Vieta

Vieta, FRANCISCUS (François Viète), a great French mathematician, was born at Fontenay-le-Comte, near La Rochelle, in 1540. He studied law at Poitiers, practised there as an advocate, was councillor of the Parlement of Brittany, under Henry IV., of that at Tours, next a privy-councillor to the king, and died at Paris in February 1603. We are told that he discovered the key to a Spanish cipher of over 500 characters. Schooten collected most of his writings (Leyden, 1646).