restocked: BW hosted a group of medieval miniature manuscript painters who were amongst the experts in the recording of the history of science and who circulated knowledge around the world and across cultures. Greek texts on Euclidean geometry were translated into Arabic, and medieval Arabic manuscripts on optics and geometry migrated to Western Europe, where, translated into Latin, they contributed to the development of perspective in Renaissance Italy.
Hand in hand with scholarly interests were the practical demands satisfied by arithmetic. In Europe, a growing merchant class also demanded practical techniques that applied theoretical mathematics to everyday problems. Arithmetic primers served the largely commercial needs of medieval and early modern merchants, with advice on calculations for weavers, masons, and carpenters. The scientific art of representing the cosmos through astronomy and mathematics provided orientation at the dawn of the Age of Discovery.