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

PREFACE. VIII

...which exist, I preferred to publish now rather than delay the work indefinitely.

Enough has been said about my plan. Regarding the form and appearance of the edition, it is enough to mention that I have followed the same pattern used in my edition of Archimedes. For although I saw that my Latin translation was disapproved of by some, I have nevertheless preferred Latin here as well over French, German, or no translation at all; for mathematicians demand a translation, and Latin can be read by more people. Furthermore, the more familiar nature of the subject matter makes the task of translating easier in Euclid than it was in Archimedes. I have added very few notes, because very few are needed for a student consulting Euclid, if one only considers the understanding of the words and the flow of the demonstration. I did not wish to write a commentary, for which there is also vast material available here. More extensive introductory remarks will be placed at the beginning of the fourth volume, which will explain the history of the text of the Elements. In that same place I will collect the information I gathered from secondary sources; for the sake of clarity, these had to be removed from the critical apparatus A "critical apparatus" is a set of notes at the bottom of a page that lists different readings or "variants" found in different ancient manuscripts., in which I used only those manuscripts mentioned above. I have designated them with these letters:

P — Vatican Greek Manuscript 190 of Peyrard, 10th century, made of parchment. In some places, a very recent hand has restored letters faded by time; I have marked this with the Greek letter pi ($π$) where it seemed to represent the ancient writing inaccurately. I personally compared Books 4 through 9 in Rome in 1881; Heinrich Menge compared Book 2 and part of the third; Augustus Mau, a learned man original: "u. d." for "vir doctus"., kindly undertook the comparison of the first book and the remaining part of the third.

B — Bodleian D'Orville Manuscript X, 1 inf. 2, 30, written in the year original: "scr. a." for "scriptus anno". The date likely follows on the next page.