ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a typology for the uses of practical mathematics texts, as a way of understanding this particular copy and cutting through the weeds of multiple anonymous annotators in other copies. Reception studies that make substantial use of marginalia in printed books suffer obvious problems of selectivity. This chapter shows that dealing with a wide range of kinds of readers is necessary – even in a single copy – and that it is possible to begin the important task of building a typology of the uses of texts. The Whipple Digges was used by multiple readers for a range of reasons, and especially by one person for at least three distinct and practical purposes. The category of practice is central: we know that knowledge of instruments became crucial to surveying, architecture, navigation, and other activities, but also that demonstrating or performing a practical skill served to advance careers even when the actual use of instruments was not at issue.
