This is the third of four volumes which trace the history of the later Crusades and papal relations with the Levant from the accession of Innocent III (in 1198) to the reign of Pius V and the battle of Lepanto (1566-1571). From the mid-fourteenth century to the conclusion of his work, the author has drawn heavily upon unpublished materials, collected in the course of more than twenty "palaeographical journeys" to the Archivio Segreto Vaticano and the Archivi di Stato in Venice, Mantua, Modena, Milan, Siena, Florence, and the Archives of the Order of the Hospitallers at Malta. Volumes 1, II, and IV are available at www.amphilsoc.org.

Libraries and archives contain many thousands of early modern mathematical books, of which almost equally many bear readers’ marks, ranging from deliberate annotations and accidental blots to corrections and underlinings. Such evidence provides us with the material and intellectual tools for exploring the nature of mathematical reading and the ways in which mathematics was disseminated and assimilated across different social milieus in the early centuries of print culture. Other evidence is important, too, as the case studies collected in the volume document. Scholarly correspondence can help us understand the motives and difficulties in producing new printed texts, library catalogues can illuminate collection practices, while manuscripts can teach us more about textual traditions. By defining and illuminating the distinctive world of early modern mathematical reading, the volume seeks to close the gap between the history of mathematics as a history of texts and history of mathematics as part of the broader history of human culture.