> in my opinion, speaking of first edition of Euclid CANNOT mean
> anything but first printed edition (. . . ) which is:
> Preclarissimus liber elementorum Euclidis... Venice, Erhard Ratdolt 1482.
> I once had the privilege to hold one in my hands: it produces a religious
> effect. And it is the sort of event which makes you a bibliophile!
Udai is quite right. As well as being the first printed Euclid, the Ratdolt
edition is very important for further reasons too: the first work to use
engraved geometrical diagrams, and it is printed in two colours (black and
red, on the opening page at least). (Ratdolt went in for this -- his 1485
Sacrobosco used five colours.)
I too once held a copy: it was in the University of Keele (UK), in the
collection gathered over a lifetime by Charles Turner and given to the Keele
Library so that future generations of students and others away from the big
national libraries could share such experiences.
Last summer, however, the University of Keele secretly sold the 1482 Euclid,
a further 24 pre-1600 Euclid editions, a further 35 post-1600 Euclids, and
the rest of the Turner Collection, to a second-hand book dealer, in order to
develop (among other things) the MBA programme of their School of
Management.
So there is a copy of the 1482 Ratdolt edition floating around the
second-hand book trade somewhere, if anyone is interested (and wealthy).
Enquiries should presumably be made to Simon Finch (the man who also played
a part in the purchase of the Archimedes palimpsest, a few months later),
as the person to whom Keele appears to have unwittingly sold the Collection,
in their furtive haste, via a local second-hand bookseller.
The British Society for the History of Mathematics has a page on their
website with documents about the Turner Collection, considerations relating
to the sale and to Keele's treatment of the collection, the implications for
our communities, and related matters which help to give a perspective on
these issues. The address is:
http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/turner.html
John Fauvel