Measured Words brings together rarely discussed Renaissance thinkers to show both the commonalities within and the variety of the conversations between computation and writing.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Well-Versed Mathematics
The Four / Beautiful Minds / With Measured Words

Chapter One
Cryptographica: Leon Battista Alberti’s De componendis Cifris (1466)
Deciphering De Cifris / Writing in Code

Chapter Two
The Calculated Alphabet: Luca Pacioli’s "degno alphabeto Anticho" (1509)
Prelude: Pacioli Portrait / The Nexus of the Divina proportione / Lettergons / Not All That Glitters Is Gold / Divine Characters

Chapter Three
Word Problems: Niccolò Tartaglia’s "Quando chel cubo" (1546)
The Cubic Scandal / A Poetic Solution

Chapter Four
Hidden Curves: Giambattista Della Porta’s Elementorum curvilineorum libri tres (1601/10)
The Vanishing Act / A Wave of the Hand

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Arielle Saiber is a professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College.