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Rectangular woodcut headpiece featuring scrolling acanthus leaves and two putti figures.
Decorative drop cap 'Q' featuring floral and foliate motifs.
SINCE the discipline of computing is necessary for every class of men, it is fitting that those who have decided to seriously apply themselves to what the Greeks call Mathemata sciences/mathematics should know it first. We have decided to propose here, for those entering the curriculum of mathematics, what we believe must be known about it beforehand. When they have diligently learned these few, yet foremost and principal points, which suffice for the present, it will be permitted for them, through our guidance, to read at home and thoroughly understand those many other things that have been published on the same subject by others in our memory and that of our fathers.
1. Computation REGARDING THE ART we are preparing to discuss here: when our contemporaries recently received it from the Arabs, they called it Algorismus algorithm/arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic numerals for the first time. Among them was Johannes de Sacrobosco, the most ancient of all whose books on this discipline I remember seeing. He wrote the book inscribed on Algorismus around the year of CHRIST 1250.