An analysis of the \textit{Tabulae magistrales} by Giovanni Bianchini

DOI10.1007/S00407-016-0178-ZMaRDI QIDQ332278zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors José Chabás

Publication date 28 October 2016

Published in Archive for History of Exact Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s00407-016-0178-z

zbMATH Keywords

\textit{Tabulae magistrales}astronomical tablesGiovanni Bianchinitrigonometric tables

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 15th and 16th centuries, Renaissance (01A40) History of astronomy and astrophysics (85-03)

Review text

The fifteenth-century work by Bianchini, \textit{Tabulae magistrales}, compiles values of various trigonometric quantities useful in astronomy. In modern terms, five of the tables give scalings of the sine, cosecant, and tangent functions. Three other tables compute more complex expressions related to quantities like ascensions and declinations. The present paper examines the contents of each table. The author stresses Bianchini's innovations: the work ``seems to be the first set of tables in Latin specifically devoted to mathematical tools for computational astronomy and also employs several scaling factors based on powers of~10, rather than the traditional~60.

Recommendations

• The end of an error: Bianchini, Regiomontanus, and the tabulation of stellar coordinates
• Before the end of an error: Giovanni Bianchini's original flawed treatise on the conversion of stellar coordinates
• Determining the sine tables underlying early European tangent tables
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1110551
• Ptolemy, Bianchini, and Copernicus: tables for planetary latitudes

Cites work

• Ab? Nasr Mans?r's Approach to Spherical Astronomy as Developed in His Treatise "The Table of Minutes"
• Hipparchus on the Distance of the Sun
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 44756 (Why is no real title available?)
• In synchrony with the heavens. Studies in astronomical timekeeping and instrumentation in medieval Islamic civilization. Vol. 1. The call of the muezzin. Studies I-IX
• Tables trigonométriques de Giovanni Bianchini

Cited in

(8)

• The end of an error: Bianchini, Regiomontanus, and the tabulation of stellar coordinates
• Ptolemy, Bianchini, and Copernicus: tables for planetary latitudes
• Before the end of an error: Giovanni Bianchini's original flawed treatise on the conversion of stellar coordinates
• The role of numerical tables in Galileo and Mersenne
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1110551 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7640319 (Why is no real title available?)
• Determining the sine tables underlying early European tangent tables
• Decimal fractional numeration and the decimal point in 15th-century Italy

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