Diophantus redivivus: is Diophantus an early-modern classic?
Abstract
Many early-modern mathematical books incorporated at least a part of Diophantus' Arithmetica, from Jacques de Billy's Diophanti Redivi Pars prior et posterior to John Kersey's Third and Fourth Books of the Elements of algebra or Jacques Ozanam's Recr\'eations math\'ematiques. Diophantine questions regularly circulated among mathematicians of the time in the context of exchanges of problems or challenges. It is thus tempting to consider Diophantus's opus magnum as a classic. However, I argued in my talk that, while Diophantus was indeed a classical author for early-modern mathematicians, his main work did not become a classical book.
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