Images of Some Famous Mathematical Works

This is a collection of images of title pages or pages from some famous mathematical works. Unlike modern title pages, many title pages of older works are often quite elaborate with wonderful "hidden" things to see. Pages from great works make great overhead slides in mathematics classes.

With this in mind, the images here were scanned at large sizes and resolutions so that they can be printed and you will get a fairly nice picture (and they made good overhead slides).

If you would like to make an overhead slide and your printer fails you, email me at

• Tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection
• Babylonian Tablet Plimpton 322
• Egyptian A'h-mosè or Rhind Papyrus
• Conics, Apollonius
• Ars Conjectandi, Jakob Bernoulli
• L' Algebra, Rafael Bombelli
• Ars Magna, Girolamo Cardano
• La Géométrie, René Descartes
• Arithmetica, Diophantus
• Elements of Euclid
• Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche Intorno a Due Nuove Scienze, Galileo Galilei
• Opus Geometricum, Gregory of St. Vincent
• Mécanique Céleste, Pierre Simon Laplace
• Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, Pierre Simon Laplace
• "Nova methodus pro maximis et minimis, itemque tangentibus, quae nec fractas nec irrationales quantitates moratur, et singulare pro illis calculi genus", Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas, Isaac Newton
• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton
• Clavis mathematicae, William Oughtred
• The Whetstone of Witte, Robert Recorde
• Margarita Philosophica, Gregor Reisch
• Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus, Girolamo Saccheri
• "Modular elliptic curves and Fermat's Last Theorem", Andrew J. Wiles

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Gary S. Stoudt