276 JEROME CARDAN. 



importance to Cardan's was published in his time. The 

 Germans, who were not much read in Italy, had advanced 

 beyond the Italians in mathematics, but Cardan's book 

 published in Germany placed him easily and indisputably 

 at the head of all. One of the best of the German mathe- 

 matical books, the Arithmetica Integra of Michael Stife- 

 lius (Englished, Michael Boot), had issued from the press, 

 also of Nuremberg, less than a year before the publication 

 in that town of Cardan's Ars Magna. Before I close these 

 details in the life of a primitive algebrist, it may help to 

 suggest to us how truly primitive he was, if we consider 

 that in that book by Stifelius the signs -f~> > and ^/, 

 were for the first time used. 



