Conferences
17-18 December 2025 (hybrid form)
Using and Thinking Numbers in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean World
Bern Universität, Hauptgebäude, Raum 033, Hochschulstrasse 4. To attend the conference online, please write an email to medimath.momug@unibe.ch
Organization: Eleonora Sammarchi. Conference logistics: Nubya Evelyne Wyss. Communication design: Nicolas Grégoire-Veyrié
Programme
Wednesday 17 December 2025
Chair: Clelia Crialesi (SPHere, Université Paris Cité)
9.30 – 10.00 | Welcome and Presentation of the MediMath Team
10.00 – 10.45 | Johannes Thomann (University of Zürich) Liberating Mathematical Objects from the Platonic Ghetto: Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Books Μ and Ν and Averroes’ Restraint in his Middle Commentary
10.45 – 11.15 | Break
11.15 – 12.00 | David Rabouin (CNRS-SPHere) What History for Surd Numbers? Reflections on Some Ancient Sources
12.00 – 12.45 | Graziana Ciola (Radbound University) From the Imaginable to the Imaginary: Late-Medieval Semantics and the Roots Complex Mathematics
12.45 – 14.15 | Lunch break
Chair: Bijan Vahabzadeh (SPHere-CHSPAM)
14.15 – 15.00 | Marc Moyon (XLIM-University of Limoges) Measuring with Numbers: Geometric Computation and Unit Systems in Fibonacci’s Practica Geometriae
15.00 – 15.45 | Petra Schmidl (MOSAIC-FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) Al-Ashraf ˁUmar’s Tabṣira: Chapter l. Hindu-Arabic Numerals in an Example from 13th century Yemen
15.45 – 16.15 | Break
16.15 – 17.45 | Roundtable: “Numbers Outside Mathematics: Focus on Arts” in collaboration with Berner Mittelalter Zentrum and MOMuG Research Talks
Corinne Mühlemann (IKG, UniBe): The Woven Grid: Counting Threads and the Logic of the Loom
Beate Fricke (IKG, UniBe): 4 Elements, 5 Zones.
Cristina Urchueguía (MUSIK, UniBe): Harmony by Numbers
Björn Bentlage (MOMuG, UniBe): A Numbers’ Game, Literally: Math in Early Modern Arabic Literature
Thursday 18 December 2025
Chair: Nicolas Grégoire-Veyrié (University of Bern)
9.00 – 9.45 | Michael Friedman (University of Bonn) Using Numbers in Medieval Jewish Mathematical Manuscripts: The Case Study of the Ḥibbur and the Tashbetz
9.45 – 10.30 | Agathe Keller (CNRS-SPHere) Use and Conception of 0 and 1 in the Bakhshālī Manuscript: a Reflexion on Place Holders, Operands and Numbers in Arithmetic in a Medieval Middle Indic Source
10.30 – 11.15 | Roy Wagner (ETH-Zürich) Some Anecdotes on Zeros, Negative Numbers, and a Proto-Series-Expansion
11.15 – 11.40 | Break
11.40 – 12.25 | Veronica Gavagna (University of Florence) The Algebraic World of Numbers in Cardano and Bombelli
12.25 – 13.00 | Eleonora Sammarchi (University of Bern) Numbers in Pacioli’s Summa
Thursday 5 June 2025, 10:00-16:00 (hybrid form)
Cross-cultural trajectories in early modern mathematics
Joint conference between MediMath and the Chair of History and Philosophy of Mathematical Sciences (ETH-Zürich). Organizers: E. Sammarchi and R. Wagner.
Programme
9:30-10:00 Coffee and welcome
10:00-11:00 Alex Garnick (Harvard University) The relationship of geometrical analysis to algebra across Arabic and Latin sources in the seventeenth century: evidence from manuscripts in the network of Jacob Golius
11:00-12:00 Eleonora Sammarchi (University of Bern) Who are “the Arabs” in early modern arithmetical-algebraic texts? Focus on the "Maumetto di Mosé arabo" of Bombelli's Algebra.
12:00-13:15 Lunch
13:15-14:15 Damian Moosbrugger (ETH-Zürich) The mixing of mathematical practices in Benjamin Bramer’s geometrical treatise Quaestiones (1618)
14:15-14:30 Break
14:30-15:30 Roy Wagner (ETH-Zürich) Potential transmission of knowledge from Kerala to Europe around cubic equations and sine calculation
15:30-16:30 Arilès Remaki (JGU Mainz) Disposition and Interpretation: the Bouvet-Leibniz hypothesis on the Chinese table of the Yi-Jing
Room: F -105 Lerchenweg 36, 3012, Bern
If you wish to attend the meeting online, please write an email to medimath.momug@unibe.ch