[EUCLID]; ONDERIZ, PEDRO AMBROSIO

4to (203 x 151 mm). Title with large woodcut arms of King Phillip II of Spain, 4 woodcut chapter initials (1 historiated), woodcut geometric diagrams throughout, Especularia with separate title dated 1584, but signatures and pagination are continuous with first part; title with paper flaw at imprint, scattered light foxing, small stain running through lower edges.  Contemporary flexible vellum, remnants of ties. 

Palau 84722; Perez Pastor 219

FIRST EDITION IN SPANISH OF EUCLID'S OPTICA ET CATOPTRICA. Translated into Spanish by Onderiz, Optica et Catoptrica is the earliest surviving Greek work on perspective, and until the arrival of Newton's Opticks, the most important. Pedro Ambrosio Onderiz, was appointed by King Philip II to a chair in the newly established Academia de Matemáticas, and was expressly charged with the translation of scientific works into Spanish. The only earlier work by Euclid that had been translated into Spanish was the 1576 Los seis libros primeros de la geometria; prior to that, the only printing of Euclid in Spain was a truncated Mathematicae quaedam selectae, done in 1566.