EUCLID (fl. 300 B.C.). Geometricorum Elementorum libri XV. Translated from Greek by Bartolommeo Zamberti (b. c.1473) and edited by Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples. Paris: Henricus Stephanus, [after 7 January 1516/17].

EUCLID (fl. 300 B.C.). Geometricorum Elementorum libri XV. Translated from Greek by Bartolommeo Zamberti (b. c.1473) and edited by Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples. Paris: Henricus Stephanus, [after 7 January 1516/17].

2° (299 x 201mm). Numerous woodcut text diagrams, ornamental and criblé initials, opening initial and several capitals touched with yellow. (Without blank I10, faint marginal dampstain, heavier in last quire, two marginal tears without loss, one repaired.) 18th-century calf panelled in gilt (expertly rebacked with gilt spine, light restorations). Provenance: a few contemporary annotations to diagrams -- inscriptions washed from title -- André Himpe.

FIRST EDITION of Euclid printed in France, the first printed outside Italy, and 'a typographic masterpiece' (Schreiber). It is a work 'which has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible' (DSB). The present edition is the first to bring together the medieval version of Campanus with the Renaissance version by Zamberti, based on a Theonine Greek original; it also contains a Euclidean text by Hypsicles. Adams E-982; Schreiber 26; Thomas-Stanford 6.