Beschreibung:

EUCLIDES (fl. c.300 B.C.). Elements , in Greek: \KEtoiceiwn\k . Edited by Simon Grynaeus (1493-1541) and with the commentary of Proclus (c.412-485). Basel: Johann Herwagen, September 1533. Woodcut publisher's device on title repeated on K4v. Woodcut border on \Ka\k1, woodcut diagrams in the text, woodcut headpieces, ornaments and initials. [ Bound with :] EUCLIDES. Elementorum geometricorum . Translated by Bartolommeo Zamberti. Basel: Johann Herwagen, August 1537. Woodcut publisher's device on title repeated on 2C4v. Woodcut diagrams in the text, woodcut headbands and initials. (Occasional ink-marking, occasional dampmarking, light surface abrasion on a1r, diagram neatly outlined in ink on C3v, marginal paper flaw on 2C4.) Provenance : Blas Hellorius, Viviers, France (early, scored-through inscription on title) -- G. Egrot (early inscription on title). Complete with Melanchthon's introduction; 'from many copies this introduction has been removed by the clerical censor' (Thomas-Stanford p.8). 2 works in one volume, 2° (297 x 200mm). 19th-century tree calf gilt, sides with borders, flat spine gilt in compartments, gilt red morocco lettering-piece in one, the others with lyre-and-quill tools, gilt edges (extremities lightly rubbed, corners slightly bumped, superficial cracking on spine). FIRST EDITION IN GREEK, BOUND WITH HERWAGEN'S FIRST LATIN EDITION, 'the first printer to inset Euclid's diagrams in the text' (Thomas-Stanford p.7). Herwagen moved from Strassburg to Basel in around 1528, when he acquired citizenship and married Gertrude, the widow of the printer Johann Froben. For his important series of editions of Euclid, Herwagen employed some of the leading scholars of the period; Grynaeus, the editor of the Greek text, was professor of Greek at the University of Basel, and a friend of Philip Melanchthon, Sir Thomas More and Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, to whom he dedicated the edition. The text of the Elements was a recension of a manuscript sent from Venice by Lazarus Bayfius and a second sent from Paris by John Ruellius, while the commentary by Proclus on the first book of the Elements -- 'the earliest contribution to the philosophy of mathematics and a valuable source for the history of science' (Norman) and the editio princeps of the Greek text -- was taken from a manuscript supplied by John Claymond, the President of Magdalen College, Oxford. Greek: Adams E-980; Brunet II, 1087; Norman 730; Stillwell Awakening 210 (Proclus's commentary); Thomas-Stanford 7. Latin: Adams E-974; Thomas-Stanford 9.