My portfolio

My PhD dissertation pertains to instruments described in Latin texts between the 13th to the 16th century on the topic of eclipse computations. The goal of this research is to think about the notion of instrumented calculation in mathematical disciplines of the quadrivium, and to present a material history of ancient mathematical practices. For this, I am supervised by Agathe Keller in the Sphere laboratory as well as by Matthieu Husson in the Observatoire de Paris.

My Master's thesis, written under the supervision of Matthieu Husson and Sara Confalonieri, pertains to the "Tables of King Alfonso"'s printed editions. These tables were, especially after the 14th century, the main tool Latin-speaking astronomers and astrologers could use to compute planetary positions. My research mainly consisted in showing that people who contributed to the printing of these "Tables of King Alfonso" in Latin did so in a particular economical, political and scientific contexte which lead them to adopt a specific interpretation of the coherence of texts and tables assembled under this title.

Bachelor degree in mathematics (2018–2021)

Bachelor degree in compute sciences (second year) (2015–2018)

In an article published in 1998, Emmanuel Poulle and Denis Savoie showed that, untill the 17th century, almanacs and ephemerides printed in Latin were computing using parameters matching those found in the "Alfonsine Tables". These tables, copied in a (very) large number of manuscripts during the 14th century, were first pritned in Venice in 1483 by Erhard Ratdolt. In the following decades, three other printers chose to produce their own editions of the "Tables of King Alfonso" in the Republic: Johannes Hamman in 1492, Petrus Liechtenstein in 1518, and Luc'antonio Giunta in 1524. In this chapter, I study the editorial choices made in each of these four endeavrs. For each of them, I first try to identify which tables and which texts were included in the books. I then look at the typographical and paratextual features employed by the printer to tie these materials together. Finally, I analyse how these different elements are ordered in the bound books. All of this allows me to show an evolution in how actors and actresses who participated to these editions understood the core principles of "Alfonsine Astronomy" between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century.

In its earliest witnesses, the Treatise on the Albion, composed around 1326–7, is a four-part text dealing with an instrument designed to perform all kinds of astronomical computations. Following a usual denomination for medieval texts dealing with astronomical instruments, it is often said that these four parts cover both the « construction » and the « use » of the instrument. In particular, the second part of the treatise is generally understood as an instruction manual for people who would like to construct a brass albion. Some manuscripts, however, were copied by people who claimed to already have a version of the instrument in their hands, and who clearly wanted to work with the one they already had rather than building their own. John North, who published a critical edition of the text in 1976, assumed that these copies may have been produced as an act of devotion, by people who may have been unable to grasp the full intentions of the original author. In an article published in 2019 (« « I found this written in the other book »: Learning Astronomy in Late Medieval Monasteries », Churches and education vol. 55: 129–144), however, Seb Falk, suggests a different interpretation for the mathematical mistakes observed in some witnesses. He argues that the production of what is now manuscript Laud Misc 657 of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, was made as an act of learning by John of Westwyck, the monk responsible for this copy. Starting from this conclusion, I would like to propose reading the so-called « instructions » of the second part of the treatise through the lenses of the theory of textual acts developed in this seminar a few decades ago. My goal in this presentation would be to argue that the Treatise on the Albion was actually meant as a highly polysemic work, producing different acts depending on the context in which it was to be read.

The Treatise on the Albion was written by the Benedictine scholar Richard of Wallingford during the last year of his stay in Oxford, in 1326–1327. It is a Latin text which describes an instrument regrouping all the computational possibilities offered by other astronomical instruments available at the time, into one material object (al[l]-by-on[e]). In the earliest complete witnesses, this treatise is usually divided into four parts. The first part is a sequence of 23 “propositions” (conclusiones), typically including 15 diagrams which can be described as more “geometrical”, in a way that needs to be discussed. The second part is divided into 30 chapters (capitula), describing the “composition” of the instrument itself, typically accompanied by 14 different diagrams. Finally, the last two part, which contain no diagrams, present 42 ways to use the instrument (utilitates), and introduce 17 tables to work with it or to check computations.

John D. North published a critical edition of this text in 1976, which—as it is often the case—does not include a proper discussion on diagrams. However, in a Feltschrift dedicated to Paul Gimpel first published in 2004, North argued that Richard of Wallingford’s use and mastery of diagrams, especially expressed in the Treatise on the Albion, was pivotal in the history of mathematical thought. North’s argument actually rely on his own reconstruction of diagrams based on parts 2 and 3 of the text, rather than on manuscripts. But it does offer an interesting perspective on the “meaning” of diagrams as a way to think about relations between quantities in the context of a text which could be said to be, all at the same time, astronomical, computational and geometrical.

In this talk, I want to focus more specifically on the diagrams found in the first part of the treatise. As we should see, North’s idea of what diagrams were meant to represent in this context sometimes led him to fix what he understood to be “mistakes” on the part of the scribes, in ways that clash directly with the practices documented in manuscripts. Here, I want to focus on these points of tension with the critical edition. I will try to understand how the diagrams were actually constructed in various witnesses, and why they differ from North’s expectations.

This monthly seminar, which I organise with Agathe Keller since 2023, is articulated around the presentation of a primary sources and of the problems it creates, followed by a reading of this source, edited and translated. One session usually lasts up to 3h, directed by confirmed researchers, PhD students, or even Master's students. The language is generaly English, sometimes French.

Les journées jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses du réseau thématique HiDiM (Histoire et Didactique des Mathématiques) accueillent des contributions de toutes personnes en thèse (dès la première année) ou ayant récemment soutenu leur thèse, dans les domaines de l'histoire ou de la didactique des mathématiques. Ces journées se tiendront à Paris les 30 et 31 mars, suivies par des journées plénières les 31 mars et 1 avril.

À compléter

Cette séance est organisée en collaboration avec Agathe Keller, Thomas Berthaud et Simon Gentil

• (2025–2026, 2×3h CM, M1, SB) Introduction à lʼhistoire des mathématiques

  These two sessions of introduction to the history of mathematics were part of a larger class for the first year of the master's program. The first of the two took dealt with a controversy around the interpretation of Old Babylonian tablets, and used this as an opportunity to present the problems related to the edition of the texts, and the importance of archaeological contexts to understand the mathematical content of the text. The following session took this as a starting point to explore further the reconstitution of mathematical practices from texts in Chinese and in Sanskrit.

• (2024–2025, 7×3h CM, M2, SC) Histoire des mathématiques

  This whole semester class dealt with the History of Algebra. I was in charge for the first half of the semester, which dealt with everything from Antiquity until the Modern Period (c. 17th century). My part of the class was organised around the reading of sources in their original language (Akkadian, Chinese, Sansirkt, Arabic, Latin, French and German). These texts were selected as an opportunity to talk about issues of method, regarding how to deal with the archaeological context of the sources, the stakes related to the methods of edition, the way texts are read, and so on.

This session was part of a larger class dedicated to the topic of "Numbers and Magnitudes". The goal for this session was to show how sources related to the History of Astronomy could be used to study such a theme. I composed the lesson around a collection of documents from different periods and in different languages, which constituded multiple case studies. Students could then choose to write their final essay on an article which allowed them to dive deeper into one of the topics explored in the class.

• (2025–2026, 1×3h CM, M1, SA) History of mathematics in South Asia

  I made this session in coordination with Haolin Wang 王浩霖 and Taro Tokutake 徳武 太郎. We presented an overview of multiple mathematical problems dealt in Sanskrit texts.

• (2024–2025, 1×3h CM, M1, SA) Sciences in Mesopotamia

  This class, made with Adeline Reynaud, was a general introduction to the history of sciences in the Ancient Middle East. It was composed around four themes: divination, medicine, mathematics and astronomy. These were used as case studies to explore the broader methodological question of characterising the role of "sciences" in ancient sources.