MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 



Persian, invented some ingenious instruments for mathematical calculations, 

 and he collected, under the title of " Ilkhanian Tables," a number of daily 

 observations upon the state of the sky and the course of the stars. The 

 Armenian Ezenkansti not only observed the celestial phenomena, but he 

 described them in verse, and celebrated them in his poetry. Astronomy 

 comprised studious and zealous followers even in Morocco, where Aly 

 Aboul-Kalan wrote his book on " Beginnings and Endings," supplementing the 

 compared results of telescopic observations with the most minute calculations, 

 lint, from the close of the thirteenth century, the savants of Italy had 



Fig. 68. Astronomer accused of Sorcery, holding a Disc 

 with Magic Figures. Capital Letter in a " Book of 

 Jurisprudence." Manuscript of theThirteenth Century. 

 In Ihe Lihrary of M. Anibroise Firmin-Didot. 



devoted themselves by preference to mathematics, though the study of the 

 exact sciences was too often suspected of heresy. Campano, who had 

 translated Euclid, had some difficulty in defending himself from the 

 suspicions and denunciations of the theologians, while Pietro d'Abano, who 

 professed medicine and astronomy at the University of Padua, had the 

 misfortune to lean towards the errors of Averroism, and to fall a victim to 

 astrology. Accused of sorcery, and condemned to the stake, he escaped that 

 punishment by suicide (1316), or else died suddenly it is not known which 

 before the sentence was executed. The principal mathematicians belonged to 



