Estienne de La Roche (1470 - 1530) was a French mathematician
Born in Lyon, the family of Estienne of the Rock, in addition to living in this city, has a property with Villefranche; having lived during its youth, Estienne is sometimes known under the name of Estienne de Villefranche. It studies mathematics at Nicolas Chuquet. Having in its possession manuscripts of this last, it numbers is extremely probable, for the historians, that the Rock was in very good term with Chuquet. It teaches commercial mathematics in Lyon during 25 years. In fact it is especially considered, today, as professor of arithmetic since one often qualifies it at the time of Master in figures. It publishes Larismetique into 1520 which is regarded as an excellent handbook of algebra where powers, the square roots and those of a higher nature have an elegant notation. However it proved that the first part of its Larismetique treaty is primarily a copy of the algebra of Chuquet and it was concluded can be too hastily that the Rock was simply a plagiarist. Indeed, it appears clearly today that the Rock tried to teach significant mathematics, inaccessible at the time with a French audience. It says itself which he is the worthy successor of several Masters and experts in his art, such Luca Pacioli for example. This autojugement the fact highlights that the Rock probably tried to hide very that it must with the others, in particular in Chuquet, Pacioli and even in a certain Philippe Frescobaldi, a French banker who wrote some books of mathematics.
LaRoche published Larismetique in 1520 which was considered an excellent arithmetic book with good notation for powers and roots.
It now appears that LaRoche was trying to teach important mathematics which was not available to the French public he tried to teach.
Indeed LaRoche took parts of Chuquet, parts of Pacioli and parts of Philippe Frescobaldi, a French banker who was lesser known as a mathematics writer, and without any real skill on his part formed them into a teaching book.
Recent scholarship, though agreeing that parts of the Triparty were blatantly copied and other parts suppressed or curtailed in LaRoche's Larismetique, has emphasized the audience that LaRoche was trying to reach with his work.
At worst LaRoche can be accused of patching together the works of three authors, Luca Pacioli, Philippe Frescobaldi (a banker in Lyon), and Nicolas Chuquet, whose works were inaccessible to the average French merchant.
LaRoche simply made their information available to a previously neglected audience.
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