"Abraham, Planter Of Mathematics"

11. See books 11 and 12 of Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus Astrologiam divinatricem, esp. 11.2 at 483. For Abraham's teaching, see 485.

12. For Vergil, see Denys Hay, Polydore Vergil: Renaissance Historian and Man of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952); Brian Copenhaver, "The Historiography of Discovery in the Renaissance: The Sources and Composition of Polydore Vergil's De inventoribus rerum, 1–111," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (1978): 192–214; and Copenhaver's introduction to Polydore Vergil: On Discovery, ed. and trans. Brian P. Copenhaver (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002) vi-xxx.

13. On Discovery, 147–49.

14. Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1930), I.ii.68–71. For Josephus, and his later reputation, see Josephus, the Bible, and History, ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989).

15. See On Discovery 139–47. For the references in Josephus, see I.viii.166–68. For the medieval readings of Seth's Pillars, see Cora E. Lutz, "Remigius' Ideas on the Origin and the Classification of the Seven Liberal Arts," Medievalia et humanistica 10 (1956): 32–49.

16. It should be noted that Vergil expressed caveats about astrology despite his genealogy: "Such was the beginning of the art of astrology, which doubtless was devised simply to befuddle sound minds" (On Discovery, 143). This runs contrary to his enthusiasm for letters, mathematics, and other arts that shared its genealogy.

17. For Annius see Walter Stephens, "Berosus Chaldaeus: Counterfeit and Fictive Editors of the Early Sixteenth Century" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1979); parts of which were integrated into his Giants in Those Days: Folklore, Ancient History, and Nationalism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); and his "Livres de haulte gresse: Bibliographic Myth from Rabelais to Du Bartas," MLN 120.1 Supplement (January 2005): S60-S83. See also Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

18. I have used the 1552 Antwerp edition [Annius of Viterbo], Berosi sacerdotis Chaldaici, antiquitatum Italiae ac totius orbis libri quinque . . . (Antwerp, 1552), 41. "Ante aquarum cladem famosam qua universus periit orbis, multa praeterierunt saecula, quae a nostris Chaldaeis fideliter servata."

19. Annius, 45. "Erant igitur in usu litterae, & ars fusilis, & lateritia & vaticinia, mille annis & amplius ante inundationem terrarum."

20. Annius, 44. "Verum quod ab Adam primo condito coeperint literae & disciplinae infusae, non est ex [fide] tantum, sed etiam historia gentium & traditione Chaldaeorum qui se astronomiam & literas habuisse ante Alexandri monarchiam tribus millibus & sexcentis annis ac trigintaquator asserunt. . . . Quare coniectura & argumentum firmum est, ab ipso Atavo eius primo Adam eundem Enoch suscepisse literas & disciplinas, cuius tempore fuisse literas & disciplinas Adae infusas Theologi asserunt, & eodem tempore se cepisse literas & Astronomiam Chaldaei affirmant."