Tartaglia Publishes General Trattato

1543

The self-taught Venetian mathematician Niccolo Tartaglia published his General Trattato, popularizing algebraic methods and the solutions to cubic equations. He had quarreled bitterly with Cardano over priority. Italian mathematics was hurtling toward the invention of imaginary numbers, complex analysis, and modern symbolic algebra. His priority dispute with Cardano became Renaissance mathematics' most famous quarrel, conducted through printed pamphlets and public challenges.