Euclid.

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

[Elementa. I-XIII. Arabic] Kitab tahrir Asul... Elementorum... libri tredecim. Ex traditione doctissimi Nasridini Tusini nunc primum arabice impressi. Rome: in typographia Medicea, 1594

first edition in arabic, folio (325 x 193mm.), 454pp., text in arabic, woodcut diagrams in text, modern green morocco gilt, gilt edges, some leaves browned

Literature

Steck, Bibliographia Euclideana, III.104; Thomas-Stanford, Early Editions of Euclid's Elements, 46; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 175

Catalogue Note

This edition of Euclid, printed at the typographia medicea (for which see footnote to lot 68), is not really a translation into Arabic, based as it is on an older Arabic translation made by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. The edition is found in two variants. In this copy there is the text of all thirteen books, book XIII beginning on p.401 and ending on p.453. The last page [p.454] prints the privilege of Sultan Murad III for the sale of the work in the Ottoman Empire. There is another issue, of which there are many copies, with only 400 leaves, i.e. without book XIII. The edition was printed in 3000 copies in total.