Mathematical Treasure: Ulrich Wagner’s Block Book and Das Bamberger Rechenbuch

Ulrich Wagner (d. ca 1490) was a 15th-century Rechenmeister (arithmetic master). Little is known of his life other than that he operated a school of mathematics in Nuremberg and is credited with publishing the first German-language arithmetic by 1482.

In the early years of printing, before they adopted movable type, some printers made books by creating wood blocks of entire pages. The first version of the arithmetic attributed to Wagner is such a “block book.” It was printed between 1471 and 1482.

The version made with movable type is known as Das Bamberger Rechenbuch (The Bamberg Arithmetic). The 1482 printing exists only in a 6-page fragment, as shown below. Two full copies of a 1483 printing can be found in libraries in Zurich and Zwickau, Switzerland, and modern facsimiles have been made of the block book and the 1483 printing.

The images above are provided courtesy of Bamberg State Library. Digitizations of the block book and fragments of the 1482 printing of Das Bamberger Rechenbuch are available.

Reference

Van Egmond, Warren. 1990. Review of Das Bamberger Blockbuch, ed. Kurt Vogel and Bernhard Schemmel, and Das Bamberger Rechenbuch von 1483 by Ulrich Wagner, ed. Eberhard Schröder. Isis 81(4): 764–765.

Index to Mathematical Treasures