Tartaglia—The Stammerer

Abstract

Nicolo Tartaglia, whose portrait appears as the frontispiece in this issue, was born in Brescia and was one of the greatest Italian mathematicians of the 16th Century. A saber cut in the face which he received as a child when Brescia was stormed by Gaston de Foix (1512) resulted in an imperfection in his speech. This defect caused him to be given the nickname of Tartaglia ("the stammerer") "which name he formerly used in all his published works."*