Euclid - Elementorum Euclidis libri tredecim - 1620

An important mathematical work with a very good mathematical provenance and ownership history. EUCLID. Elementorum Euclidis libri tredecim : Secundum vetera exemplaria restituti. Ex versione Latina Federici Commandini aliquam multis in locis castigata. Londini [London]: Excidebat Gulielmus Iones [William Jones]. 1620. A very nice copy of this illustrated work of Euclid. Conforms to OCLC: 867116145. Here, FirstSearch states that this edition was edited by the mathematician Henry Briggs. Full leather binding, probably original boards, with a later leather spine and label with gilt decoration. Binding is in good, clean condition, with minimal bumping and wear. Slight splitting to the spine hinge. The end papers are from an earlier (16th Century) Latin work. Unusual to see pages used as end papers in this way. The end papers strongly resembles a leaf from Johannes Balbus's Catholicon (completed 1286, first printed Mainz c.1460, then reprinted in numerous editions through the early 16th century). Based on that works printing history and the attributed of these two leaves, they would seem to be printed circa 1480-1520 and re-used here. The binding has been made without inside covering to the boards. The front board holds the bookplate of Sir Lucius O’Brien Bart* Also has ownership marks of Gilbert Clarke or Clerke. Probably the mathematician named Gilbert Clerke (1626–c.1697), a Cambridge-educated natural philosopher who expanded William Oughtred's Clavis Mathematica and wrote on dialling and geometry. Johannis Clenche (1691) and Edmund Clampin (?). Apart from the ownership marks, this work is mainly clean and tidy. There is a light damp mark to the top edge, but a very faint one. The work is written in two columns, with the Greek and Latin side by side. Despite the title, this work includes books 1-6 of Euclid’s elements. Geometrical woodcut engravings throughout. A very nice clean copy. [2]-250-[2] pp. 285 by 185mm (11¼ by 7¼ inches). Henry Briggs was an English mathematician, whose main contribution was the simplification of logarithms and the algorithm for long division (which is still used). In 1619 he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford, and produced this work in 1620. Irrelevant, but still interesting, is that he was the originator of the erroneous notion of California as an Island, which he expounded in a tract on the Northwest Passage printed in 1622, with a map showing the island, and oft re-printed after. *Sir Lucius O’Brien. (1731-1795). Irish baronet, Greek and Latin scholar, Member of Parliament and privy councillor.

Estimate:$840.15

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