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Leonardo Pisani (Fibonacci)

Born about 1175 (probably) in Pisa (Italy)
Died 1250 in (possibly) Pisa (Italy)

Leonardo Pisani is more known by his nickname Fibonacci He was the son of Guilielmo and a member of the Bonacci family ("Fibonacci" is derived from  “Filius Bonaccii” or the  son of Bonaccio). Fibonacci as the family Italian name literally means “son of the simpleton (Bonaccio)". By the way, Fibonacci used several aliases. Besides, Leonardus Pisanus or Leonardus filius Bonacci, he also used Leonardus Bigollus (in Tuscan dialect bigollo can be translated as ‘absent minded’ or even ‘blockhead’; but it also means traveller).

Leonardo is the author of  4 books:  

• Liber Abbaci  (The Book of Calculating) from 1202 and revised in 1228¹; In 2002, the 800th anniversary of Liber Abbaci a translation from the Latin into modern English of Liber Abbaci with an introduction, notes and bibliography by Laurence E. Sigler  appeared in the Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences series of Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York 2002, 636 pages [1] .
• Liber quadratorum (The Book of Squares) 1225; An annotated translation into modern English by L. E. Sigler appeared   1987 in  Academic Press, 124 pages. There is also a French translation by P. Ver Eecke 1952 and English excerpts by E. Grants, 1974.
• Practica geometriae, 1220; a book on geometry
• Flos ed Epistola, 1225

In addition, one mathematical letter to Master Theodorus³ Epistola ad Magistrum Theodorum, written around 1225 is also preserved (For details see Fibonacci's Mathematical Letter to Master Theodorus by A. F. Horadam in Fibonacci Quarterly 1991, vol 29, pages 103-107).

In 1857 Baldassarre Boncompagni (1821-1894) reedited the 5 above mentioned Fibonacci’s treatises in Scritti di Leonardo Pisano, matematico del secolo decimoterzo, 2 volumes, published in Rome in 1857 (vol 1) and 1862 (vol 2). This is a most comprehensive edition of Fibonacci’s manuscripts.  

For more information visit    http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Fibonacci.html

Liber Abbaci

Liber Abbaci is one of the most influential textbooks which introduced the Hindu-Arabic numerals and Hindu-Arabic number system and the methods of doing arithmetic that we principally use nowadays to the West-European culture. It is divided into 15 chapters. This is how Fibonacci describes how he came to discover  “the method of the Indians” (Modus Indorum)  [1]  :

    As my father was a public official away from our homeland in the Bugia customshouse established for the Pisan merchants who frequently gathered there, he had me in my youth brought to him, looking to find for me a useful and comfortable future; there he wanted me to be in the study of mathematics and to be taught for some days. There from a marvelous instruction in the art of nine Indian figures, the introduction and knowledge of the art pleased me so much above all else, and I learnt from them, whoever was learned it, from nearby Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence, and their various methods, to which locations of business I travelled considerably afterwards for much  study, and I learnt from the assembled disputations. But this, on the whole, the algorithm and even the Pythagorean arcs, I still reckoned almost an error compared to the Indian method. Therefore strictly embracing the Indian method, and attentive to the study of it, from mine own sense adding some, and some more still from the subtle Euclidean geometric art, applying the sum that I was able to perceive to this book, I worked to put it together in xv distinct chapters, showing certain proof for almost everything that I put in, so that further, this method perfected above the rest, this science is instructed to the eager, and to the Italian people above all others, who up to now are found without a minimum. If, by chance, something less or more proper or necessary I omitted, your indulgence for me is entreated, as there is no one who is without  fault, and in all things is altogether circumspect.    

Notes

References

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