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Nathaniel Torporley and his Diclides Coelometricae (1602)

A Preliminary Investigation
Joel Silverberg

Abstract
Nathaniel Torporley is perhaps one of the more interesting and enigmatic mathematical figures of
15th and 16th century England. Attracting the patronage of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, Torporley served as personal secretary to Francois Vi`ete, and was a mathematical colleague
and trusted friend of Thomas Harriot. He was chosen by Harriot to prepare his manuscripts for
posthumous publication.
Yet he was also a figure of controversy. Delambre in his Astronomie Moderne (1821) refers to
the tables presented in Diclides as the most obscure and incommodious that ever were made.
Two decades later Augustus De Morgan in The Penny Cyclopedia (1838) and again in a note to
the Philosophical Magazine and Journal (1843) both praises and condemns Diclides, giving the
work credit for discovering the essence of Napiers Rules twelve years before Napier, while at the
same time describing it as the greatest burlesque on mnemonics we ever saw.
The language, forms of expression and the Latin usage are indeed close to impenetrable. Even
the title of the work is obscure and the mathematics filled with everything from rebuses to verse.
De Morgan abandoned his attempt to explain this work with the comment that those who like
such questions may find out the meanings of the other parts of the tables. I will describe the
nature of this enigmatic work and share such progress in deciphering and decoding the Diclides as
I have made at this time.

R
esum
e
Nathaniel Torporley est peut-etre une des figures les plus interessantes et plus enigmatiques mathematiques de 15e et 16e si`ecles en Angleterre. Attirer le patronage de Henry Percy, neuvi`eme comte
de Northumberland, Torporley servi comme secretaire personnel de Francois Vi`ete, et etait un
coll`egue mathematiques et ami de confiance de Thomas Harriot. Il a ete choisi par Harriot pour
preparer ses manuscrits pour publication `a titre posthume.
Pourtant, il a egalement ete une figure de controverse. Delambre dans son Astronomie Moderne
(1821) se ref`ere aux tableaux presentes dans Diclides comme le plus obscur et incommode qui ait
jamais ete fait. Deux decennies plus tard, Auguste De Morgan dans la Cyclopedia Penny (1838)
et encore une fois dans une note au Philosophical Magazine and Journal (1843) ont tous deux fait
leloge et condamne Diclides, donnant le credit travaux pour decouvrir lessence des r`egles de Napier
douze ans avant de Napier, tandis quen meme temps, le decrivant comme le plus grand burlesque
sur mnemoniques que nous ayons jamais vu.
Le langage, les formes dexpression et lusage latin sont effectivement proches de impenetrable.
Meme le titre de louvrage est obscure et les mathematiques rempli de tout, des rebus des vers. De
Morgan a abandonne son effort dexpliquer ce travail avec le commentaire que ceux qui aiment
ces questions peuvent trouver la signification des autres parties des tableaux. Je vais decrire la
nature de cette uvre enigmatique et de partager de tels progr`es dans le decryptage et le decodage
des Diclides comme je lai fait en ce moment.

Introduction
Amidst the various controversies over the development of Napiers Rules [7] for solving right angled
spherical triangles, is an assertion by Augustus De Morgan that credit for their origin more properly
belongs to Nathaniel Toporley. De Morgan raises this issue twice: once in article on Francois Vi`ete
written for the Penny Cyclopdia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1838 [4],
and again in a letter to the London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of
Science in 1843 [5]. It is likely that De Morgans awareness of Torporley and his work may have
come from DeLambres five page n of Torporleys work in Astronomie Moderne,[2] published in
1821, as he refers the reader to DeLambres account. [5]
De Morgan bases his claim upon two observations: that Torporleys work results in two tables of
double entry for solving right spherical triangles of any sort, while Napiers rules reduce the many
cases to two rules; and that Napier [6] uses the Latin word triplicitas (triplicity, in English), a term
which occurs extensively in Torporleys work. He suggests that trias or ternio would be more natural
choices for Napier (trinitas being excluded for obvious reasons.) Triplicitas, De Morgan states, is a
term commonly used in judicial astrology, and would not be the term of choice for a geometer or a
mathematician such as Napier. De Morgan also referes to a figure of his [Napiers] demonstration
[which] contains the three triangles put together in exactly the same was as Torporleys mother
and daughters come together on the mitre. De Morgan concludes that it is likely that Napier had
read Torporleys Diclides prior to his writing of the Descriptio and that credit for Napiers Rules
more properly belongs to Torporley, although De Morgan admits that Napiers embodiment is far
superior to Torporleys. It is far from clear whether a close examination of the two works would
support or refute de Morgans claim. A case might be made that De Morgan has misinterpreted the
similarities and differences between the two works. I will not address these issue at this time, but
will reserve such considerations for a future paper. Torporleys work survives in a very few number
of copies and was scarce, even in De Morgans day.
Delambre devotes five or six detailed pages of explanation to Torporleys work. Delambre
states that the work is comprised of two volumes: Polyxestes, which provides directions for a new
method based upon three simple theorems, expressed in a manner that is scarcely intelligible,
and a second volume, Pandectes, which gives a complete (spherical) trigonometry which is easy to
remember. Delambre comments that Torporley would have preferred the term Polyxestopyles (the
well polished doors) if he hadnt been afraid of the longer word and translates Pandectes as the
complete treasury or miscellany. Neither term appears in standard Latin dictionaries.

The structure of Diclides Coelometric


Torporleys work [8] includes 148 pages of densely written text, followed by 109 pages of detailed
tables. I have identified approximately ten surviving copies of the work, dispersed across Germany,
England, and the United States. It appears to have been well known in its time. It was mentioned
by both Wood and Aubrey,[9, 1] and copies are known to have been owned by the poet Ben Jonson
and by Henry, Prince of Wales, the ill fated heir apparent of James I of England. 1 The work was
very likely known to Harriot and other mathematicians in Harriots circle. Although Torporley
had worked as an emanuensis to Vi`ete, there is no inkling of Vietes algebra or mathematics in
the work.
1 Henry was a highly cultured, educated, and respected Protestant leader who died at the age of 18. His infant
brother later succeeded James as King Charles I, leading eventually to the English Civil War.

Torporleys Latin prose has been described as barely intelligible, tortured, and incomprehensible.
Another complication is that the mathematics and the astrology seem to be inextricably intertwined,
one being used as a metaphor for illuminating the other. Toporley delights in double meanings,
rebuses, and song-like verses (which he calls carmina) to structure his problem solutions. Poorly
drafted figures, reminiscent of allegorical paintings play an important part in his mathematical
exposition, starting with the elaborate frontispiece to the work.

The contents of the first book, Polyxestes, provide a theoretical basis for the spherical calculations needed for certain astrological computations. They remain to me, for the most part
incomprehensible, and so, I will concentrate in this paper on the contents of the second book,
Pandectes . This book deals with explaining the use of two sets of tables, called Quadrans and
Quincunx that form the basis for the solution of right angled spherical triangles. Any spherical
triangle contains six parts: thee sides and three angles. If any three of these six parts are given, the

remaining three parts can be found. The first part of Pandectes considers triangles where one of
the three given parts is a right angle. Torporley divides these triangles into two species, depending
upon the nature of the two additional given parts homogeneous if the additional parts are either
both angles or both sides, and heterogeneous if the additional parts are one side and one angle.
Torporley then structures his problem as follows: in addition to two given parts (we ignore the
right angle, since all problems take that for granted) we identify one part to be determined. These
three parts (two given, one unknown) are termed a tripicity. Among each triplicity, the unknown
could be any one of the three parts, the other two considered given. He determines that there exist
six distinct triplicities, and gives each a name, and a pictorial representation.
1. Three sides form a triplicity,which is called the prison: [L. cacer]
2. The hypotenuse and two adjacent angles form the spear : [L. hasta]
3. The hypotenuse, a side, and the included angle form the shears: [L. forfex]
4. The hypotenuse, a side and the opposite angle form the siphon: [L. siphon]
5. Two legs and an opposite angle form the crow 2 : [L. corvus]
6. The two oblique angles and an opposite side forms the sling: [L. funda]

The Mitrosphrica Memorabilis


These six triplicities are related into two families, each of which includes a mother and two daughters.
The crow gives birth to the spear and the shears, while the siphon gives birth to the prison and the
sling. Each family (one mother and her two daughters) can be placed together to form a bishops
mitre. The spherical mitres and the key to Torporleys tables and torporleys trigonometery. 3

2 the

crow is not a bird, but a prying type hammer or tool. This usage survives in current times as word crowbar.
memorablilisqm

3 Mitrosphrica

I have been unable to find any reference to or usage of the word Diclides other than in the title
of this work. I have been assured that there is no such Latin word. It has been suggested that it is
a neologism formed from the Greek (a habit with Vi`ete, I have read) to refer to two doorways to
deeper knowledge. These two mitres, perhaps, form the two gateways.[3] The triangle formed by
the shears is related to its mother (the crow) in the following complementary fashion. The angle
between the two blades of the shears is equal to the complement of the side of the crow with the
arrowhead on it. The blade of the shears that touches the crow is complementary to the handle of
the crow, and the second blade of the shears is equal to the angle at the digging or prying end of
the crow. Similarly the two angles and the shaft of the spear are related to the parts of mother
crow: the shaft of the spear is complementary to the length of the prying end of the crow, the angle
on the spear at the top of the mitre is complementary to the length of the handle of the crow, and
the angle at the bottom of the spear is equal to the angle at the prying end of the crow. Similary
relationships relate the parts of the sling to its mother, the siphon, and the sides of the prison to
the siphon. These relationships are explained by Torporley by referring to a Menelaus figure, a
commonly used technique dating back to classical times.

To clarify the parts of each triplicity, each of which is a right angled spherical triangle, Torporley
introduces a figure of a contorted man, to represent such a triangle. This trunk or torso represents
the hypotenuse, arm and calf the sides of the triangle, the armpit one of the acute angles and the

knee the second.

This is followed by the first of his carmina, or songs.


From the crow, the arm, calf, and knee.
Out of the spear, trunk, wing, and knee:
From the Shears come arm, trunk, and wing.

Out of the siphon come the trunk, calf, and wing.


From the sling come the arm, wing, and knee,
and out of the prison come trunk, arm, and calf.
This is followed by a pair of chants, which explain how to use his tables.
In the Fourfold table:5
With respect to the crow, the forearm is listed at the head of the table, the wing at the side entry,
the calf at the crossing of the two.
For the shears, the wing is found at the foot of the table, the arm at the side, and the trunk at the
crossing.
For the spear, find the trunk at the foot of the table, and the other parts (the wing and knee at
the side and crossing.
4 WIng

is the Latin word for armpit.


ulna caput, latus alam, suraque crucem. Forficis ala pedem, lautus uln, crux quoque trunci. Hast
truncus pes, alter latus, alterius crux.
5 Corvulus

The Quadrans or Porta Dextra (Righthand Gateway) is so-called because there are entry points
at the head, the foot, and the side of the table. The value desired sits in the body of the table.
The angles at the top are complements of those at the bottom, and they are used to convert parts
of the daughter parts (spear or shears) to parts of the mother (the crow). The table encapsulates
the needed computations for the crow.

The fivefold table similarly forms the dual functions of converting the parts of the daughters
(prison or sling) to parts of the mother (siphon), and then performing the calculations for the
siphon. In this set of tables, however, there is no entry at the foot of the table. There is an entry
at the side, and entry at the head, and three entries in cell of the body of the table corresponding
to any particular pair of side and head entry values.

The chant for this Qunincunx or Porta Sinistra (the Lefthand Gateway) does not refer to, and
does not use, the entry at the tables head. Instead it uses the lateral entry and the middle of the
three values in a cell within the body of the table. How the user determines which cell contains a
value close enough to his given to find it is not revealed. This is a most baroque way to use a
table, and the table was clearly not constructed in this manner.
In the Fivefold table:

For the siphon: the central division (of the body of the table) is the calf. The upper entry within
the table and the side entry hold the other parts (trunk and wing).
Prison holds the trunk in the central table division, and the other places hold the other parts as
you wish.
And the sling places the knee in the central division, and the other positions hold either the wing
or the arm.

The computations which the carmina direct can be inferred from the problem being solved. The
fourfold table takes lateral entry, a, and and entry at the top head of the table, b, and gives you
a tabulated result c so that the equation tan c = tan a sin b. This is the appropriate relationship
between the parts of the crow, where a is the side leading to the pointed end, b is the angle at
6 Siphone in media suram, latere aut supera fors. Carcer sed mediat trunci, fors eius et huius. Fundaque poplitis
in media, fors ala vel uln.

that end, and c is the side representing the handle. Torpoleys explantions suggest that he used
Menelaus law applied to the special case of a right angled triangle as illustrated below.

The rules for the fivefold table indicate that the sine of the angle on the left side of the table
is multiplied by the sine of the upper angle the compartment in the body of the table gives the
sine of the central angle in that same compartment. The lower angle of the three angles sharing a
compartment is never used, nor is the angle at the head of the table (which would be the natural
entry point. ) Neither does he provide any guidance as to which compartment the appropriate
central value might be found. Since these tables spread over many, many pages, this is not a small
matter. The source of the formula sin a sin b = sin c can be related to Menelaus second law,
specialized for right triangles.

Although this explains the contents of the tables and how they are used, it does not begin to
explain the structure of the table called Quincunx.
How were the tables developed? What does the head of the quincunx hold or represent? What
does the lower division of the table cells hold or represent? Some patterns in the table entries may
provide some clues. Each compartment forming the body of the Quincunx table contains three
values, stored in three locations or divisions: lower, central, and upper. For any compartment in
the table the sum of the values in the central and upper divisions is equal to the entry at the head
of the table above that compartment. Furthermore, for any compartment, the value in the upper

division the sum of the values in the central and lower divisions, or equivalently, the value of the
lower division is the difference between the values of upper and central divisions.
The language used to describe the derivation of the Quincunx table is not the language of
geometry, nor is it the language of astronomy, but rather the language of astrology. It is difficult
to tell whether Torporley is using astrology to think though and explain the mathematics or using
the mathematics to attack astrological problems. I think it is likely the former, but his mode of
expression and his use of Latin make it very challenging to see what is going on.
A typical figure is shown below. The celestial pole is located at a, bd is the celestial equator,
and i marks the location of a star of interest. Arc hk marks the stars celestial latitude, and aig its
longitude. But the arc of particular interest to Torporley is arc f ip.

Arc f ip is the arc of the great circle passing through the star or planet at point i and the
Northern most point on the horizon. This arc, although a great circle, does not belong to any of

the commonly used coordinate systems: equatorial, horizontal, or ecliptic. It would belong to a
system at right angles to one based upon horizon, zenith, and nadir. Regiomontanus used such
arcs to project the division of the houses of the zodiac from the celestial equator onto the ecliptic,
and Torporley refers repeatedly to Regiomontanus in his writing. An earlier system was used by
Campanus (d. 1296) in which he projected divisions of the prime vertical onto the ecliptic using
this same arc.7
Torporley appears to be projecting the position of the star onto the celestial equator using this
arc. He is also concerned with finding the point of tangency, y, between arc f ip and the small circle
xyz which belongs to the equatorial coordinate system. This would be the greatest latitude which
an object traveling along arc f ip would reach. I do not yet understand his archaic astrological
terminology, and am uncertain as to what he is doing and why.
In explaining the construction of his tables Torporley, at various points, refers to table locations
by the astrological significance of the numbers therein. The entry at the head of the table contains the distantiae maioris segmenti, while the side entry holds the differntiae horizontalis or the
positiones maximas parallelorum separatorum, while the table cell corresponding to that row and
column contains three numbers.
The upper entry is the positiones diminutas utrisque distantiis a meridie proprias, parallelorum
ab horizonte divisiorum, differntias vero subalternas reliquorum, the lower entry is the distantiam
a meridie in segmento minori corresponding to the entry at the tables head, and the middle entry
is the difference between the upper and lower entries.
It is clear that the tables were generated, not from the solving of spherical triangles, but from
the consideration of astrological issues and the three theorems that begin the text. The method
for solving right spherical triangles is a consequence derived from these theorems not the genesis
of them, but rather an application of them. Among the astrological terms appearing in abundance
are

positio
positio contingentia
positio diminuta
differntia horizontalesnew
differentia contingentia
differentia subalterna
segmenta maiora et minora
declinatio citerior
declinatio ulterior
In portions of the book developing the mitrospherica, he uses the lateral entry, the upper division
of the cell, and the middle division the division which was calculated by subtracting the upper
and lower divisions. He never uses the lower division itself (the one with astrological meaning) and
he never uses the top entry into the table. Perhaps these entries are used in the first portion of the
book, one which I have yet to make much progress deciphering. I need to learn a lot more Latin
and a lot more medieval astrology, and I hope to have more to say on this topic at a future time.
7 The

prime vertical is the great circle passing through the zenith and the eastern point on the horizon.

References
[1] John Aubrey. Brief lives: chiefly of contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the
years 1669 & 1696, edited from the authors mss. by Andrew Clark. 1898.
[2] Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre. Astronomie Moderne. Mmme. Ve. Courcier, Paris, 1821.
[3] W. Woolsey Johnson. On Napiers circular parts. The Messanger of Mathematics, XLVIII:145
153, 1918 - 1919.
[4] Augustus De Morgan. Nathaniel torporley. The Penny Cyclopaedia for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, 1838.
[5] Augustus De Morgan. On the invention of the circular parts. Philosophical Magazine and
Journal, Series 3, 22, Issue 146(LVIII):350353, 1843.
[6] John Napier. Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio. Edinburgh, 1614.
[7] Joel Silverberg. Napiers rules of circular parts. In Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the
History and Philosophy of Mathematics, pages 160174, June 2008.
[8] Nathaniel Torporley. Diclides Coelometricae sue Valvae Astronomicae Universales. Excudebat
Felix Kingston, London, 1602.
[9] Anthony Wood. Athenae Oxoniensis. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have
had their education in the university of oxford from 1500 to 1690., 1691.

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