The craft of Indo-Arabic numerals : how practical arithmetic shaped commerce and mathematics in Western Europe, 1200-1600 / Raffaele Danna.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Danna, Raffaele, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Numeration, Arabic--Europe, Western--History.

Numeration, Arabic.

Mathematics and civilization--Europe--History.

Mathematics and civilization.

Arithmetic--History.

Arithmetic.

Numerals--History.

Numerals.

Mathematics, Medieval.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : Harvard University Press, 2026.

System Details:

text file PDF

Summary:

"A must-read." --Joel Mokyr, Nobel Prize-winning author of A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern EconomyAn illuminating, fine-grained account of how Indo-Arabic numerals facilitated the spread of practical knowledge in Western Europe--reshaping both commerce and mathematics in the process.In the thirteenth-century Mediterranean, commerce transformed as merchants shifted from Roman to Indo-Arabic numerals--an alternative that better facilitated complex calculations. It has long been known that this transition stemmed from Europe's increasing exchanges with India, Persia, and the Arabic world. Yet much remains to be understood about how Indo-Arabic numerals--and the practical arithmetic they enabled--actually spread across Europe. As Raffaele Danna shows, it was hundreds of ordinary merchants, schoolmasters, and artisans who nurtured these changes, thereby driving key advances in both commerce and mathematics.Drawing on an original catalog of more than 1,200 practical arithmetic manuals, Danna charts the incremental spread of the new figures with unprecedented precision. While Italian merchants were the early adopters, it took nearly three centuries for Indo-Arabic numerals to become established in northern Europe. As Danna shows, adoption did not follow the routes of maritime trade. Rather, Indo-Arabic numerals moved gradually across the continent through inland networks of practitioners. Everywhere they went, the ten figures enhanced commercial practices and facilitated the emergence of a coherent language of mathematical craft. The growing social circulation of this knowledge, in turn, had a lasting impact on the economic trajectory of Western Europe. By the late sixteenth century, even academics were absorbing lessons from the vernacular tradition--a development that led to the first major breakthroughs in European mathematical theory since antiquity.Combining economic history with the social history of mathematics, The Craft of Indo-Arabic Numerals illuminates the integral role of practical arithmetic in both intellectual and commercial transformations across Western Europe.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: The emergence of practical arithmetic

1 The Adoption of Indo-Arabic Numerals in Latin Europe

2 Indo-Arabic Numerals and the Commercial Revolution

3 A Mathematical Craft

Part 2: The spread of practical arithmetic

4 The Spread of Practical Arithmetic in Italy

5 The Spread of Practical Arithmetic in Europe

6 Indo-Arabic Numerals in Other Vernacular Sources

Conclusion

Note on Sources

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed March 3, 2026).

Other Format:

Print version: Danna. Raffaele, Craft of Indo-Arabic numerals.

ISBN:

9780674304161

0674304160

OCLC:

1573523764

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license