Originally destined for the clergy, Ozanam was a self-taught mathematician of some brilliance, and in 1670 he published trigonometric and logarithmic tables far more accurate than those extant at the time. He moved from Lyon to Paris and made a comfortable living teaching mathematics to private pupils, all the while publishing a series of popular texts on aspects of mathematics, also a Traité de Fortification. The Catholic Encyclopaedia describes him as “… devout, charitable, courageous, and of simple faith. As a young man he had overcome a passion for gaming. He was wont to say that it was for the doctors of the Sorbonne to dispute, for the pope to decide, and for a mathematician to go to heaven in a perpendicular line.”
As suggested by the sub-title this work provides a basic grounding in all aspects of measurement and surveying; arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, levelling, estimation, and geodesy. Practical applications within the world of architecture and building are demonstrated and tables of multiplication and the planking of wood are included.
OCLC locates only one copy of this edition in the Newberry Library, whilst KVK locates only that in the Bavarian State Library.
