The Eclectic Content and Sources of Christopher Clavius's Geometria Practica

Abstract

We consider the Geometria Practica of Christopher Clavius, S.J., a suprisingly eclectic and comprehensive textbook of practical geometry, whose first edition appeared in 1604. Our focus is on four particular sections from Books IV and VI where Clavius has either used his sources in an interesting way or where he has been uncharacteristically reticent about them. These include the treatments of Heron's Formula, Archimedes' Measurement of the Circle, four methods for constructing two mean proportionals between two lines, and finally an algorithm for computing nth roots of numbers.