Éléments

Octavo, (16) leaves, 160 leaves (misnumbered as 130), (8) leaves, 296 pages. Flexible vellum with overlap, remains of ties, manuscript title on spine. Contemporary binding.

168 x 105 mm.

Euclid. Elementorum libri XV. In Greek & Latin, providing easy access not only to all branches of mathematical science, but also to any discussion of geometry.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat, 1558.

Followed by: Fox Morcillo, Sebastian. Ethices philosophiae compendium, collected from Plato, Aristotle, and other greatest authors…
Heidelberg (Ludovicus Lucius, September 1561).

First edition of Euclid’s Elements published by Cavellat.

This is the second issue, with the title page dated 1558, based on the text established by Jean Magnien and Stephanus Gracilis, and is richly illustrated with wood-engraved geometric figures throughout.

Lucas, 1676; Riccardi S, 31; Steck IV, 6; Thomas-Standford, 30; Smith, Rara arithmetica, p. 240.

This is one of the more idiosyncratic sixteenth-century editions of Euclid, with many of its diagrams embellished with floral devices.

“The preface relates that Jean Magnien, professor at the Collège Royal, had earnestly urged Cavellat to undertake this edition, and the bookseller had assembled the necessary material, when Magnien died suddenly. Cavellat, not wishing to lose the benefit of his investments, nor to disappoint his readers, called upon Stephanus Gracilis. Gracilis revised the translation, but only had time to do so for the last six books—the tenth book being entirely translated by Pierre de Montdoré” (Renouard).

"The most famous source of Greek geometry is the monumental work of Euclid of Alexandria, called the 'Elements' (around 300 B.C.). No other book of science had a comparable influence on the intellectual development of mankind. It was a treatise of geometry in thirteen books which included all the fundamental results of scientific geometry up to his time" (Cornelius Lanzos, "Space through the Ages").

“Euclid's Elements is the most important treatise on geometry ever written. Mathematics, which before Euclid was only a branch of philosophy, here acquires independence for the first time” (Dictionnaire des Œuvres).

“The 'Elements' are composed of 13 books, the first six of which are devoted to plane geometry. Books 7, 8, and 9 deal with the properties of rational numbers, and book 10 with irrationals. The 11th, 12th, and 13th books cover the measurement of volumes.

The importance of Euclid's geometrical work is such that the study of its tradition was, until the 18th century, an essential part of the history of geometry.

The proliferation of French translations published from the late 16th century shows the great influence of the 'Elements' on the development of geometry in France.” (M. Lacoarret, Les traductions françaises des Œuvres d’Euclide, pp. 38-58).

Euclid (365 B.C.–300 B.C.) founded at Alexandria, during the reign of Ptolemy I, a school of geometry which was the most important ever to exist in Greece.

“Alongside Archimedes and Apollonius (who both lived after him), he is one of the three greatest Greek mathematicians of antiquity and perhaps of all time” (L. Lombardo Radice).

Euclid’s work is followed by Ethices philosophiae compendium, a very rare work by the Spanish philosopher Sebastian Fox Morcillo, of which Palau had not seen a copy.

Palau, 94113 (not having seen a copy).

The commentaries and translations of Plato’s dialogues by Sebastian Fox Morcillo (1528–1560), humanist and Spanish philosopher, are truly exemplary and played an important role in the history of 16th-century Spanish thought.

A very appealing copy, large-margined, exceptionally clean inside, containing two important humanist texts, preserved in its original contemporary overlapping vellum binding.