Page:American Journal of Mathematics Vol. 2 (1879).pdf/54

Rh But now for the new facts. The large folio volume above referred to, in the Library at Princeton, contains first a copy of the first printed edition of Euclid's Elements in Greek, published at Basle in 1533 by John Hervagius, edited by Simon Grynaeus. The text is that of Theon's Revision, and was for a century and three-quarters the only printed Greek text of all the books. Theon was the President of the Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria at the close of the 4th Century. He was the father of the celebrated Hypatia, who succeeded him in the Presidency, and who was assassinated by the Christians in 415.

Appended to this is a copy of the Commentary of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid, printed also at the press of Hervagius in 1533. The editor mentioned, Simon Grynaeus, is the man accused by Anthony Wood of stealing rare MSS. from Oxford. Says Wood, "he took some away, and conveyed them with him beyond the seas, as in an epistle by him written to John, son of Thomas More, he confessoth."

Bound together with these works in Greek, the volume also contains the two-fold Latin translation printed at Basle by Hervagius in 1558. One is the Adelard-Campanus version, from the Arabic; the other is the first translation into Latin from the Greek, made by Zamberti from a MS. of Theon's Revision, and first published at Venice in 1505, twenty-eight years before the appearance of the Editio princeps in Greek.

At the head of this second part of the volume is an address to the reader by Philip Melanethon, dated "Wittenbergæ, mense Augusto, M. D. XXXVII."

Now, all this forms a collection exceedingly rare and valuable in itself; but what gives to this volume its special archæological interest is the fact that it belonged to Billingsley, and was his equipment for the first English Euclid. On the title-page is the autograph signature "Henricus Billingsley," in a most beautiful antique hand. Throughout the volume are very numerous corrections, additions and marginal notes, all in Billingsley's peculiar and beautiful writing. I dare hazard that no Lord Mayer, since his time, has ever written so charming a hand. By reading what he has done, it immediately appears that he had the Adelard-Campanus Latin before him, yet he gave his special work to a careful comparison of Zamberti's Translation with the original Greek, and the corrections he has actually made sufficiently prove his scholarship and render entirely unnecessary De Morgan's suppositious aid