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Mathematical Treasure: Jean Boulenger’s La Geometrie practique

Author(s): 
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

Jean Boulenger (1550–1636) was a 17th-century French mathematician. He was a lecturer of mathematics at the Collège de France. Boulenger wrote several books on geometry, including 1634’s La Geometrie Pratique . . . ou nouvelle méthode de toiser et arpenter toutes sortes de grandeurs, sans qu’il soit besoin de user de fractions, ny de reductions,ny mesme d’aucune diuision (Practical geometry; or new method of measuring and surveying all kinds of magnitudes, without there being any need to measure fractions, nor reductions, nor even any division).

Title page of Jean Boulenger’s 1634 La Geometrie pratique.

The first page of text:

First page of Jean Boulenger’s 1634 La Geometrie pratique.

A revised and an amended version of this text was published in 1690.

Title page for 1690 revision of Jean Boulenger’s La Geometrie pratique (1634).

The 1634 and 1690 copies owned by Bayerische StaatsBibliothek have been digitized for the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library). Images from a 1691 printing may also be viewed in Mathematical Treasures.

Index to Mathematical Treasures

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: Jean Boulenger’s La Geometrie practique," Convergence (July 2023)