Publication details
Aritmetika Martiana Capelly (Jak mnoho nepochopení ovlivnilo promyšlený koncept)
| Title in English | The Arithmetic of Martian Capella (How many misunderstandings have affected a well considered concept) |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | Matrianus Capella's late antique encyclopaedia De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii contains, among other things, a book devoted to arithmetic, in which a personified Arithmetica comes before the audience and describes its contents. However, an analysis of the scholarly aspect of the engaging narrative shows that Capella's mathematical knowledge was not very good or precise. At the same time, the unraveling of Capella's missteps in the technical level of the text shows that the whole account is constructed in a very sophisticated way in order to pay tribute to Capella's most influential sources, which are Euclid and Nicomachos of Gerassa. The presentation will show Capella's errors in turn, from those where only slight changes have been made to the original statements to those that completely overturn the meaning of the ideas in the source texts. However, the aim of the presentation is mainly to reveal the originally intended structure of the work, which also served as a mathematical text. |