Complete Works of Euclid, Vol. 1 (Elements I-IV)

PREFACE.

Euclid's Elements The Elements is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, circa 300 BC. had only the first printed edition original: "editionem principem" as their critical basis for almost three hundred years. This edition was published in Basel in 1533. David Gregory David Gregory (1659 to 1708) was a Scottish mathematician who published a famous complete edition of Euclid in 1703. depended almost entirely on that Basel version for his work on the Elements. The poor quality of that foundation is easily understood. Following the custom of the sixteenth century, the Basel edition was produced using only a very few manuscripts, and these were not the best ones. This is particularly notable because there are more ancient and excellent manuscripts of the Elements than are easily found for almost any other Greek writer.

Consequently, at the beginning of our century The author, J.L. Heiberg, is writing in the late 19th century; he refers here to the early 1800s., François Peyrard A French scholar (1760 to 1822) who discovered an important manuscript in the Vatican during the Napoleonic occupation. performed a great service for the Elements. In his efforts to correct the Basel edition, he used at least one ancient manuscript that was the most excellent of all. It contained a recension A specific version of a text that has been revised or edited. older than the one produced by Theon Theon of Alexandria (circa 335 to 405 AD) was a scholar whose revised version of the Elements was the basis for most known manuscripts until Peyrard's discovery.. Peyrard deserves great credit for bringing this manuscript out of the Vatican archives and recognizing its importance. However, he did not always use sound or firm judgment when choosing the true reading of the text. This occurred mainly because he lacked high quality manuscripts of Theon's version, and he did not fully understand or correctly value his own discovery. Furthermore, his edition is difficult to use and is very rare today. Those who published the Elements after Peyrard did not increase the scholarly evidence or improve the situation...