The Secret Formula by Fabio Toscano

Author:Fabio Toscano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Girolamo then acknowledges reception of the poster announcing Tartaglia’s lectures on statics and ballistics in Venice and says he is still waiting for the instruments Niccolo had promised to send him and the Marquis d’Avalos. He then mildly mentions a couple of questions that had been a source of friction between them, trying to erase any trace of controversy and lavishly praising the Brescian mathematician. He especially expresses his desire to welcome him in Milan, adding that the marquis had urged him to write to him without delay:

Regarding the response to my four accusations, I shall only reply to two of them. One is about your new art [i.e., Nova scientia]; the other concerns your claim to being the most knowledgeable in this art [algebra]. With respect to the second one, I’d rather live a lazy life than die a gifted man,69 especially since you have already dismissed it by saying that Zuanantonio had misunderstood you; so I declare this dispute settled. I hope you will come to Milan to meet me without the deposit of one hundred ducats, because I consider you an intelligent man, and after becoming acquainted with each other we will be able to come to a decision.

As for our disagreement [over Nova scientia], you are certainly right in defending your work already published. And of course, when you come to Milan (as I hope, God willing) we will be more at ease to discuss it.

Yesterday evening I received your letter, and today I am writing to you as requested by Signor Marquis; for this reason I was not able to go over your other propositions. In any case, please send me or bring with you the rest of the questions you proposed to Maestro Antonio Maria.”70 Cardano then once again asked Tartaglia for the one thing he cared most about at that moment: the solution formula for cubic equations. He did it by repeating the reasons Niccolo had already heard from the bookseller Zuanantonio:

If you would send me or bring with you some of the solutions obtained by using your rule, it will give me an immense pleasure, because I appreciate a kind gesture, and I have written a text on the practice of geometry, arithmetic, and algebra of which more than half have so far been printed. If you’d care to give me your rules, I’ll include it under your name at the end of the book, as I have done with all the others who gave me something interesting, and I shall mention you as the inventor; but if you prefer that I keep them secret, I’ll do as you please.71

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