science and medicine in early modern venice 703
of interest among italian humanists.8 a few years before his death in 1472,
Bessarion donated his immense collection of Greek and latin manuscripts
to the Venetian republic.9 Transferred to Venice in 1472, the collection
became the nucleus of the Biblioteca Marciana.
as a Platonist, Bessarion naturally had an interest in mathematics, and
his library held an extensive collection of Greek mathematical works. He
owned codices containing treatises by archimedes, appollonius, Hero,
and aristarchus, along with an extensive collection of works by euclid.
With the exception of Pappus, Bessarion’s library contained every major
classical source for the humanist revival of mathematics.
other important private libraries also made their way to Venice. The
prominent humanist Giorgio Valla of Piacenza (1447–1500), who moved
to Venice in 1485 to become a public teacher of mathematics, brought
with him an extensive collection of mathematical works that included
latin translations of aristarchus, archimedes, and Hero as well as com-
mentaries on euclid. Valla wrote a massive humanistic compendium of
classical opinions on the relationship between mathematics and philoso-
phy, De expetendis et fugiendis rebus (1501). compiled largely from fresh
translations and paraphrases of Greek mathematical writings, it was the
chief reference work on ancient mathematics and served as an important
resource for renaissance scientists, including the astronomer copernicus,
who mined it extensively.
The rich collections of mathematical works in private and public
Venetian libraries served as sources for a humanistic renaissance of
mathematics.10 in 1503, the neapolitan luca Guarico published at Venice
his Tetragonismus, comprising the first printed latin texts of archime-
des, while Fra Giovanni Giacondo, a classical scholar and architect from
Verona who came to Venice in 1506 to serve as a military engineer to the
republic, edited mathematical texts for the aldine press.11
The humanist revival of classical mathematics also expressed itself in
public lectures on euclid, archimedes, and other masters. in 1508, luca
(^) 8 ludwig Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann, 3 vols
(aalen/Paderborn, 1923–42; repr. aachen: Scientia-Verlag, 1967), vol. 3: Aus Bessarions
Gelehrtenkreis, pp. 1923–42; l. labowsky, “Bessarione,” in Dizionario biografico degli
Italiani , vol. 9 (rome, 1967), pp. 686–96.
9 Paul lawrence rose, The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics: Studies on Humanists
and Mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo (Geneva, 1975).
10 See, in general, rose, Italian Renaissance of Mathematics.
11 Giocondo designed the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (1508), which was decorated by Titian
and Giorgione.