The Geometer’s and engineer’s workshop: An archaeology of papers, intellectual techniques, and practices of knowledge in Vincenzo Viviani

Abstract

Moving past traditional intellectualist frameworks that privilege printed treatises as monuments of pure conceptual progress, in Un galiléen d’encre et de papier Simon Dumas Primbault undertakes an archaeology of working manuscripts within the Fondo Galileiano at the National Central Library of Florence (BNCF). By examining Vincenzo Viviani’s rough drafts (brouillons), codicological parameters, ink variations, layout grids, and paper management, Primbault aims to demonstrate how physical writing surfaces functioned as active cognitive “paper tools” for theoretical derivation and administrative practice. The review traces three core dimensions of Viviani’s intellectual identity: first, his role as Galileo Galilei’s “last disciple,” curating and editing the master’s archive to construct a protective legacy compatible with Medici patronage and Catholic orthodoxy; second, his work as a “divining geometer,” deploying mathematical humanism, conjectural reconstruction (divinatio), and synthetic geometry directly on the page (géométrie d’encre); and third, his active career as Medici First Engineer, where field notebooks, drawing practices (disegno), and statecraft intersected with theoretical research. Additionally, the essay contextualizes Viviani’s 1692 Aenigma Florentinum challenge against Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, highlighting a pivotal transition from classical synthetic geometry to infinitesimal calculus.