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Although the world
later almost lost sight of Fibonacci, he was unquestionably a
man of his time. His fame was such that Frederick II, a
scientist and scholar in his own right, sought him out by
arranging a visit to Pisa. Frederick II was Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire, the King of Sicily and Jerusalem, scion of two of
the noblest families in Europe and Sicily, and the most powerful
prince of his day. His ideas were those of an absolute monarch,
and he surrounded himself with all the pomp of a Roman emperor.
The meeting between Fibonacci and
Frederick II took place in 1225 A.D. and was an event of great
importance to the town of Pisa. The Emperor rode at the head of
a long procession of trumpeters, courtiers, knights, officials
and a menagerie of animals. Some of the problems the Emperor
placed before the famous mathematician are detailed in Liber
Abacci. Fibonacci apparently solved the problems posed by
the Emperor and forever more was welcome at the King's Court.
When Fibonacci revised Liber Abacci in 1228 A.D., he
dedicated the revised edition to Frederick II.
It is almost an understatement to
say that Leonardo Fibonacci was the greatest mathematician of
the Middle Ages. In all, he wrote three major mathematical
works: the Liber Abacci, published in 1202 and revised in
1228, Practica Geometriae, published in 1220, and Liber
Quadratorum. The admiring citizens of Pisa documented in
1240 A.D. that he was "a discreet and learned man,"
and very recently Joseph Gies, a senior editor of the
Encyclopedia Britannica, stated that future scholars will in
time "give Leonard of Pisa his due as one of the world's
great intellectual pioneers." His works, after all these
years, are only now being translated from Latin into English.
For those interested, the book entitled Leonard of Pisa and
the New Mathematics of the Middle Ages, by Joseph and
Frances Gies, is an excellent treatise on the age of Fibonacci
and his works.
Although he was the greatest
mathematician of medieval times, Fibonacci's only monuments are
a statue across the Arno River from the Leaning Tower and two
streets which bear his name, one in Pisa and the other in
Florence. It seems strange that so few visitors to the 179-foot
marble Tower of Pisa have ever heard of Fibonacci or seen his
statue. Fibonacci was a contemporary of Bonanna, the architect
of the Tower, who started building in 1174 A.D. Both men made
contributions to the world, but the one whose influence far
exceeds the other's is almost unknown.
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