What is new and what is old in Viète’s analysis restituta and algebra nova, and where do they come from ? Some reflections on the relations between algebra and analysis before Viète
François Viète considered most of his mathematical treatises to be part of a body of texts he entitled . Despite this title and the fact that the term “algebra” has often been used to designate what is customarily regarded as Viète’s main contribution to mathematics, such a term is not part of his vocabulary. How should we understand this term, in the context of the title of his , where “new algebra” is identified with “restored analysis”? To answer this question, I suggest distinguishing between...