Mathematical Treasure: Jonas Moore’s Mathematical Compendium

Jonas Moore (1627–1679), the famous co-founder of the Royal Mathematical School (RMS) at Christ’s Hospital in London, prepared A Mathematical Compendium in 1674. A much-expanded second edition appeared in 1681.

These images show a copy listed for sale in 2020 by Heritage Book Shop, LLC. A full digitization of the copy owned by the British Library is available on GoogleBooks.

The mathematics master at RMS, Peter Perkins (d. 1680), assisted Moore with some of his other books and prepared an independent text that also appeared posthumously, The Seaman’s Tutor of 1682.

An additional frontispiece depicts a student of the RMS in his robes. The circular badge on the front of the robe indicates that the wearer is a Kings scholar.

Some sample pages from the text:

A full digitization of the copy owned by the John Carter Brown Library may be found in the Internet Archive.

For more on Moore, Perkins, and RMS see Convergence’s Mathematical Treasures for Moore’s Arithmetick in Four Books and New Systeme of the Mathematicks.

Index to Mathematical Treasures