361 



VIETA, FRANCIS. 



VIETA, FRANCIS. 



362 



Louvre during the first quarter of the present century : among them a 

 portrait of his father, as M. Vien, sdnateur, in 1804. 



(Gabet, JDictionnaire des Artistes de FlZcole Francaise au dix-neuvieme 

 Siecle ; Fiorillo, Geschichte der Mahler ei ; Landon, Annales du Musee; 

 Re>eil et Duchesne, Musee de Peinture, &o. ; Brulliot, Dictionnaire 

 des Moitogrammes, &c.) 



VIETA, FRANCIS. Much has been said of the writings of Vieta, 

 but very little on his life, and that little has often been wrongly given. 

 In the absence of all good sources of reference, we are under the 

 necessity of giviug somewhat more space to this biography than is 

 usual. 



Frauois Viet, Viette, or de Viette (his name is given in these ways, 

 and in one of his own writings it is Latinised Fr. Vietseus, but more 

 usually Vieta), was born at Fontenai-le-Comte, a small town not far 

 from La Rochelle, in the year 1540. His family, if we may judge from 

 the position which he occupied during the greater part of his life, 

 must have had both rank and interest. We may connect the epoch 

 of his birth with other parts of the history of science, by stating that 

 he was born about the 'time when algebra was introduced into the 

 northern parts of Europe from Italy, in the thirty-ninth year of the 

 age of Cardan, and three years before the death of Copernicus, while 

 Napier, Harriot, and Galileo were respectively 10, 20, and 24 years his 

 juniors. Of his education and early years we know nothing, and the 

 scanty materials for the rest of his life are found principally in the 

 work of liis friend the president De Thou (' Hist.,' lib. cxxix.). Bayle 

 charges this celebrated writer (' Diet.,' art. ' Rasario ') with inaccuracy 

 iu his accounts of learned men ; if we may disregard this imputation 

 in the case of Vieta, with whom the biographer was personally and 

 intimately acquainted, we cannot all the more help wishing that the 

 facts preserved had been more in number, and of somewhat closer con- 

 nection with the scientific pursuits of Vieta. The whole of De Thou's 

 account does not amount to more than a few insulated anecdotes, 

 which are often repeated ; and the want of information from other 

 quarters respecting one of the greatest mathematicians of the 16th 

 century, may be accounted for if we remember the troubled times in 

 which he lived, and the rule which he appears to have followed 

 of printing all his works at his own expense, and distributing them 

 as presents among his friends. This has been found almost uni- 

 formly to be a successful mode of preventing or diminishing post- 

 humous fame. 



The life of Vieta was passed in the public service : on the resigna- 

 tion of De Thou, he was made master of requests. We have seen it 

 said that he held this office under Henry III., and elsewhere that it 

 was in the household of Margaret, wife of Henry IV. Both state- 

 ments are probably true ; since De Thou assures us that his attention 

 to the mathematics was only the relaxation of a whole life spent in 

 public business, for which, says the historian, he had both talent and 

 industry. And Vieta himself, in his answer to Adrian Romanus, says 

 that he cannot profess to be a mathematician, but only a person to 

 whom mathematical studies are delightful when he has leisure. He 

 lived and held office through the religious troubles of the reigns of 

 Henri III. and Henri IV. ; a letter of his friend Ghetaldi, hereinafter 

 mentioned, proves that he was on the council of state in the latter 

 reign, and we must suppose that his love of study induced him. to 

 confine himself to the simple duties of his calling. It seems however 

 that he did not entirely escape the dangers of the time, or the attacks 

 of the opposite party. In his dedication to Catherine de Parthenai, 

 duchesse de Rohan, and mother of the Due de Rohan, well known as 

 the leader of the French Protestants in the time of Louis XIII., he 

 addresses that lady as one who had saved him from imprisonment and 

 certain death ; which means, we suppose, that he had fallen into the 

 hands of the Huguenots. He proceeds to aver, but whether this be 

 fact or dedication we have no means of knowing, that it was her love 

 for and great skill in mathematics which first incited him to that 

 study. Her literary attainments are mentioned by her biographers, 

 and the account given by Vieta may be perfectly true. There is only 

 one story in De Thou of his political services: The extent and 

 scattered character of the Spanish dominions having rendered their 

 communications insecure in time of war, a cipher was invented with 

 more than 500 characters, and these not permanently retaining the 

 same signification. The complexity of this method foiled the ordinary 

 decipherers, and application was thereupon made to Vieta, who with- 

 out any difficulty discovered the secret, which was used for more 

 than two years, to the great loss and annoyance of the Spaniards. 

 These, perceiving that their cipher was detected, and imagining that 

 no human skill was equal to such an effort, attributed the discovery 

 to magic, and took care to publish this report throughout Europe, but 

 particularly at the court of Rome. But the imputation failed to 

 excite any odium, and was received, says De Thou, non sine risu et 

 indignatione rectius sentientium; heresy had taken the place of sorcery. 

 It is therefore not true, though some writers have said it by way of 

 mending the story, that Vieta was actually cited to appear at Rome 

 and answer the charge of dealing with the foul fiend. 



Indirectly connected with the politics of the day is the share which 

 Vieta took in the controversy on the reformation of the calendar. 

 This, as is well known, was completed under the auspices of Pope 

 Gregory XIII., in 1582, though the subject had been in agitation more 

 than a century, and the change had even beeu projected by Sextus 



IV., in 1474. The plan finally adopted was that of Liliua, an astro- 

 nomer of Calabria, who died before its presentation to the pope, and 

 the execution of it was intrusted to the Jeauit Clavius. It is to be 

 remembered that the true time of keeping Easter was then thought of 

 the utmost importance, and that heterodoxy in this particular had 

 more than once been thought worthy of excommunication. The 

 reformed calendar was attacked by Vieta, Joseph Scaliger, and others, 

 the first of whom published in the year 1600 what he called the true 

 Gregorian calendar, and prefixed to it the bull of Gregory XIII. On 

 this work it will be sufficient to say that Montucla and Delambre 

 unite in condemning the ideas of Vieta : he made 3400 Julian years 

 contain exactly 42,053 lunations, the error of which is a trifle more 

 than that of the astronomy of his day. His work was carried by him- 

 self to Cardinal Aldobrandini, who was then at Leyden on a mission 

 from Clement VIII. He had however no success with the cardinal, 

 " as I warned him when he set out," says De Thou, " feeling sure that 

 an improvement adopted by the princes of Christendom after BO 

 much deliberation, would not easily be modified, even for the better, 

 by those who think it a secret of government never to confess that 

 they either have erred or can err." Clavius simply replied to Vieta 

 by referring him to a work on the Gregorian calendar which he was 

 then preparing, and which he stated would contain a full reply to all 

 the objections. This answer seems to have enraged Vieta beyond his 

 powers of forb( arance. Perhaps he felt indignant at not being con- 

 sidered worthy of a separate reply, or perhaps the malady which after- 

 wards destroyed him had begun to act upon his mind which last 

 may be charitably hoped. In 1602 he published his expostulation 

 against Clavius, a tract of three pages, which Montucla is surprised his 

 editors should have permitted to descend to posterity. He charges his 

 opponent with evasion, and asserts that he ought to have retracted his 

 error for the sake of the mysteries of religion, the peace of Christen- 

 dom, and the divine authority of the supreme pontiff. He accuses 

 Clavius of having slandered him to the pope, of contempt of religion, 

 of falsehood in mathematics and theology ; and urges upon him 

 the danger that the Protestants might, through his obstinacy, get 

 hold of the real calendar (his own) by themselves, and not from the 

 papal authority. He calls upon Clement to alter the bull of his pre- 

 decessor, and brings forward, curiously enough, as a precedent, that 

 Augustus Caesar, a Pontifex Maximus, had changed the arrangement 

 of the year ordained by Julius Csesar, another Pontifex Maximus. 

 Finally, in order that no manifestation of bad feeling might be 

 wanting, he calls upon the order of Jesuits to excommunicate all who 

 should by design and fraud stand in the way of the good of Christen- 

 dom; meaning, of course, Clavius and his followers. To this explosion 

 of passion Cldvius did not condescend to reply; but throughout his 

 work, which appeared in 1603, the year of Vieta's death, he treated 

 the latter with the respect due to his geniu?. De Thou gives a partial 

 friend's account of this controversy ; for he says that on the refusal of 

 Clavius to adopt the emendations of Vieta, the latter sent him a 

 serious expostulation, and that had Vieta lived, the matter would not 

 have stopped there, since those who did not hesitate to pluck at the 

 beard of a dead man, would have beaten the living one, had they 

 dared. The anonymous author of the life of Vieta in the ' Biographic 

 Universelle ' has followed De Thou in the preceding description of the 

 controversy, probably from having never seen anything but copies of 

 this description. 



It can hardly be supposed that so severe an attack upon the bull of 

 Gregory XIII. would pass altogether unnoticed at Rome ; and the 

 treatment of Galileo, which was not many years after Vieta's death, 

 may lead to a suspicion that, if Vieta had not died opportunely, he 

 would have been compelled to desist from his opposition ; and cer- 

 tainly, if the Inquisition had caught him on this matter, he would 

 not, after the hint which he had thrown out about Clavius, have had 

 the sympathy which posterity, with one voice, has expressed for 

 Galileo. There is a circumstance which seems to us to make it pro- 

 bable that the storm was brewing. In 1603, just before Vieta' 

 death, Theodosius Rubeus (author of a work called ' Diarium Uni- 

 versale,' published in 1581, and which seems to have been reprinted 

 with additions in 1693), an ecclesiastic at Rome, published, "per- 

 missu superiorum," an expostulation against Vieta on behalf of 

 Clavius ; a work, of which we never saw any mention, except in a 

 manuscript cross-reference from 'Vieta' iu the catalogue of the 

 British Museum. This expostulation was dedicated to the pope, 

 in terms which, unless used by permission, were presumptuous in 

 the highest degree; since they certainly imply that the writer was 

 empowered to say that recourse would be had to authority, if that 

 expostulation were not sufficient. As this tract is never cited, and 

 not easily obtained, we give at length the passage to which we 

 allude : " Itaque cum apud te solum, Pater Beatissime, haec causa, 

 cujus cognitio tua est, sit agitanda, censui swi augustissimo nomine tuo, 

 hanc meam admonitionem in publicum dare, ut omnis provocandi 

 ansa Vietse tollatur, et tandem huic controversies auctoritate tud finis 

 imponatur." Rubeus afterwards pays a high testimony to the extent 

 of Vieta's acquirements, which is well confirmed by such scattered 

 notices of him as exist. He says that he feels it necessary to speak 

 strongly in behalf of Clavius, since the latter is contending single- 

 handed with one who is both lawyer, theologian, mathematician, 

 orator, and poet. 



