Sumario Compendioso
The Sumario Compendioso was the very first mathematics book ever published in the New World. The book was published in Mexico City in 1556 by a clergyman Juan Diez.
Availability
The book has been digitized and is available on the internet.
Before the digital age the only four known surviving copies were preserved at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, the British Library, London, Duke University Library, and the University of Salamanca in Spain.[1]
Excerpts
In his book The Math Book, Clifford A. Pickover provided the following information about Sumario Compendioso:
The Sumario Compendioso, published in Mexico City in 1556, is the first work on mathematics printed in the Americas. The publication of Sumario Compendioso in the New World preceded by many decades the emigration of the Puritans to North America and the settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. The author, Brother Juan Diez, was a companion of Hernando Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, during Cortes's conquests of the Aztec Empire.[2]
References
- ↑ calstatela.edu
- ↑ Clifford A. Pickover (2009). The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-4027-5796-9. Retrieved 29 July 2012.