Simon Stevin - Het Burgerlick Leven - 1684

Title page for a half-copy, neatly restored, 20 pages, paper cover.

Simon Stevin was a physicist, mathematician and engineer from Flanders. He introduced to the Western world the possibility of using the decimal numeral system for fractions as well, by means of digits after the comma, and gave fortification construction a mathematical foundation.

The work: Vita politica: The civil life is an influential political treatise by the Flemish/Dutch mathematician and engineer Simon Stevin, originally published in Leiden in 1590.
The 1684 edition: In 1684 a new print appeared in Amsterdam by the publisher Abraham Olofsz.
Subtitle/aim of the 1684 print: This seventeenth-century edition was issued "Seer noodig om in alle Houkse ofte cabeljaawse tijden: ende bysonderlik gedurende onse binnenlandse verschillen in Holland, geleesen te worden" (intended as guidance during the Hoekse and Kabeljauwse disputes or internal Dutch political strife).
In this work Stevin breaks with the traditional 'prince mirrors' and argues for the active, virtuous role of the ordinary citizen and the city government within society.