[17] Michael Scott, or Scot, was born about 1190, probably in Fifeshire, Scotland, and died about 1291. He was one of the best known savants of the court of Emperor Frederick II, and wrote upon astrology, alchemy, and the occult sciences. He was looked upon as a great magician and is mentioned among the wizards in Dante's _Inferno_. "That other, round the loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practised in every slight of magic wile." _Inferno_, XX. Boccaccio also speaks of him: "It is not long since there was in this city (Florence) a great master in necromancy, who was called Michele Scotto, because he was a Scot." _Decameron_, Dec. Giorno. Scott's mention of him in Canto Second of his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, is well known: "In these fair climes, it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott; A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when, in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame!" Sir Walter's notes upon him are of interest. [18] These were some of the forgeries which Michel Chasles (1793-1880) was duped into buying. They purported to be a correspondence between Pascal and Newton and to show that the former had anticipated some of the discoveries of the great English physicist and mathematician. That they were forgeries was shown by Sir David Brewster in 1855. [19] "Let the serpent also break from its appointed path." [20] Guglielmo Brutus Icilius Timoleon Libri-Carucci della Sommaja, born at Florence in 1803; died at Fiesole in 1869. His _Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques_ appeared at Paris in 1838, the entire first edition of volume I, save some half dozen that he had carried home, being burned on the day that the printing was completed. He was a great collector of early printed works on mathematics, and was accused of having stolen large numbers of them from other libraries. This accusation took him to London, where he bitterly attacked his accusers. There were two auction sales of his library, and a number of his books found their way into De Morgan's collection. [21] Philo of Gadara lived in the second century B.C. He was a pupil of Sporus, who worked on the problem of the two mean proportionals. [22] In his _Histoire des Mathematiques_, the first edition of which appeared in 1758. Jean Etienne Montucla was born at Lyons in 1725 and died at Versailles in 1799. He was therefore only thirty-three years old when his great work appeared. The second edition, with additions by D'Alembert, appeared in 1799-1802. He also wrote a work on the quadrature of the circle, _Histoire des recherches sur la Quadrature du Cercle_, which appeared in 1754. [23] Eutocius of Ascalon was born in 480 A.D. He wrote commentaries on the first four books of the conics of Apollonius of Perga (247-222 B.C.). He also wrote on the Sphere and Cylinder and the Quadrature of the Circle, and on the two books on Equilibrium of Archimedes (287-212 B.C.)