Euclid's Elements (1482)

Lower Library F.6.10 (G.A.S. 29)

This is the first printed edition of Euclid’s Elements in a Latin translation from an Arabic source. Many classical works were preserved by Islamic scholars including over thirty translations and commentaries on the Elements (the first English translation appeared in 1570). It was the leading source for geometric study and number theory until the development of non-Euclidean geometries in the nineteenth century. One of the first mathematical works to be reproduced after the invention of the printing press, it went through thousands of editions, perhaps second only to the Bible.

Our copy is still in an original limp vellum binding and is covered in Italian notes and mathematical workings out.

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