LOVE YOUR BOOKSHOP DAY: PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Measured Words

Computation and Writing in Renaissance Italy

Arielle Saiber

$62.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
University of Toronto Press
01 June 2021
Measured Words explores the rich commerce between computation and writing that proliferated in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy. In this captivating and generously illustrated work, Arielle Saiber studies the relationship between number, shape, and the written word in the works of four exceptional thinkers of the time: Leon Battista Alberti, Luca Pacioli, Niccol Tartaglia, and Giambattista Della Porta.

Although these Renaissance humanists came from different social classes and practised the mathematical and literary arts at varying levels of sophistication, they were all guided by a sense that there exist deep ontological and epistemological bonds between computational and verbal thinking and production. Their shared view that a network or continuity exists between the literary arts and mathematics yielded extraordinary results, from Alberti's treatise on cryptography and Pacioli's design calculations for the Roman alphabet to Tartaglia's poetic solutions of cubic equations and Della Porta's dramatic applications of geometry. Through lively, cogent analysis of these and other related texts of the period, Measured Words presents, literally and figuratively, brilliant examples of what interdisciplinary work can offer us.
By:  
Imprint:   University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication:   Canada
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 15mm
Weight:   400g
ISBN:   9781487541958
ISBN 10:   1487541953
Series:   Toronto Italian Studies
Pages:   280
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Well-Versed Mathematics The Four / Beautiful Minds / With Measured Words Chapter One Cryptographica: Leon Battista Alberti’s De componendis Cifris (1466) Deciphering De Cifris / Writing in Code Chapter Two The Calculated Alphabet: Luca Pacioli’s “degno alphabeto Anticho” (1509) Prelude: Pacioli Portrait / The Nexus of the Divina proportione / Lettergons / Not All That Glitters Is Gold / Divine Characters Chapter Three Word Problems: Niccolò Tartaglia’s “Quando chel cubo” (1546) The Cubic Scandal / A Poetic Solution Chapter Four Hidden Curves: Giambattista Della Porta’s Elementorum curvilineorum libri tres (1601/10) The Vanishing Act / A Wave of the Hand Notes Bibliography Index

Arielle Saiber is a professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College.

Reviews for Measured Words: Computation and Writing in Renaissance Italy

"""Together with her lively writing style, Saiber’s erudition, based on close reading of primary sources and a remarkable command of secondary literatures, make Measured Words a pleasure to read. Scholars will return to this book for research leads and for chapters to assign to their graduate and undergraduate students."" -- Renzo Baldasso * <em>Renaissance Quarterly</em> * ""The author connects to mathematics in many fascinating ways. In addition to the superb analysis of four case studies – Alberti, Paciolo, Tartaglia, and Della Porta, the reader is treated to an assortment of images that help visualize the connection each Renaissance man imagined. Highly recommended."" -- T. Timmons * Choice Magazine vol 55:11:2018 * ""Boldly and magisterially, Saiber bridges the gap between literary studies, Renaissance philosophy, the sciences of computus (of numbers and proportions or geometry in theory and practice), and the history of printing and type design. With her remarkable stamina to explore rarely studied 'difficult' texts, and with her admirable command of older and more recent scholarly literature on her topic, Saiber thereby demonstrates for instance the intimate relationship between the advent of printing and the designer’s task of mathematical proportions of letters – and the ensuing interdependent relationships between form and text."" -- Sergius Kodera, New Design University * <em>Renaissance and Reformation</em> *"


  • "Winner of ""The Bridge"" Book Award 2018 (United States)"
  • Winner of The Bridge Book Award 2018 (United States)
  • Winner of ""The Bridge"" Book Award 2018 (United States)
  • Winner of MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award 2016 (United States)
  • Winner of Newberry Weiss-Brown Publication Subvention Award 2017 (United States)
  • Winner of The SLSA Book Award awarded by the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts 2019 (United States)

See Also