ZUCHETTA, Giovanni Battista Prima Parte della Arimmetica... Per la quale con mirabile ordine, & nuove regole si resolve con maravigliosa facilita ogni dubbio mercantesco. Con un Trattato, che risolve qualunque quesito bisognoso a Zecchieri, Orefici, & Argentari... Brescia, Vincenzo Sabbio, 1600
Folio (325 x 230 mm), pp [xxviii including blank] 412 [4], with engraved title with architectural border and portrait of the author and engraved portrait of dedicatee on second leaf; a fine, crisp copy in contemporary limp vellum. £2600
First edition of this treatise on commercial arithmetic. 'The work has several interesting features, not the least one being the apology "Al generoso lettore," in which the author speaks of the criticism liable to be directed against a Genoese author on account of his provincial Italian. The "Prologo" is a curious dissertation on the "Arti, Scienze, & altro," with some ninety-eight arguments to show the need for arithmetic on the part of all classes of humanity. The farmer, the musician, the thief, the cook, the prelate, all are shown to have need of number; and Nature, Intelligence, and even God himself make use of it.
'The book presupposes a knowledge of the arithmetic of integers, and opens with a treatment of fractions. The rule of three, in all of its forms, and with most unbusinesslike numbers, is then discussed at great length, and this is followed by various complications of the Regola del Cattaino, "cosi detta da gli Arabi inventori di quello, ch' in lingua nostra significa falsa posizione." The latter part of the book treats of such topics as partnership, barter, and alligation' (Smith, Rara arithmetica pp. 425-7).
Riccardi remarks that the work is 'rarissimo' and that it is one of the best treatises on commercial arithmetic.
Adams Z195; Riccardi II 674; NUC: NN PPT NIC NcU MiU WU CtY
£2600
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