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CUTHBERT TUNSTALL De Arte Supputandi libri quatuor. Paris, Roberti Stephani 1538 Quarto, calf, 20.4 x 14.5 cm, 259pp, insignificant browning to a few leaves, early ownership inscription in ink at the top of p.5 of Caroli Seueroli, a fine large copy. Smith, Rara Arithmetica, p.135. When first published in London in 1522 it was the first book wholly on arithmetic printed in England. It was reprinted in Paris in 1528, 1535, 1538 (here described) and a further four printings in Strasbourg between 1543 and 1551. Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559) was educated at Oxford, Cambridge and Padua. He was bishop of London and later Durham. The book is dedicated to his friend Thomas More, of whom More described in 1516 in the opening lines of his Utopia “I was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the king with such universal applause lately made Master of the Rolls..” Tunstall wrote this book as a practical handbook. It was based on Italian models and it is apparent that he must have known the leading Italian writers of the time from his stay in Padua. Smith writes that “the book includes many business applications of the day, such as partnership, profit and loss and exchange. It includes the rule of false, the rule of three and numerous applications of these and other rules”. £1,800 |
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