EUCLIDES. Euclidis megarensis philosophi Platonici mathematicarum disciplinarum Janitoris… Bartholomeo Zamberti Veneziae interprete.
Venezia, Giovanni Tacuino, 1510
Folio. 297x203 mm. Full stiff vellum binding, handwritten title on spine, sprayed edge. 239 not numbered leaves. Collation: p¹° A-2E8 2F6; le c. [pi greco]2-[pi greco]5 segnate:1,2,3, e 4; leaf 2F6 is blank. Colophon on leaf 2F5 “Impressum Venetiis : in ædibus Ioannis Tacuini librarii ..., 1510 VII Klendas Aprilis 26 III”. Calligraphic title on titlepage and vignette depicting St. John the Baptist; leaf AA1r is printed in red and black within a wonderful woodcut illustrated frame. Adornerd initials, several diagrams and geometrical illustrations on margins. Printer’s device at the end, gothic and roman type. On the insidecover is glued a colored Ex-Libris ‘De artificiali perspectiva’. Specimen belonging to Thomas Vroom. Slight traces of wear on the first leaves, nice specime with wide margins.
Rare second edition printed by Tacuino, edited by Bartolomeo Zamberti. Bartolomeo Zamberti's Euclid is not only a fundamental mathematical text but also a first-rate example of the Venetian book of the period, with an elaborate frontispiece, beautiful border, initials, statements printed in Gothic, and proofs in Roman characters. This extremely rare edition is not catalogued by the USTC, and the Karlsruhe Electronic Catalog (KVK) identifies only one institutional copy at the Leipzig Library, none in the United States. This is a reprint of the edition published in 1505, with the only change being the date on the colophon.
PMM: "Euclid's Elements of Geometry is the oldest mathematical textbook in the world still in common use today. [It] is a compilation of all earlier Greek mathematical knowledge since Pythagoras, organized into a consistent system so that each theorem follows logically from its predecessor; and in this simplicity lies the secret of its success »
The specimen was part of the 'Thomas Vroom Collection'.
Vitry, 262 et 263; Sander, 2609 (nota). No in Adams.
Cfr. PMM 25 (1482 edition); Stanford 5 (1505 edition).