University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rare Book Room Exhibit

Cardano's Ars Magna, the first great Latin treatise devoted solely to algebra, appeared at Nuremberg in 1545 and set forth the theory of algebraic equations so far as it was then known. It includes the solution of the cubic, which he seems to have secured from Tartaglia under pledge of secrecy and then dishonorably to have published, and the solution of the biquadratic which had been discovered by his pupil Ferrari.

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