Milestones of Science Books

PACIOLI, Luca de (editor); EUCLID.

Euclidis opera a Campano interprete fidissimo tralata que cum antea librariorum detestanda culpa mendis fedissimis adeo deformia essent.

Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, 1509.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002085

[Venice]: Paganinus de Paganinis, [11 June 1509]. 4to (295x208 mm). [1], 2-144 (i.e. 145), [1: blank] ff. Signatures: a10 b-s8. Place and date of printing from colophon (Venetiis Impressum per probum virum Paganinum de paganinis de Brixia [...], M.D.VIIII. Klen. XI Iunii). Title printed in red and black. Numerous woodcut initials and geometrical diagrams in the outside margins. Entirely restored binding, original morocco with gilt arabesque frame and centre-piece laid down on thick wooden boards, four new clasps and catches attached to three edges. Title-page and damaged edges of all leaves expertly restored with Japanese tissue paper (affecting 4 words of title, two words of f.1 and some of the outer geometrical diagrams in the first 40 leaves). Light browning, faint spotting and staining throughout. A few contemp. annotations in ink. A handsome copy, wide-margined and complete with the final blank. ----

Riccardi II, 229-30; Adams E-981; Thomas-Stanford 4; Sander 2608; Choix, 6525; Graesse II, 511-12. FIRST EDITION BY PACIOLI. The very rare edition edited by Luca de Pacioli (1445-1517), who has contributed important corrections and explanations. Pacioli was a friend and collaborator of Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci. He published his Summa of arithmetical practices in 1494, and in 1509 both his great Divina proportione (in which he collaborated with Leonardo) and this important edition of Euclid. "In 1509 there had appeared a very notable edition of the fifteen books of the Elements from the press of Paganinus de Paganinis From the typographical point of view it is a very remarkable and attractive book. The title, in red and black, is admirably spaced. The text, which is not overloaded with commentary, fills only half the width of the page, the ample margin being occupied by the diagrams which are on unusually large scale. In the Venetian Euclids of 1482, 1505, and 1509 the art of book-production reached the meridian" (Thomas-Stanford 6).

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