Mathematical Treasure: Gallus Spänlin’s Arithmetica

In 1546, a German reckoning master from Ulm, Gallus Spänlin, published an arithmetic text, Arithmetica: künstlichen Rechnung, lustige Exempeln, mancherley schöner Regeln auff Linien vnd Ziffern, vormaln nie gesehen (Arithmetica: artificial calculation, entertaining examples, and some beautiful rules on lines and digits never seen before).

Part of a table of measures found in the early pages of the book.

Spänlin’s initial discussion of subtraction, with an abacus-like illustration.

Images from the GoogleBook scan of the copy held by the Bavarian State Library.

Index to Mathematical Treasures