Commercium Epistolicum Published

In January 1713, the Royal Society published the Commercium Epistolicum, a report compiled by a committee appointed to adjudicate the priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the invention of calculus. Newton, as Royal Society president, selected the committee members and drafted much of the report himself. The document ruled in Newton's favor without soliciting Leibniz's testimony. The dispute divided European mathematics into British and Continental camps for decades, delaying productive exchange between the two traditions.