reader checked the tables and corrected them, continuing the very work of verification that the preface describes. The hand of these corrections has not been identified.

Historical Significance

A mathematical handbook of 1720, rooted in the Dutch tradition of table-making, reused eighty years later in the revolutionary French school system: the prize was awarded under the Directory, in the years of the Écoles centrales, for the very subject of the book. Together with the manuscript corrigenda, it shows the tables not as a static reference but as an instrument that was taught, rewarded and checked by its users.

Provenance

Prize inscription on the verso of the title: "Prix d'encouragement dans l'étude de l'arithmétique délivré au citoyen Lamorlie le quinze fructidor an sept de la république française en présence des administrateurs du département de la Nièvre" (15 Fructidor Year VII, 1 September 1799), with several signatures and an octagonal stamp of the Administration centrale of the Nièvre. One signature very probably reads J. A. Lefiot: Jean-Alban Lefiot (1755-1839), former deputy of the Nièvre to the Convention, who is recorded as administrateur central de la Nièvre shortly after this date. The other signatories are not yet identified. "Lamorlie 1799" in ink on the front free endpaper.