Tartaglia’s Science of Weights and Mechanics in the Sixteenth Century : Selections from Quesiti et inventioni diverse

This book presents a historical and scientific analysis as historical epistemology of the science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century, particularly as developed by Tartaglia in his Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Book VII and Book VIII (1546; 1554). In the early 16th century mechanics was concerned mainly with what is now called statics and was referred to as the Scientia de ponderibus, generally pursued by two very different approaches. The first was usually referred to as Aristotelian, where the equilibrium of bodies was set as a balance of opposite tendencies to motion. The second, usually referred to as Archimedean, identified statics with centrobarica, the theory of centres of gravity based on symmetry considerations. In between the two traditions the Italian scholar Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (1500??1557), wrote the treatise Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546). This volume consists of three main parts.^ In the first, a historical excursus regarding Tartaglia?s lifetime, his scientific production and the Scientia de ponderibus in the Arabic-Islamic culture, and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is presented. Secondly, all the propositions o