Dominique Raynoud. « Le tracé continu des sections coniques à la renaissance : applications optico-perspectives, héritage de la tradition mathématique arabe ». Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 60, 2006, p. 353-377.
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1The author starts by giving a brief overview and description of instruments for tracing conic sections. He then analyses the origin of one such instrument, namely the conic compass, as it first appears in the work of Lorenzo della Volpaia (Florence, 1446-1512) and later with numerous other authors, including Leonardo da Vinci. He argues that earlier conclusions by modern scholars that the compass was a Renaissance invention are unconvincing. On the basis of a careful inspection of a large number of primary sources, both in Arabic and in Latin, both scientific and historical, he finds as the most plausible hypothesis that the ultimate sources for della Volpaia’s description of the conic compass were Arabic treatises on the so-called “perfect compass” by two students of Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Yūnus (1156-1242) in Mosul, namely Ibn al-Ḥusayn (12th c.) and Aṯīr al-Dīn al-Abharī (d. 1265).
References
Electronic reference
Benno van Dalen, “Dominique Raynoud. « Le tracé continu des sections coniques à la renaissance : applications optico-perspectives, héritage de la tradition mathématique arabe ». Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 60, 2006, p. 353-377.”, Abstracta Iranica [Online], Volume 31 | 2011, document 260, Online since 11 October 2012, connection on 13 January 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/39752; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abstractairanica.39752
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