Nicolas Chuquet, Renaissance Mathematician

Presenting a well-documented and elaborated research work, the authors attempt to give a balanced picture of Nicolas Chuquet's achievements and his limitations.

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My attention was first drawn to Chuquet' s mathematical manuscript whilst undertaking the necessary research for the preparation of the Open University's History of Mathematics course, presented initially in 1974. It was whilst editing the English edition of Math~matiques et Math~maticiens (P. Dedron and J. Itard, trans. J. Field) that I noted that it was stated that "the whole manuscript *** comprises 324 folios, i. e. 648 pages", and that, in addition to the Triparty (by which the work is generally known) the manuscript includes sections on problems, on the application of algebraic methods to geometry, and on conunercial