Girard, Albert

1. Dates

Born: St. Mihiel, France, c. 1595

Died: 's Gravenhage, 8 Dec. 1632 (Bosmans and Vosterman make it 1633)

Dateinfo: Both Dates Uncertain

Lifespan: 37

2. Father

Occupation: No Information

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: French

Career: Dutch

Death: Dutch. The first solid information about him shows him settled in the Netherlands.

4. Education

Schooling: Leiden

De Waard states that he inscribed himself in Leiden on 28 April 1617 as a student of mathematics. No. B.A.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Calvinist.

It appears that he fled to the Netherlands as a religious refugee.

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Primary: Mathematics, Engineering

Subordinate: Optics, Music

He published extensively on mathematics.

He translated a treatise on fortification from Flemish into French, and Marolois's treatise on fortification from French into Flemish.

He worked on the law of refraction.

He mentioned a completed work on music, although it was never published.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Musician, Engineering

Originally he was a musician, specifically a lute player.

Gassendi mentioned him, in a letter, as an engineer with the Dutch army. De Waard ways that this could not have been before about 1626.

His grave marker called him an engineer.

De Waard cites a passage from Girard's edition of Stevin in which he complained of being in a foreign country without a maecenas and burdened with a family. He said that he had to postpone the publication of his mathematics until a time when the pursuit of the sciences would be more highly esteemed than it was at that time.

8. Patronage

Type: Court

Despite his complaint of living in a foreign country without a patron, he dedicated his edition of Stevin's Arithmetic (I have 1625) to Prince Maurice and his translation of Marolois's Fortification (1627) to Prince Frederik Hendrik.

9. Technological Involvement

Types: Military Engineering, Cartography

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

He appears to have had informal contact with the circle of Dutch mathematical scientists. Thus his edition of Stevin. He was a friend of Snel.

Sources

1. H. Bosmans, an article divided into six short sections in Mathesis, 40 (1926).
2. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biographisch Woordenboek.
3. Paul Tannery, "Albert Girard di Saint-Mihiel," Bulletin des sciences mathematiques et astronomiques, 2nd ser. 7 (1883), 358-60. (Also in Tannery's Mémoires scientifiques, 6, (Paris, 1926), 19-22. G.A. Vosterman van Oijen, "Quelques arpenteurs hollandais de la fin du XVIe et du commencement du XVIIe siecle et leur instruments," Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze methematiche de fisiche, 3 (1870), 323-76 (esp. 359- 62).

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

Note: the creators of the Galileo Project and this catalogue cannot answer email on geneological questions.