Bernard Bolzano -- Not as unknown to his contemporaries as is commonly believed? (Q1209761)

The author reports an important finding in the literature of Bolzano's time: a long review of 1821 of three of his recent book(let)s on mathematics, including the (now) famous one of 1817 on the intermediate value theorem. The author was one J. J. I. Hoffmann, a mathematician from Southern Germany; the main parts of his review, which is quite competent, are reproduced. It appeared in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur- Zeitung, a known type of publication in Germany at that time but now usually ignored by historians. Some basic questions of historiography are exemplified by this find.