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Historia Mathematica 45 (2018) 182–195
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Book Reviews

Obras Matemáticas, Francisco de Melo, Vol. 1: Edição crítica e tradução

By Bernardo Mota and Henrique Leitão. Lisboa (Centro de Estudos Clássicos, Biblioteca Nacional de
Portugal). 2014. ISBN 978-972-937-631-3. 505 pages, 25€.

Francisco de Melo’s (Franciscus de Mello) mathematical works concern two fields: optics and hydrostatics.
They survive in a manuscript copy made in 1521 in France and one later copy. Melo was one of the early
figures studying these fields, optics and hydrostatics belonging to the ‘mathematica media’, and he gave
preference to recovering authors from classical antiquity. No doubt this is part of the reason why he was
among those who caught the attention of the humanist J.L. Vives. He wrote positively about Melo in a letter
to Erasmus. The mathematician Gaspar Lax also praised Melo’s proficiency in all mathematical questions
already in 1515, i.e. a year after the arrival of Melo in Paris. Recovering the work of Melo by means of
an edition and translation into Portuguese considerably enriches our view of mathematical practice and
reception of Euclid and Archimedes in Europe (in Paris and Lisbon in particular) during the first decades of
the sixteenth century. The book under review achieves its goal in an impressive way. However, the author
of this review is judge and party: he has ties of friendship with both of the authors. He has collaborated
with Bernardo Mota from the Centre of Classical Studies (CEC, University of Lisbon) for years. There is
also a certain institutional entanglement, as he is associate member with CIUHCT (Centre for history of
technology, University of Lisbon/New University of Lisbon), of which Henrique Leitão, the second author,
is one of the senior members. Nevertheless, the positive opinion voiced here is supported by two strong
arguments: by the value of the book’s contribution to historiography of the mathematical sciences and by
the care and professionalism with which Mota and Leitão carried out the edition and translation of Melo’s
writing.
Melo’s book contains a short account on the physiology of the eye, Euclid’s Perspectiva and Specularia,
and the Pseudo-Aristotelian De incidentibus in humidis with many corrected or alternative proofs, lemmas
and corollaries. These topics: optics, catoptrics and hydrostatics belong to ‘mixed mathematics’ according
to the classifications used in the sixteenth century. That category would comprise the doctrines that treated
physical questions more geometrico. Ideally such a doctrine established a number of general propositions
based on deductions from a series of axioms and postulates. The mixed mathematics tradition has received
much attention by historians of science who were searching for the ‘origins’ of mathematical physics. That
is why one of Melo’s texts, the Pseudo-Aristotelian De incidentibus had already been edited, translated
and commented by Marshall Clagett (1978) decades ago. Moreover, Glei and Kreter (2015) have recently
presented a new study on this same text.
However, Melo’s treatment of the Euclidean optics and catoptrics is at least as remarkable and deserves
the attention of historians. Since Melo’s collection of works survives in two Latin manuscripts only (Lisbon,
Biblioteca Nacional, COD 2262 and Stralsund, Stadtarchiv HS 767) it has remained largely unknown to
most historians until now. Melo seems to use the enunciations and the demonstrations in the Theonian
tradition as translated and edited by Zamberti (Euclid and Theon, 1505). The preface states, however, that
he made an effort in clarifying and substituting new demonstrations. Melo mentions that he has lectured
on these topics at the university of Paris and that he critically used the notes others had left of the lectures
of his teacher, the physician Pierre Brissot. In a recent study Mota has established what can be said about

0315-0860/2018 Published by Elsevier Inc.

 Book Reviews 183

Brissot’s works on optics using the fragments present in Melo’s text (Mota, 2015). Brissot, by the way,
eventually left the university of Paris and moved to Portugal. Therefore Melo’s explanations and comments
on the postulates and his alternative proofs are of the highest interest to the historian working on the history
of mathematical sciences and the intellectual activity of the university of Paris and at the Portuguese court.
Indeed, the text not only attests to Melo as an apt mathematician. It also provides insight into the ways the
topics of optics and hydrostatics were treated in these contexts.
The content of Melo’s works falls into in four parts, but before entering the subject matter, the author
presents a dedication to King Manuel I of Portugal, to which he adds a short poem. The dedication includes a
remark on Melo’s early return to Portugal due to which he was not able to completely revise the manuscript
(p. 29). Melo also inserts a short (seven manuscript pages) preface ‘ad optimum quemque’, to all excellent
persons, where he highlights the importance of the topic and summarises the extent of his own contribution
to it.
The first main part is composed by Melo as an author and constitutes an introduction to the theory of
vision, including the physiology of the eye: ‘Francisci de Mello de uidendi ratione atque oculorum forma
in Euclidis perspectiuam corollarium’. It contains 20 propositions and 18 diagrams. Here Melo includes a
series of simple ‘corrogata’ that deal with refraction of rays (of light or vision) at the passage to a denser
medium, or a more rarefied medium.
The second part is a commented version of Euclid’s Optics: ‘Perspectiua Euclidis cum Francisci de
Mello commentariis’, including 56 propositions and 101 diagrams. Several of the propositions concern
the measurement of heights and depths by sunrays, shadows and sight (Prop. 18 and following), binocular
vision and the appearance of volumes (Prop. 23 and following). Another series treats the vision by a moving
eye or of a moving object. Of all propositions a single one (Prop. 48) is enunciated as a problem: to
determine the positions from which a certain appearance is achieved. Apart from some alternative proofs or
an occasional ‘additio’ Melo does not seem to have commented a lot until proposition 27, where he starts
to add several lemmas.
The third part is a commentary on Euclid’s Catoptrics: ‘Francisci de Mello in Euclidis Megarensis
speculariam Commentaria’, with 31 propositions and about 90 diagrams. The commentary is in large parts
structured as additional postulates, corollaries, and lemmas. To each of the first ten propositions Melo
added an introductory lemma to prove geometrical properties that are needed in the proofs of the following
theorems, or in order to reconstruct or replace Theonian demonstrations.
The beginning of this part includes an interesting attempt of making sense of Euclid’s postulates. The
second postulate in particular seems to have been discussed in Melo’s circles. He deems the way it is stated
confused. In any case it states a geometrical equivalent to the equality of the angles of incidence and of
reflection in a mirror. Instead of accepting it as such, Melo derives it from another more particular statement.
By providing a proof he turns the postulate into a proposition. The assumption he needs, however, is the
following: the distance of the viewpoint to the mirror being equal to the distance of the mirror to the viewed
object implies that the ‘height’ of the viewpoint will be equal to the ‘height’ of the viewed object. ‘Height’
needs to be implicitly understood as the distance from the plane defined by the mirror. ‘Distance’ needs
to be implicitly understood as the interval between the base point of the perpendicular to the mirror plane
and the point of reflection on the mirror. This statement, Melo affirms, can be ‘explored’ (explorare) by an
easy experiment (experimentum) – the Portuguese translation by Mota and Leitão renders this as ‘verify
by an experiment’ (‘verificar por meio de uma experiência’). Melo adds two ‘corrogata’ to the postulates,
the second of which concerns binocular vision in mirrors. Here we learn that Melo’s teacher Brissot often
performed optical experiments in front of numerous colleagues. On this occasion Melo mentions that one
of his eyes has had a diminished capacity since his youth, and therefore he wanted to validate the said
‘corrogatum’ by reason rather than by experiment (p. 303).
184 Book Reviews

All these hints in the text will require a thorough discussion of the role played by optical demonstrations
in the early 1500s. Their epistemological status within the seemingly abstract, theoretical framework of
Euclidean optics tradition is all but clear. Moreover, the discussion is to some extent important for the
choices made when translating, too. To cite the previously mentioned case, for instance: the question should
be asked whether an experiment is invoked to ‘verify’ a property, or is it just there to ‘explore’ physical
behaviour of vision, which then still needs to be abstracted to guide the choice of a postulate? As the book
under review is concerned with establishing and translating the text only, such discussions are reserved for
a later treatment in the future second tome of Mota’s and Leitão’s announced work.
One of the notable observations by Melo seems to be corollary of proposition 18 (p. 401): it states
that the image produced by concave mirrors appear sometimes ‘in aere’, i.e. in the air, and sometimes
‘intra speculo’, i.e. within the mirror – but only when we are dealing with binocular vision! Melo actually
explains that the images (simulacra) are always to be seen where the two outgoing visual rays intersect,
which intersect sometimes in the air and sometimes inside the mirror. (‘Videtur enim semper ubi duo
visuus procidentes concurrunt, qui aliquando in aere, aliquando in speculo concurrunt.’) This is one of the
remarkable attempts by Melo of making sense of the unintelligible propositions contained in Zamberti’s
edition of Euclid’s catoptrics. How important binocular vision had been in the long tradition of optical
doctrines becomes evident in the recent publication by Dominique Raynaud (2016).
A curious insertion exists with the corollary to proposition 21. It contains a long explanation of why
Melo thinks women prefer convex mirrors. It includes a couple of considerations on the essence of beauty.
This corollary constitutes an atypical digression to an otherwise mainly mathematical text.
Finally, the fourth part contains a commentary on (Pseudo-) Archimedes’ De incidentibus in humidis:
‘Archimedis de Incidentibus in humidis cum Francisci de Mello commentariis’, with 7 propositions, and
19 diagrams. Pierre Forcadel’s ‘Le livre d’Archimede des pois’ published in 1565 was essentially a French
translation of Melo’s version with Forcadel’s commentary. Forcadel states that he had obtained a copy from
Martin Akakia (Sansmalice). One realises that Akakia was, like Melo, a student of Brissot’s. This shows that
copies of Melo’s work circulated in Paris during the sixteenth century. This hydrostatic part was brought to
the knowledge of the scholarly world through Clagett’s edition of the Lisbon manuscript with an English
translation. Very recently Glei and Kreter (2015) published a German translation with commentary of the
Stralsund manuscript. For the first time, Mota and Leitão now edit the two known manuscripts together – it
turns out that the manuscripts differ only in a few instances of spelling.
The book under review is a nicely typeset paperback edition with the edited Latin text with critical appa-
ratus on the left-hand side pages and the Portuguese translation with occasional notes on the right-hand side.
The translation in Portuguese is easily readable and nevertheless rigorous. This is a considerable achieve-
ment, as the original Latin is of technical nature and at times not totally clear. Melo himself apologises
for the occasional lack of classical style: ‘Si quid vero minus Romane dictum, id Barbarice institutioni
in qua sum educatus, condonetis oro quoniam mecum satis feliciter actum erit, si mihi liceat et moribus
antiquis viuere atque antiquorum doctrina imbui verbis autem recentioribus loqui.’ (If however something
is expressed in a less Roman way, I ask you to attribute it to the Barbarous institution in which I’ve been
educated, . . .). This is certainly an expression of false modesty so typical of the authors of the time. Is
Melo jokingly referring to the ‘Collegium Sanctae Barbarae’ where he may have lived during his stay at
the university of Paris, or to the education he received at the Portuguese court during his youth?
The modern translators could have replaced the verbose Latin expression of equations by a simplified
translation by algebraic symbolism more often than they did, for instance replacing ‘duo quadrata .bf.
.fc. maiora erunt duobus quadratis .bf. fd.’ by BF2 + FC2 > BF2 + FC2 , or 1BF + 1FC > 1BF + 1FC
(p. 142/3). In his manuscript, Melo, himself, frequently used the symbol 1 to designate a square, especially
in the propositions 25 to 27 of the ‘Perspectiva’ (pp. 186–197). The translators opted occasionally for alge-
braic notation of equations of ratios, for instance, in the proofs concerning height measurements (Prop. 18
to 21 of ‘Perspectiva’, on pp. 164–177), and also later on, where for ‘.ab. ad .b eadem ratio quae .cd. ad .d.’
 Book Reviews 185

the correct translation ‘(A + B) : B = (C + D) : D’ (p. 418/9) is given. In any case, the translators have def-
initely found a delicate equilibrium between respecting the manuscript text and recognising the formulaic
use of phrases. One could justifiably argue that the latter probably more closely corresponds to the modern
symbolic notation than a sequence of words that we do not as readily seize, as would a sixteenth century
reader.
In the present edition all diagrams have been redrawn in colour. The reason for this unusual type of
geometric figures lies in a remarkable aspect of the Stralsund manuscript. That copy was the luxurious
presentation copy Melo had made for his patron, the King of Portugal. It is an illuminated parchment codex
and all geometrical diagrams are traced in red and blue ink. (A sample of that gorgeous manuscript was
used for the design of the book cover.) The present edition and translation does not discuss this excep-
tional feature that certainly calls for attention and raises the question whether the colours have a specific
function.
There are only very few minor regrets to note concerning the present edition of Melo’s work. One could
have wished that it would have included an overview of the chapter structure and a list of propositions,
corollaries, lemmas of Melo’s work, perhaps with the indication which ones were added in comparison
with Zamberti’s edition. In theorem 23 of the ‘Specularia’ the figure is missing in the manuscripts, here the
attempt of a reconstructed figure in order to follow the (very intricate) proof would have been welcome.
Notwithstanding this, the achievement by Mota and Leitão is remarkable and fulfils a longstanding wish
of the scholarly community to make Melo’s work accessible for a large readership. We look forward to
the second volume that will include a detailed study of the text. It is exciting to think that by Mota’s and
Leitão’s contribution the study of the early Renaissance activity in dealing with Archimedes’ and Euclid’s
texts will receive a new impetus.

References

Clagett, Marshall, 1978. Archimedes in the Middle Ages. Vol. 3: The Fate of the Medieval Archimedes 1300–1565.
American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
Glei, Reinhold F., Kreter, Fabian, 2015. Heureka! Francisco de Mello über das Archimedische Prinzip. Georg Olms
Verlag, Hildesheim.
Mota, Bernardo, 2015. Francisco de Melo e os fragmentos de teoria óptica de Pierre Brissot. In: Lopes Andrade,
A.M., de Miguel Mora, C., Nunes Torrão, J.M. (Eds.), Humanismo e Ciência: Antiguidade e Renascimento. UA
Editora – Universidade de Aveiro; Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, Annablume, Aveiro, Coimbra, São Paulo,
pp. 21–36.
Raynaud, Dominique, 2016. Studies on Binocular Vision. Optics, Vision and Perspective from the Thirteenth to the
Seventeenth Centuries. Archimedes, vol. 47. Springer International, Dordrecht.
Euclid and Theon, 1505. Euclidis [. . .] habent in hoc volumine quicumque ad mathematicam substantiam aspirant: el-
ementorum libros. xiij. cum expositione Theonis [. . .]. Johannes Tacuinus, Venice. (Transl. Zamberti, Bartolomeo).

Samuel Gessner
CIUHCT, Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail address: samuel.gessner@gmail.com

Available online 6 February 2018

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hm.2018.01.004