The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Tartaglia, Niccolò
(nk-klô´ tärtä´lyä) (KEY) , c.15001557, Italian engineer and mathematician. Largely self-educated, he taught mathematics at Verona, Brescia, and Venice. A pioneer in applying mathematics to artillery, he recorded his results in Della nova scientia (1537). He developed a solution for cubic equations that Geronimo Cardano (with his pupil Ludovico Ferrari) completed and published in his Ars magna (1545), thereby precipitating a bitter dispute; Tartaglia published his version as Quesiti et invenzioni diverse (1546). He wrote also a treatise on pure and applied mathematics, General trattato di numeri et misure (6 parts, 155660) and made Italian translations of works of Euclid and Archimedes.