Euclid: Reception in the Renaissance

Although the Latin Middle Ages received anumber of versions ofEuclid’s Elementsandseveral other Euclidean works, by the four-teenth century, only the Campanus redactionfrom c. 1259 was in circulation. In the four-teenth andfifteenth century, this redaction wasencountered by students of Arts or Medicineuniversity faculties, even though we have scantevidence that Euclid impressed their minds. Inthefifteenth century, other circles discoveredhim: Alberti took over the idea of elements,Regiomontanus used Euclid alongside Archi-medes as an argument for the superiority ofmathematics over philosophy, and one Floren-tine abacus school tradition was able to givecorrect references to theElements.A turn arrived with book printing. In 1482,the CampanusElementswere printed, and in1498 and 1501, Giorgio Valla inserted pseudo-Euclidean and Euclidean material in two bulkyvolumes. A new though somewhat problematicLatin translation from the Greek (includingalso some minor works) was published byZamberti in 1505, and until 1540 a number ofreprints or reeditions of Campanus’s and Zamberti’s texts were published–at times incombination. From the 1540s onward, revi-sions, selections, and vernacular translationsbegan to appear, all based on the same twotexts. In 1572, however, Commandino made anew Latin translation from Zamberti’s text anda sounder manuscript, and in 1574 Claviusproduced a didactically oriented redaction.These two set the scene for the next twocenturies.