Renaissance notions of number and magnitude (Q2490947)

The aim of the author is twofold: 1. to provide evidence about ways in which an informal numerical understanding of continuous magnitude originating in abacus books crept into authoritative 16th century versions of Euclid's \textit{Elements}. 2. these changes prepared the way to notions and arguments eventually introduced in Simon Stevin's 1585 ``\textit{L'Arithmétique}'' (p. 64). Indeed the author analyzed the following editions of Euclid's \textit{Elements} with regard to their definition of number and magnitude. 1. Tartaglia, 1543, 2. Clavius, 1574 and later, 3. Billingsley and Dee, 1570. So, first there is Euclid, that is the more or less conservative, traditional side. On the other side there is Stevin's ``\textit{L'Arithmétique}'' (1585). Stevin indeed opposed with his definition of number the centuries-old authority of Euclid. It is a well known fact that the first who used the more modern definition of number was not Stevin but Pierre de La Ramée who is mentioned by the author only by the way; at this point a detailed analysis is missing. La Ramées's contribution is presented for example in \textit{H. Gericke} [Geschichte des Zahlbetriffs. Mannheim: BI (1970)] and in \textit{J. Tropfke} ``Geschichte der Elementarmathematik'' (1980; Zbl 0419.01001). But regarded as a whole, why did the author compare these three editions of Euclid with Stevin? The paper does not give a convincing answer.