Two of the most famous mathematical challenges of the sixteenth century involved the Italian mathematician Niccolo Tartaglia (1499?-1557). Tartaglia was a largely self-taught scholar who overcame poverty and a traumatic childhood disfigurement—he was stabbed in the head during a military assault on his hometown of Brescia, and formally adopted his nicknameTartaglia, or "stammerer." He made his living as a mathematics teacher in Verona and Venice, and became well known in mathematical circles early in his career by his successful participation in a number of mathematical debates, and later by publications in pure mathematics and the application of mathematics to problems of warfare.
One of the most popular fields of mathematical study in the sixteenth century was algebra; of particular interest was the search for methods to solve third (and higher) order equations. A solution to the basic problem of solving cubic equations was found sometime in the first two decades of the sixteenth century by Scipione del Ferro (1465-1526), a mathematics lecturer at the University of Bologna. He did not publish his work, but he did share it with a few disciples. In 1535 one of these disciples, Antonio Fiore, sought to exploit his master's secret and issued a challenge to Tartaglia, by then known as a master debater.
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