Elliptical Compasses

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Name used since the sixteenth century.

Contents

Inventor

Arab anonym


Historic Period

X century


Description

Compass for drawing ellipses. Documented already in Arab mathematical tradition under the name of perfect compasses, the instrument was illustrated in the sixteenth century by Benvenuto della Volpaia (who attributes its invention to Leonardo), Albrecht Dürer, Guidobaldo del Monte and other mathematicians. It generally consists of an inclined fixed leg representing the axis of a cone, and a revolving leg of variable length representing the generatrix. Turning around the inclined leg, the point of the revolving leg traces an elliptical curve on a sheet of paper. A variant designed to trace an ellipse as the oblique section of a cylinder is illustrated in a manuscript by the Venetian Senator Giacomo Contarini, who may have invented it.


Bibliographical Resources

Della Volpaia, Benvenuto, Macchine e strumenti, ms., XVI secolo, Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, It. IV, 41 (= 5363), c. 18 r: “Seste da far l’ovato”.
Siena, Biblioteca degli Intronati, Ms. L.IV.10, c. 93.
Siena, Biblioteca degli Intronati, Ms. S.IV.6, c. 65v.
Benedetti, Giovanni Battista, Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et phisicarum liber, Torino, 1585, pp. 325-327.
Besson, Jacques, Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum, Lione, 1578, Figura V.
Del Monte, Guidobaldo, Planisphaeriorum universalium theorica, Pesaro, 1579, pp. 105, 125.
Barozzi, Francesco, Admirandum Illud Geometricum Problema, Venezia, 1586, pp. 30-31.
Contarini, Jacopo, Figure d'Istromenti Matematici e loro uso, ms., ca. 1590, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Canon. Ital. 145, cc. 9-13.
Bonino, Marco, ms., ca. 1580, Los Angeles, University of California, Ms 170/358, c. 12v.
Scheiner, Christoph, Exegeses Fundamentorum Gnomonicorum, Ingolstadt, 1615, p. 64.
Oddi, Muzio, Degli Horologi solari, Venezia, 1638, pp. 183 sgg.


Existing Instruments

- Museo Galileo, Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence
Firenze, Museo Galileo. Istituto di Storia della Scienza, inv. 597.
Firenze, Museo Galileo. Istituto di Storia della Scienza, inv. 2542.


- Adler Planetarium, Chicago
Chicago, Adler Planetarium, inv. M-101


- Dresden, Mathematisch-Physikalische Salon
Dresden, Mathematisch-Physikalische Salon, inv. A.I.13


- Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, inv. 38132


Norimberga, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, WI 1801, compasso di Christoph Schissler.


Images


Author of the entry: Filippo Camerota

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