EUCLID.

Elementorum geometricorum. Lib. XV. Cum expositione Theonis in priores XIII a Bartholomaeo Veneto Latinitate donata, Campani in omnes, & Hypsiclis Alexandrini in duos postremos. His adiecta sunt Phaenomena, Catoptrica & Optica, deinde protheoria Marini & Data, postremum vero, opusculum de levi & ponderoso, hactenus non visum, eiusdem autoris.

      Basel, Johannes Hervagius 1537. Folio. [VIII],587p. With printer's mark on title and on verso of last leaf, and numerous woodcut initials and figures in the text. Old limp vellum, a few imperfections. Title slightly frayed at margins, scattered scribbling in an old hand. A bright and clean copy with ample margins. Bookplate of the Bibliotheca Venerab: Conventus Viennensis in Rossaugia Ord. Servorum B.M.V.Euclid's Elements of geometry is a compilation of all Greek mathematical knowledge since Pythagoras and has been used as a textbook for centuries. It was the first mathematical book of any importance to be printed and the first book using diagrams. Euclid's work is divided into 13 books in which he treats plane geometry, the theory of proportion, the properties of numbers, irrational quantities, and solid geometry. Two more books were added by other authors. Our edition has appended some of Euclid's other works: the Phaenomena (astronomy), Specularia (catoptrics, of which Euclid's authorship has been doubted), Perspectiva (optics), and Data. This copy complete with the preface by Philip Melanchthon dated 1537, present in part of the remaining copies only. The Elements were printed for the first time in Venice in 1482 by Erhard Ratdolt, in a Latin translation by Johannes Campanus of Novara, from an Arabic manuscript. In 1505 a translation from the original Greek (the edition princeps did not appear before 1533) was done by the Venetian Bartolommeo Zamberti. The present edition largely follows the text of the edition brought out in Paris in 1516 giving both the translations by Campanus and by Zamberti in conjunction. It has Euclid's enunciations headed Eucli. ex Camp., followed in a smaller type by the proof headed Campanus and by text found in Campanus' translation but not in the Greek text with the heading Campani additio. Next follow the enunciations according to Zamberti's translation from the Greek headed Eucli. ex Zamb., then again in a smaller type the proof headed Theon ex Zamb. The present edition is augmented with Euclid's other works as quoted. The figures are printed within the text, whereas other editions have the figures printed in the margins. *P.M.M. 25. Thomas-Stanford 9. (#21513)