``Tint and form''. The geometric philosophy underlying Oliver Byrne's \textit{Elements} (Q6562364)

This is an investigation of the main methodological and philosophical concerns underpinning \textit{O. Byrne}'s [The first six books of the Elements of Euclid with coloured diagrams and symbols. With booklet: Essay by Werner Oechslin. Facsimile of the 1847 original, published by Pickering, London. Köln: Taschen (2010; Zbl 1228.01053)]. Its main findings are that Byrne was concerned with semiotics, with the functioning of the ``mathematical sign'' -- a preoccupation that was not restricted to his edition of the first six books of \textit{The Elements}, but is at work in another one of his works, \textit{The young geometrician} of 1865 -- that, although Byrne's and Piet Mondrian's motivations differ, the former's being restricted to pedagogical considerations, the use of only primary colours is common to both, and that Byrne knew of Berkeley's critique of analysis and supported it, as evidenced most distinctly in his unpublished \textit{The trinal calculus}, which can be found in the Department of Manuscripts and Archives at Trinity College Dublin, and whose subtitle reads ``The Differential and Integral Calculus, under different forms and titles, have been based on visionary notions and false logic; these defects, which Bishop Berkeley and other writers clearly exposed, are fully remedied by The Trinal Calculus.''