118 - [ECONOMICS] BARRÊME, François. The Essential Book for All Kinds of Circumstances.

[ECONOMICS] BARRÊME, François. The Essential Book for All Kinds of Circumstances. A superb copy bound in full contemporary morocco leather for this important treatise on commercial arithmetic by the mathematician François Barrême, from whom contemporary “barèmes” take their name. Paris, Veuve Macé, 1706. In-12 (100 x 174 mm), full oxblood morocco, spine with raised bands highlighted by a gilt roulette, richly decorated panels with small gilt ironwork, title in gilt letters, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, gilt interior roulette repeated on the edges and caps, gilt edges. 19 unnumbered folios and 448 pages, title engraved by Bernard Picart and typographic title page opposite. Slight rubbing, minor scratches, and brown marks on the covers; a small wormhole at the bottom of the spine; rare browning in the margins. A new edition, corrected and expanded with 340 additional rates, of one of the seminal works on accounting, authored by the mathematician François Barrême (1640–1703). In it, the author compiled a wealth of data in the form of tables: interest rates, exchange rates, discounts, annuities, life annuities, profits of traders and merchants, currency exchange rates, and even tables showing how to calculate divided sums without having learned division. François Barrême, mathematician, “ arithmetician and poet” and one of Colbert’s protégés, was the first to teach commercial arithmetic in France, at a sort of academy he opened on Rue Quincampoix, where he provided all kinds of consultations and lessons on bookkeeping. His skills in accounting, noted by Colbert, earned him the title of expert for all accounts and calculations of the Paris Chamber of Accounts, as well as that of the King’s official arithmetician. The tables he compiled for all kinds of banking calculations, currency conversions, etc., were so quickly adopted by the public that even during his lifetime people had taken to calling them—as they are still called today—“barèmes.” Lithographed bookplate by R. Chardey (of Le Havre), signed by the printer A. Mignot, pasted on the front endpaper; handwritten bookplate in ink on the blank endpaper. A superb copy of this rare work in this type of binding.