Scientific Committee
Comité scientifique
Angela Axworthy (University of Wuppertal)
Vincenzo De Risi (CNRS, Université Paris Cité)
Antoni Malet (Pompeu Fabra University)
Thomas Morel (University of Wuppertal)
Sabine Rommevaux-Tani (CNRS, Université Paris Diderot)
Organizing Commitee
Comité d’organisation
Angela Axworthy (University of Wuppertal)
Vincenzo De Risi (CNRS, Université Paris Cité)
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The conference aims to explore the cultural, social, scientific, and epistemological impact of the worldwide diffusion of Euclid’s Elements, the most important and widely circulated work of classical mathematics, from Antiquity to the 19th century. It will bring together an international panel of scholars to build upon the ANR DFG Franco-German project EUCLIDES (2024-2027), involving the CNRS laboratory SPHère and the IZWT (Wuppertal), which focuses on the European transmission, transformation, and uses of the Elements in various contexts in the modern era to understand how this evolution reflects changes in the history of mathematics, epistemology, mathematical education, and scientific culture.
Current historiography on the topic remains fragmentary, focusing most often on specific aspects or contexts. We therefore seek to broaden the perspective by examining the diffusion and transformations of Euclid’s Elements across various contexts and its wider cultural, social, scientific, and epistemological impacts.
Key aspects to be considered during the workshop include the transformation of Euclid’s text and its visual content in response to changes in scientific knowledge; the interaction between the Euclidean tradition and practical mathematics; the diffusion of Euclid’s work in vernacular languages; its transmission in lay and professional contexts; the interaction between adaptations of Euclid’s Elements and changes in pedagogical standards and theories of education.
The consideration of these aspects will allow us to tackle questions such as: How did adaptations of Euclid’s text and diagrams reflect changes in epistemological standards and in the ideal of scientific knowledge? What impact did the vernacular diffusion of the Elements have on its logical structure, terminology, and readership? How was Euclidean content disseminated in different professional and pedagogical contexts?
How did institutional and pedagogical changes influence the transformation of Euclid’s Elements?
Cette conférence vise à explorer l’impact culturel, social, scientifique et épistémologique de la diffusion mondiale des Éléments d’Euclide, l’ouvrage de mathématiques classiques le plus important et le plus largement diffusé, de l’Antiquité au XIXe siècle. Il réunira un panel international de chercheurs pour s’appuyer sur le projet franco allemand ANR-DFG EUCLIDES (2024-2027), impliquant le laboratoire SPHère du CNRS et l’IZWT (Wuppertal), qui s’intéresse à la transmission, à la transformation et aux usages européens des Éléments dans divers contextes à l’époque moderne pour comprendre comment cette évolution reflète les changements dans l’histoire des mathématiques, de l’épistémologie, de l’enseignement des mathématiques et de la culture scientifique.
L’historiographie actuelle sur le sujet reste fragmentaire, se concentrant le plus souvent sur des aspects ou des contextes spécifiques. Nous cherchons donc à élargir la perspective en examinant la diffusion et les transformations des Éléments d’ Euclide dans divers contextes et ses impacts culturels, sociaux, scientifiques et épistémologiques plus larges.
Parmi les aspects clés qui seront examinés au cours de la conférence figurent la transformation du texte d’Euclide et de son contenu visuel en réponse à l’évolution des connaissances scientifiques ; l’interaction entre la tradition euclidienne et les mathématiques pratiques ; la diffusion du travail d’Euclide dans les langues vernaculaires ; sa transmission dans des contextes profanes et professionnels ; l’interaction entre les adaptations des Éléments d’ Euclide et l’évolution des normes pédagogiques et des théories de l’éducation.
La prise en compte de ces aspects nous permettra d’aborder des questions telles que:
Comment les adaptations du texte et des diagrammes d’Euclide ont elles reflété les changements dans les normes épistémologiques et dans l’idéal de la connaissance scientifique ? Quel impact la diffusion vernaculaire des Éléments a-t-elle eu sur sa structure logique, sa terminologie et son lectorat ? Comment le contenu euclidien a-til été diffusé dans différents contextes professionnels et pédagogiques ?Comment les changements institutionnels et pédagogiques ont-ils influencé la transformation des Éléments d’Euclide ?
SPECIAL SESSIONS
Angela Axworthy (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Denisa Bumba (Laboratoire SPHère, Paris), Vincenzo De Risi (Laboratoire SPHère, Paris), Mia Joskowicz (Tel Aviv University; Laboratoire SPHère, Paris) The EUCLIDES Project and the Commentaria in Euclidem Database
Zhigang Ji (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Jingbo Cao (University of Science and Technology of China), Hongchen Wang (Inner Mongolia Normal University) Euclid’s Elements in China: Its Translation, Transmission and Transformation from 1607 to 1857
Hanne Eggert Strand (Helsingør Gymnasium), Claus Glunk (Helsingør Gymnasium), Jesper Lützen (University of Copenhagen), Christian Gorm Tortzen (University of Copenhagen) Critical Philology and Mathematical Analysis: Heiberg, Zeuthen and the Danish Tradition.
Veronica Gavagna (University of Florence), Jacopo Giaconi (University of Turin) Girolamo Cardano and his Euclidean Editorial Project: Commentaria in Euclidis Elementa
SPEAKERS
Jens Høyrup (Roskilde University) Elements X in the Liber Abbaci and in the Abbacus Tradition
Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London) Euclid in Elizabethan England: Recorde, Dee, and Billingsley
June Barrow-Green (Open University, London) Euclid in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Reviel Netz (Stanford University) How Did Euclid Become Canonical?
Bernardo Mota (University of Lisbon) Euclid’s Elements in Portugal from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Preliminary Typology of Reception
Angela Axworthy (Bergische Universität Wuppertal) Euclid’s Elements in Early Modern Practical Geometry Treatises
Maria Rosa Massa-Estève (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) Euclid’s Impact and Influence on 17th-Century Mathematical Developments. Pietro Mengoli’s Works
Eduardo Giovannini (IHUCSO Litoral; CONICET, Santa Fe) Euclid’s Elements and the Euclidean Tradition in Hilbert’s Foundations of Geometry
Vincenzo De Risi (Laboratoire SPHere, Paris) The Axiomatizations of Euclid’s Elements
Michalis Sialaros (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) A Geometer for the Nation: Euclid’s Elements and Greek Identity in the Long Eighteenth Century
Mia Joskowicz (Tel Aviv University; Laboratoire SPHère, Paris) Dotted Lines in Early Modern Editions of Euclid’s Elements
Yael Kedar (Tel Hai University) Roger Bacon: Euclid’s Elements at the Service of Aristotelian Cosmology
Jingbo Cao (University of Science and Technology of China) Chinese Translation of Book X of Euclid’s Elements
Yue Pan (University of Science and Technology of China) Chinese Mathematicians’ Research on Irrational Magnitudes in the Late Qing Dynasty
Catherine Goldstein (CNRS, IMJ-PRG) « Euclides redivivus »: Euclid’s Role in Early-Modern Arithmetic
Davide Crippa (Czech Academy of Sciences) Teaching Euclid’s Elements in 18th-Century Italy
CONTRIBUTED TALK
Pierre Ageron (Laboratoire Nicolas Oresme, Caen) Which « Elements of Euclid » were studied in 19th-century Morocco?
Jean-Michel Delire (Université Libre de Bruxelles) The Sanskrit Translation of the Elements Made in Jaipur before 1728, and Another One Made in Delhi in 1771: Some Peculiarities.
Gregg De Young (American University in Cairo) The recensions (Taḥrīr) of Euclid’s Elements by al-Nīsābūrī and al-Maghribī: A Case Study in the Appropriation and Naturalization of Euclidean Mathematics in Arabic
Alex Garnick (Harvard University; Laboratoire SPHère, Paris) A Euclidean Revision to the Middle Books: Taqī al-Dīn ibn Maʿrūf (d. 1585) on Heron’s Formula
Alain Bernard (Centre Koyré; Université Paris Est Créteil) The Elements of Euclid in the Encyclopédie
Piotr Błaszczyk (Uniwersytet Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie) Euclid’s Elements, Book V: Its Logical Structure and Legacy
Giuseppe Pignatelli (Laboratoire SPHère, Paris) Axiomatic Evidence in Port-Royal Logic and Geometry
Andrei Rodin (Laboratoire SPHère, Paris) Euclid and Lobachevsky
Nicolas Joannes (Sorbonne Université) Engraving Euclidean Geometry in the 18th Century: The Problem of Erroneous Figures in the Reprints of Le Clerc’s Traité
Damien Moosbrugger (ETH Zurich) The Mechanical Euclid: The Geometry of German-Speaking Mathematical Practitioners around 1600
Thomas Morel (Bergische Universität Wuppertal) Presence and Absence: Euclid’s Elements and Academic Teaching in the Early Modern Period
Sabine Rommevaux (Laboratoire Ausonius, Bordeaux) Conrad Dasypodius’s Humanist Teaching of Euclid’s Elements and Mathematics at the Strasburg Gymnasium in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century
Niccolò Galizioli (University of Bochum) The Fifth Book in the Italian Renaissance
Pablo Gomez Samper (Bergische Universität Wuppertal) “Eclaircir ce que par cy devant nous a esté tant caché”: The Use of Euclid’s Elements in the Arithmetical Works of Pierre Forcadel.
Fàtima Romero Vallhonesta (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) Euclid’s Elements and the Algebraization of Mathematics in the Iberian Peninsula
SPONSORS
