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Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics / Kevin G. Tracey

Swansea University Author: Kevin G. Tracey

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/Suthesis.51299

Abstract

Through detailed evaluation of the Science Museum Library’s Rare Books Collection, this thesis explores the use, ownership and subsequent collection of mathematical books produced between 1550 and 1750. Research has been undertaken as part of a Collaborative Doctoral Award between Swansea University...

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Published: 2019
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa51299
first_indexed 2019-08-09T16:31:56Z
last_indexed 2025-03-20T07:28:13Z
id cronfa51299
recordtype RisThesis
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spelling 2025-03-19T12:12:57.8707847 v2 51299 2019-08-02 Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics 1461e969d5b5791c426eaf710843708b 0000-0002-7573-2420 Kevin G. Tracey Kevin G. Tracey true true 2019-08-02 Through detailed evaluation of the Science Museum Library’s Rare Books Collection, this thesis explores the use, ownership and subsequent collection of mathematical books produced between 1550 and 1750. Research has been undertaken as part of a Collaborative Doctoral Award between Swansea University and the Science Museum, London, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2018. Consisting of close to 1,700 titles published between 1486 and 1800 encompassing the pre-modern classification of mathematics, this subset of the Rare Books Collection represents a remarkable accumulation of the practical and the theoretical across a variety of disciplines and languages. My thesis begins by characterising these mathematical holdings in aggregate, analysing the contents and physical features of the texts therein. Findings are supplemented by examination of accompanying provenance, including bindings, bookplates, and signatures. Discrete case-studies then present key texts as part of their readers’ burgeoning mathematical practice, with chapters focussing on the spread of Ramist pedagogies of arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry in sixteenth-century Germany; the interconnected use of text, instrument and theory in early modern English intellectual and navigational cultures; and the value attached to the related disciplines of mathematical astronomy and chronology at the University of Cambridge in the late 1690s. The thesis closes with a reconstruction of the library of the clergyman and mathematician, Nathaniel Torporley (1564-1632), tracing the journey of Torporley’s materials to the collection of the antiquarian Robert Brodhead Honeyman (1897-1987) and to the Science Museum thereafter. By placing the Museum’s Library and its holdings in their correct historical contexts, this thesis contributes to our understanding of mathematical culture in the early modern period, to the history of collecting in the modern era, and to the Science Museum’s understanding of its own holdings and of its role as an institutional collector. E-Thesis History of mathematics; history of science; history of reading; history of the book; history of collecting; early modern period; museum studies; library studies 31 12 2019 2019-12-31 10.23889/Suthesis.51299 A selection of third party content is redacted or is partially redacted from this thesis. COLLEGE NANME History COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Doctoral Ph.D Arts and Humanities Research Council 1689091 2025-03-19T12:12:57.8707847 2019-08-02T10:26:25.5245964 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - History Kevin G. Tracey 0000-0002-7573-2420 1 0051299-02082019154725.pdf Tracey_Kevin_G_PhD_Thesis_Final_Redacted.pdf 2019-08-02T15:47:25.4600000 Output 29357755 application/pdf Redacted version - open access true 2020-07-28T00:00:00.0000000 true
title Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
spellingShingle Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
Kevin G. Tracey
title_short Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
title_full Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
title_fullStr Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
title_full_unstemmed Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
title_sort Calculating Value: Using and Collecting the Tools of Early Modern Mathematics
author_id_str_mv 1461e969d5b5791c426eaf710843708b
author_id_fullname_str_mv 1461e969d5b5791c426eaf710843708b_***_Kevin G. Tracey
author Kevin G. Tracey
author2 Kevin G. Tracey
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2019
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/Suthesis.51299
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - History{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - History
document_store_str 1
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description Through detailed evaluation of the Science Museum Library’s Rare Books Collection, this thesis explores the use, ownership and subsequent collection of mathematical books produced between 1550 and 1750. Research has been undertaken as part of a Collaborative Doctoral Award between Swansea University and the Science Museum, London, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2018. Consisting of close to 1,700 titles published between 1486 and 1800 encompassing the pre-modern classification of mathematics, this subset of the Rare Books Collection represents a remarkable accumulation of the practical and the theoretical across a variety of disciplines and languages. My thesis begins by characterising these mathematical holdings in aggregate, analysing the contents and physical features of the texts therein. Findings are supplemented by examination of accompanying provenance, including bindings, bookplates, and signatures. Discrete case-studies then present key texts as part of their readers’ burgeoning mathematical practice, with chapters focussing on the spread of Ramist pedagogies of arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry in sixteenth-century Germany; the interconnected use of text, instrument and theory in early modern English intellectual and navigational cultures; and the value attached to the related disciplines of mathematical astronomy and chronology at the University of Cambridge in the late 1690s. The thesis closes with a reconstruction of the library of the clergyman and mathematician, Nathaniel Torporley (1564-1632), tracing the journey of Torporley’s materials to the collection of the antiquarian Robert Brodhead Honeyman (1897-1987) and to the Science Museum thereafter. By placing the Museum’s Library and its holdings in their correct historical contexts, this thesis contributes to our understanding of mathematical culture in the early modern period, to the history of collecting in the modern era, and to the Science Museum’s understanding of its own holdings and of its role as an institutional collector.
published_date 2019-12-31T05:05:13Z
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score 11.100862

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