Early history of magic cubes (1100–1850)

The history of magic cubes is generally considered to begin in the second half of the 19th century, when the conditions for a cube to be called magic were established: it must display the same sum in each horizontal, vertical and front-to-back row, as well as in the four internal diagonals of the cube.

However, during the preceding seven centuries, constructions of magic cubes had been already carried out, but obeying other definitions. The first study is found in 12th-century Persia. Then, Fermat dealt with them in the 17th century. Unaware of the existence of predecessors, and with a different definition, the Frenchman Sauveur taught a construction method that was adopted in Leibniz’s circle. This method was expanded in the 1830s, but fell into oblivion with the modern definition of the magic cube.