Detail map of Durham, England, United Kingdom,Rosental, Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland,Oxford, England, United Kingdom Overview map of Durham, England, United Kingdom,Rosental, Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland,Oxford, England, United Kingdom

A: Durham, England, United Kingdom, B: Rosental, Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, C: Oxford, England, United Kingdom

The First Printed Edition of the Greek Text of Euclid is also the First Edition to Include the Diagrams within the Text

9/1533
Title page of the first printed edition of Euclid in Greek

Editio princeps of the Greek text of Euclid. Prior to this edition Euclid's geometry was only printed in Latin.

In September 1533 Printer Johannes Herwagen (Hervagius) of Basel published Eukleidou Stoicheion biblon . . . , the first printed edition of the Greek text of Euclid's Elements. Herwagen's edition was an international project. The Greek text was edited by the German theologian and philologist Simon Grynaeus (Grynäus), using the first Latin translation made directly from the Greek by Bartolomeo Zamberti published in print in 1505, and two Greek manuscripts supplied by Lazarus Bayfius and Joannes Ruellius  (Jean Ruel). To this volume Grynaeus appended the first publication of the four books of Proclus's Commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements, taken from a manuscript provided by John Claymond, the first President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In a long introduction Grynaeus dedicated his translation to Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, England, and author of the first arithmetic book printed in English (London, 1522).

In the history of the very numerous editions of Euclid, the most widely-used of all textbooks for 500 years, Herwagen's edition stands out in the history of graphic design as the first edition to print the geometrical diagrams within the text.

The commentary on Euclid's first book of the Elements by the fifth century Greek neoplatonist philosopher Proclus is one of the most valuable sources for the history of Greek mathematics, and is considered the earliest contribution to the philosophy of mathematics.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) No. 730.

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