No. 94126198

Euclide - Euclidis Elementorum - 1589
No. 94126198

Euclide - Euclidis Elementorum - 1589
EUCLID OF CHRISTOPHER CLAVIUS AND HIS INFLUENCE ON RENAISSANCE MATHEMATICS
Fundamental work for Euclidean geometry and the reform of the Gregorian calendar.
Second edition, one of the most influential works of Christopher Clavius (1538-1612), Jesuit mathematician and prominent figure of the European scientific Renaissance. Known as "the Euclid of the 16th century," Clavius revised and expanded Euclid's Elements, including a sixteenth book (On the Comparison of Regular Solids) and a rich apparatus of comments and original proofs. The work, first printed in Rome in 1574 and subsequently republished in folio format in Cologne in 1591, was a reference point for mathematicians of the time and for later scholars. Clavius made numerous clarifications to classical texts and introduced new demonstrative methods, including an attempt to prove the parallel postulate, a problem that would only be resolved with non-Euclidean geometry in the 19th century. Particularly interesting is his challenge to Girolamo Cardano regarding the use of proof by contradiction, which Clavius argued was not an innovation of the Cremonese mathematician, but rather a technique already used by Euclid and Theodosius of Bithynia.
Adams E 975; Riccardi I,647.
A copy for sale online at EUR 2,423.80
CONDITION REPORT
Binding in full parchment. Manuscript title on the spine, faded. Frontispiece within woodcut. Numerous diagrams depicted in the text. Woodcut initials. Good condition of the work. Pp. (2); 16nn. 918; 2nn.
FULL TITLES & AUTHORS
Euclid's Elements of Book XV. A sixteenth book on the comparison of regular solids has been added. All illustrated with clear demonstrations and accurate notes.
Rome, Bartolomeo Grasso, Rome, 1589
CONTENTS
Cristoforo Clavio, in Latin Christophorus Clavius (Bamberg, March 25, 1538 – Rome, February 12, 1612), was a Jesuit, mathematician, and astronomer from Germany, known especially for his contribution to the definition of the Gregorian calendar. Becoming the most authoritative mathematician of the Jesuit Order, Clavius was the author of treatises that had a great influence.
His major works are an authoritative version of Euclid's Elements (1574) enriched with original notes and a commentary on the Tractatus de Sphaera by the 13th-century Giovanni Sacrobosco (1581), reprinted no less than sixteen times in seven subsequent revised and corrected editions, each time enriched with new chapters.
The Elements (in Ancient Greek: Στοιχεῖα?, Stoichêia) of Euclid (a Greek mathematician active around 300 BC) are the most important mathematical work that has come down to us from ancient Greek culture. They contain an initial formulation of what is now known as Euclidean geometry, representing a complete and defined framework of the principles of geometry known at that time. Today, these principles are formulated more generally with the methods of linear algebra. However, the formulation made by Euclid is still taught in secondary schools to provide a first example of an axiomatic system and rigorous proof.
The work consists of 13 books: the first six concerning plane geometry, the next four the relationships between magnitudes (in particular, the tenth book deals with the theory of incommensurables) and the last three solid geometry. Some older editions also attribute two additional books to Euclid, but modern criticism assigns them to other authors. The various books are structured in definitions and propositions (statements that we could also call theorems). Proofs are provided for the propositions.
Euclid (in ancient Greek: Εὐκλείδης?, Eukléidēs; 4th century BC – 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher. He dealt with various fields, from optics to astronomy, from music to mechanics, as well as mathematics. The Elements, his most famous work, represents one of the most influential works in the entire history of mathematics and was one of the main texts for teaching geometry from its publication until the early 1900s.
Euclid, who was given the epithet of στοιχειωτής (composer of the Elements), formulated the first organic and complete representation of geometry in his fundamental work: the Elements, divided into 13 books. Of these, six concern elementary plane geometry, three the theory of numbers, one (Book X) the incommensurables, and the last three solid geometry. Each book begins with a page containing statements that can be considered as a kind of definitions that serve to clarify the subsequent concepts; these are followed by other propositions that are true problems or theorems: these differ from each other by the way they are stated and by the ritual phrase with which they end.
To give an idea of the complexity of editing the Elements of Euclid, it is enough to consider the statement made by Pietro Riccardi, a 19th-century scholar, at the beginning of the first part of his essay on Euclid, regarding the disproportionate number of editions of the Euclidean work: "The number of editions of the aforementioned work by Euclid, and of the translations and reductions that have been published under his name, is certainly greater than one might commonly conjecture; and indeed, I firmly believe that there is no book of significant importance, except for the Bible, that can boast a greater number of editions and illustrations."
The work does not review all the geometric knowledge of the time, as has been mistakenly assumed, but rather deals with all so-called elementary arithmetic, that is, related to number theory, in addition to "synthetic geometry" (that is, an axiomatic approach to the subject), and algebra (understood not in the modern sense of the word, but as the application of the discipline to the geometric field).
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