Geometry, Reformation, and Counter Reformation in a Letter from Adriaan von Roomen to Clavius (July 1st, 1597)

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse a letter from Adrianus Romanus (1561-1615) to Christoph Clavius (1538-1612), dated 1 july 1597. As a source for history of science, this letter brings in the foreground traces of a close cooperation between these two men as regards technical mathematical questions, mainly the so-called Apollonian Problem. Still in the foreground, the letter informs us about some of the questions that were occupying the European mathematitians at that moment, namely the squaring of the circle, the computation of the measure of sides of polygons and the construction of trigonometric tables. In the background, we can see in the studied text how the treatment of these questions was silently affected by politico-religious issues linked to the tension between catholicism and protestantism. In an appendix, we present a translation of the Latin original text of the letter to Portuguese.