Leonardo Fibonacci

[Leonardo Fibonacci] learned to reckon, he tells us, "by a marvelous method through the nine figures of the Indians"; here at the outset of their European career the new numerals were properly called Hindu, and what is now a bore and chore of our childhood was then a wonder and delight.

• The Age of Faith
  • p. 990 (Easton Press, 1992)

Despite his epoch-making work, the new method of calculation was long resisted by the merchants of Europe; many of them to finger the abacus and write the results with Roman numerals; as late as 1299 the abacists of Florence had a law passed against the use of "new-fangled figures."

• The Age of Faith
  • p. 990 (Easton Press, 1992)