Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/63

NUMBER STORIES were very different from those which we study in school and which everyone in Europe and America uses to-day. Little by little, however, they came more nearly to resemble those which we now see in our arithmetics.

Printing from movable type was invented in Europe about 1450, although printing from engraved blocks was known much earlier. After the numerals were first printed they did not change very much. We use about the same figures that Columbus used. This is because printed letters and figures do not change as rapidly as written letters and figures.

An Italian boy named Leonardo (lā ṓ när'dō) who was born about seven centuries ago in Pisa (pē'zä), learned about these numerals in an Arab school in northern Africa, where his father was working. When he became a man he described them in a book which he wrote, and this assisted in making them known. But of course the book was not printed then, because printing was not yet known in Europe. He left the book in manuscript, and many people read it, especially in Italy, where it was written, and in this way they learned about these numerals. 42