Euclid. Stoicheion bibl. ie. Basel, 1533. modern half calf

EUCLID

Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των Θεωνος συνουσιων. Basel: Johannes Hervagen, September 1533

Folio (290 x 194mm.), text in Greek, woodcut printer's device on title-page and final verso, woodcut initials, headpieces and diagrams, first page of text within a woodcut border, modern half calf, title-page slightly stained and with washed inscriptions (one erased with slight loss of paper)

EDITIO PRINCEPS, following the text of the Alexandrian mathematician Theon (fourth century AD), containing not just the original text of Euclid (from c. 300 BC) but also the commentary of Proclus on the first book. Proclus (c. 412-482AD), head of the Platonic Academy in Athens and predecessor of Plotinus, composed commentaries on various classical authors including Aristotle and Plato. His commentary on Euclid is more philosophical than mathematical but he draws on numerous earlier commentators.

The text was edited by the Protestant scholar Simon Grynaeus, professor of Greek at the University of Basel; his preface is addressed to Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, the author of the arithmetical treatise De arte supputandi (1522), whom he had met on his travels to England in 1531. During this visit he went to Oxford where he found the manuscript of Proclus appended to this edition; the manuscripts of Euclid he used were in Paris and Venice.

LITERATURE:

Steck III.29; Stillwell II.210 (Proclus); VD16 E 4142

PROVENANCE:

R.C., early initials on title-page; Thomas Byng (Bingus), inscriptions on title-page dated 1555; William Dickinson, inscription on title-page; apparently purchased by the Royal Institution of Great Britain from King & Lochee, July 1806, 6s 6d, and their stamp and deaccession label dated 2015, sale, Christie's, 1 December 2015, lot 225

Thomas Byng (died 1599) was master of Clare College, Cambridge; in 1555 he was a student at Peterhouse. According to ODNB, he even wrote some of his diary entries in Greek.