L’HOSPITAL Guillaume François Antoine, marquis de Analyse des infiniment petits, pour l’intelligence des lignes courbes.

Sotheran, 10792.

Second edition of the first French book on differential calculus. Guillaume de L’Hospital (1661-1704) was close to Huygens and Leibniz.

“It was through his wide network of acquaintances in various European countries that Leibniz put into effect all his strategies for the spread of his analysis.  … In France it was through the Oratorian circle of Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) that Johann Bernoulli introduced in 1691 the Leibnizian calculus. His lessons to the Marquis de l’Hôpital led to the draft of the first treatise of differential calculus … The spread and acceptance of the Leibnizian calculus was transferred in this way to the wide public, through the manuals and textbooks written for students at universities or ecclesiastical colleges” (Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics, p.56).

Bound with :

VARIGNON. Eclaircissemens sur l’analyse des infiniment petits. Paris, Rollin, 1725. 4to, 4 nn.ll., 118 pp., 1 nn.l., 6 plates. DSB, XIII, p.584.

Sotheran, I, 5040.

First edition of this posthumous work.

Varignon vigorously sided with L’Hospital in the quarrel over the infinitely small, which agitated the Académie des Sciences.

“Ses éclaircissements mirent désormais à l’abri de toute contestation la découverte de Leibniz et de Newton” (Biog. gén.).

“Fully occupied by his teaching duties and his responsibilities as an academician, Varignon had no leisure to prepare works for publication. From the papers he left at his death, most of which are now lost, his disciples assembled several posthumous works: Nouvelle mécanique, Eclaircissements sur l’analyse des infiniment petits (1725). His intense pedagogical activity, extending over more than thirty years, constituted his chief contribution to the progress of science and was the source of his fame. … His acceptance of the new procedures occurred between 1692 and 1695, and he was among those who gave the most favorable reception to the publication of L’Hospital’s Analyse des infiniment petits. The Eclaircissemens is composed of critical notes that Varignon, as professor, considered necessary in presenting L’Hospital’s pioneering work to young mathematicians” (DSB).

Good copy.

Rubber-stamp from Lycée d’Auch, book-plate J. Cassinet.