History of Hindu Mathematics: A Source Book v1.c7.s16.11

v1.c7.s16.11

A most determined fight against the spread of these numerals was put up by the abacists who did not use zero but employed an abacus and the apices. But the writings of men like Leonardo succeeded in silencing them, although it took two or three centuries to do so. By the middle of the fifteenth century we find that these numerals were generally adopted by all the nations of western Europe, but they came into common use only in the seventeenth century.