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In other words, how old is the practice of submitting mathematical work for peer review to specialized magazines? When/where it started to become the norm?

My question is oriented toward the evolution of specialized publications in mathematics, until they reached the status of becoming the de-facto certificate of quality (also known as the publish or perish mandate).

Leandro Caniglia
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The earliest journals were multidisciplinary, they were published by academies since the second half of 17th century. Before that time, communication was only by books and letters. Letters sometimes were copied and circulated. The first French, English and German journals were:

Journal des sçavans, 1665 (published papers in all sciences and humanities)

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, 1665 (all natural sciences and mathematics)

Acta eruditorum, 1682 (Started by Leibniz, published in physics and mathematics).

A curious example of multidisciplinary journal of 18th century was Ladies' Diary started in 1704, where many mathematical papers were published, for example the seminal papers of Landen on "Landen's transform".

Specialized mathematical journals appear in early 19 century. The oldest specialized mathematical journal which still continues is the Journal fur die reine und angewandte Mathematik (a. k. a. Crelle's journal), started in 1826. A French analog (with identical title) Journal de Mathematiques pures et appliquee (Liouville's journal) started in 1836.

Alexandre Eremenko
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  • A footnote: the spelling in "Journal des sçavans" really is correct! :) I was wondering about it, and wiki-googled it, and, yes, that was the original. Next, "savans", and, eventually, "savants". :) – paul garrett Apr 30 '21 at 17:53