When Was The Drawing Compass Invented

HISTORY OF AN INVENTION
Throughout the Renaissance (fig.i) many attempts were made to develop a universal instrument (fig.ii) that could be used to perform arithmetical adding and geometric operations hands. (fig.three) This demand was felt especially in the armed services field, where the technology of firearms called for increasingly precise mathematical noesis. To satisfy these requisites, the first proportional compasses (fig.4) were developed in the second half of the sixteenth century, among them some singular instruments known equally the "radio latino" (fig.5) and the "proteo militare" (fig.6). The geometric and military compass of Galileo belonged to this class of instruments. Invented in Padua in 1597, the musical instrument is also linked to Galileo's activity (fig.7) in the Accademia Delia (fig.eight), founded in Padua to provide mathematical instruction for immature noblemen preparation for a military career. (fig.9) With the seven proportional lines traced on the legs of the compass and the four scales marked on the quadrant, it was possible to perform with the greatest of ease all sorts of arithmetical and geometric calculations, ranging from computing involvement to extracting square and cube roots, from drawing polygons to calculating areas and volumes, from measuring gauges to surveying a territory. Betwixt 1598 and 1604, Galileo instructed several European sovereigns on the apply of his compass, (fig.x) among them Prince John Frederick of Alsace, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the Landgrave Philippe of Hesse and the Knuckles of Mantua.

THE SUCCESS OF THE Instrument
The success of the instrument encouraged Galileo to divulge his invention still farther. In 1606 he published sixty copies of Le operazi oni del compasso geometrico e militare (fig.11), each of which he sold privately forth with one of the instruments. (fig.12) The production of compasses, from which Galileo earned a substantial profit, was entrusted to an instrument-maker whom the scientist housed for some years in his own home. The publication of the treatise immediately aroused great interest, then intense as to provoke bitter arguments in the bookish earth over the authorship of the invention. Already in 1607 Baldassarre Capra, one of Galileo'southward pupils, tried to merits credit for the invention of the musical instrument amongst erudite circles by publishing a treatise in Latin on its operations (fig.thirteen). Other adversaries of Galileo (fig.14) claimed that the musical instrument had been invented first by the Dutch mathematician Michel Coignet. Many variations in the instrument were made (fig.15) and, with the addition of new proportional lines, its fields of application were later extended. Specific treatises (fig.sixteen) were written past Michel Coignet, who called it "compasso pantometro", by Muzio Oddi who called information technology "compasso polimetro" (fig.17), past Ottavio Revesi Bruti who, adding proportional lines for architectural drawing, called it "archisesto" (fig.xviii), by Girard Desargues and other French mathematicians who, adding proportional lines for perspective drawing, called information technology the "optical or perspective compass". Numerous variations (fig.19) were adult throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while during the class of the nineteenth, the proportional compass was gradually replaced by the dissemination of highly refined slide rules (fig.20) which survived in the technical studios of engineers, architects and geometers up until the very recent appearance of the figurer.

Images

Fig.1

Galileo Galilei, Le operazioni del compasso geometrico east militare, ms. 1606
Fig.2

Folding dominion of Antonio Bianchini (16th ca.)
Fig.3

Plate portraying soldiers using a compass to measure the barrel of a cannon
Fig.4

Mordente's compass (1591)
Fig.five

Plate illustrating the radio latino
Fig.6

Plate illustrating the proteo militare
Fig.7

Portrait of Galileo Galilei
Fig.8

Plate portraying ii gunners, instructed by a third, engaged in measuring cannon bores
Fig.ix

Geometric and military compass of Galileo Galilei (c. 1606)
Fig.ten

Engraving of a geographic nautical chart of Europe (1569)
Fig.11

Galileo Galilei, Le Operazioni del compasso geometrico e militare, Frontespiece
Fig.12

Engraving portraying a compass-maker in his shop (1568)
Fig.13

Baldassarre Capra, Usus et fabrica circini cuiusdam proportionis, Frontespiece
Fig.fourteen

Drawing of Baldassarre Capra'southward compass
Fig.15

Michel Coignet'due south "pantometro" compasst
Fig.sixteen

Michel Coignet'southward "regula pantometra"
Fig.17

Muzio Oddi, Fabbrica et uso del compasso polimetro di Mutio Oddi da Urbino, Frontespiece
Fig.eighteen

Plate with drawing of an "archisesto"
Fig.19

Box for mathematical instruments (17th ca.)
Fig.20

20. Drawing of slide dominion with various scales marked on it, Peter Nicholson