Favourite mathematical illustrations

Number 2 of an occasional series

Title page of Nicolo Tartaglia, La Nova Scientia, Venice, 1550

Euclid guards the entrance to a walled garden within which Tartaglia is surrounded by figures including Geometry, Arithmetic, Music and Astronomy. This garden leads to another, in which Aristotle and Plato appear in front of the enthroned figure of Philosophy. A cannon represents one of the themes of Tartaglia's book, and reminds us that the development of mathematics, like other technologies, was often driven by military purposes.

Disciplinae Mathematicae loquuntur.
Qui cupitis Rerum varias cognoscere causas
Discite nos: Cunctis hac patet vna via.