Mathematical Treasure: Jean François Nicéron’s La perspective curieuse

Jean François Nicéron (1613–1646) was a French mathematics prodigy. He studied under Father Marin Mersenne before joining the same religious order. Both an artist and a mathematician, in 1638 he published La Perspective Curieuse, a series of projective studies. Here are two plates from the 1663 second edition of this book:

Australian blogger Peacay discussed the book in more detail in 2012.

A full digitization of the copy owned by Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in Tours, France, is available from Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes.

Index to Mathematical Treasures