The six books of Diophantus' Arithmetic increased and reduced to specious: the lost manuscript of Jacques Ozanam (1640--1718) (Q822765)

For a long time Jacques Ozanam's treatise \textit{Les six livres de l'arithmétique de Diophante d'Alexandrie augmentez et reduits à la specieuse}, a generalization and expansion of Diophant's arithmetic based on the new methods of symbolic algebra, was known only through references in Ozanam's own works and by contemporaries. It was written around 1674 but never published. At the end of the 18th century, its trace disappears. Only in 1986, Jean Cassinet could provide information on the manuscript which he had located at the Academy of Sciences of Turin. He studied part of it in [\textit{J. Cassinet}, ``Le \textit{Traité des simples, des doubles et des triples égalités} de Jacques Ozanam dans le manuscrit autographe perdu puis retrouvé de la Bibliothèque du chancelier d'Aguesseau'', Cahiers du Séminaire d'Histoire des Mathématiques de Toulouse 8, 67--99 (1986)]. The present article constitutes the first in-depth investigation of the whole treatise. It contextualizes the treatise within Ozanam's work and within the reception of Diophant's arithmetic in the 17th century, analyses contemporary and posthumous references to it, furthermore describes the manuscript and the notation used in it. The main part of the article is devoted to Ozanam's treatment of selected problems in view of his algebraic techniques and their interplay with geometric constructions.