A tale of Tartaglia's \textit{Libro sesto} \& \textit{La gionta} in \textit{Quesiti et inventioni diverse} (1546--1554): exploring the historical and cultural foundations (Q2151516)

Niccolò Fontana, known as Tartaglia (1499/1500--1557), is considered an important mathematician and engineer of the Italian Renaissance and a precursor to Galileo. This article is mostly about Tartaglia's ``Addendum to the sixth book'' (\textit{La gionta del sesto libro}) -- which is dedicated to city fortifications -- of his ``Miscellaneous questions and findings'' (\textit{Quesiti et inventioni diverse}), first published in 1546 and 1554, respectively. An introduction that offers context and four helpful tables (pp.~477--482) is followed by a synopsis of Book VI of the \textit{Quesiti} in Section~2 (pp.~481--486) and, in Section~3, by a summary of the \textit{Gionta} (pp.~486--490). In Section~4 the author makes four brief remarks on various extant editions of the text (pp.~491--496) before he advances the thesis ``that the \textit{Gionta} should -- or could -- have had a sequel'' (p.~496) in Section~5. References are extensive and fill pp.~498--504. The article doesn't seem to offer much new material or insights, if any. Most of its contents can be found, often verbatim, in the author's earlier book, co-authored with \textit{D. Capecchi}, [Tartaglia's science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century. Selections from \textit{Quesiti et inventioni diverse}: Books VII--VIII. History of mechanism and machine science 8. Dordrecht etc.: Springer-Verlag (2016)]; in \S\,1.1.5.3 we also find the article's main thesis stated and argued. The argument, however, seems defective since the author understands the amount of 300 Venetien ducats to be a sales price (``notes regarding its sale for 300 \textit{ducati veneti}'', p.~496), while Tartaglia himself called it the financial penalty (\textit{pena}) for any copyright violation (``priuilegio dall'Illustrisimo Senato Veneto, che niuno ardisca, ne presuma di stampar, ne far stampare la presente Gionta, ne stampate altroue uendere, ne far uendere in Venetia, ne in alcuno altro luoco, ò terra del Dominio Veneto, per anni diece, sotto pena de duc. 300''; the text quoted is reproduced on p.~496). While the author communicates sufficiently well to be understood, it is a bit surprising that his non-idiomatic, and often wrong, English made it past the refereeing process. Copy-editing is poor, too; the reader will find many typos, and tables or pictures often fill half a page, leaving the other half blank with no text flowing around. Quality control at this journal seems lacking.