THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED ITALIAN BOOK ON ARITHMETIC

[CALANDRI, FILIPPO].

Aritmetica.

Firenze, Lorenzo de Morgiani and Giovanni Thedesco da Maganza, 1491.

8vo. Leaves loosely inserted in a later full vellum binding with four raised bands, preserved in cloth clamshell box. Several loose leaves. Several leaves closely shaved, some with minor loss of text, all with loss of signatures. 83 ff. (out of 104 ff).

Rare first edition of the first illustrated Italian book on arithmetic, also constituting one of the first inexpensive illustrated textbooks making it available to many more students than earlier teaching materials. The woodcuts, which range from ornamental classicizing borders framing multiplication tables to lively depictions of people and animals that illustrate word problems, are exquisite examples of the flowering of Florentine woodcut illustration in the 1490s.
Two variant issues were published simultaneously: One by Lorenzo Morgiani and Giovanni Petri, 1 january 1491/92 and the present by Lorenzo de Morgiani and Giovanni Thedesco da Maganza, 1491. Priority of issue has not been established (Hain, Smith, BM-Ital., De Morgan and Tomash & William quote this variant as the first), but there can be no doubt this present variant by far is the rarest.

Calandri here gives the leading rules for integers and for lire, soldi and denari, and likewise puts division down in examples. Calandri is the first to give long divisons in the modern form, known to the Italian writers by the name "a danda". "Indeed Calandri gives only the 'a danda' method, omitting the galley forms, and is therefore fully a century ahead of his time." (David E. Smith). - In Augustus de Morgan's bibliography: Arithmetical Books from the Invention of Printing to the Present Time, 1847, Calandri's Arithmetic is listed as the first.

GW 5884; BMC VI68I; BM-Ital 136; Oates 2423; Klebs 236.1; Stillwell 154; Goff C-34; Smith, Rara. Pp. 47-49; Tomash & William C9; Hain 4234. De Morgan p. 1.

Order-nr.: 57782