THE FIRST PRINTED EDITIONS 
365 
year 1482 saw two forms of the book, though they only differ 
in the first sheet. Another edition came out at Ulm in 1486, 
and another at Vicenza in 1491. 
In 1501 G. Valla gave in his encyclopaedic work De ex 
petendis et fugiendis rebus a number of propositions with 
proofs and scholia translated from a Greek manuscript which 
was once in his possession ; but Bartolomeo Zamberti (Zam- 
bertus) was the first to bring out a translation from the 
Greek text of the whole of the Elements, which appeared 
at Venice in 1505. The most important Latin translation 
is, however, that of Commandinus (1509-75), who not only 
followed the Greek text more closely than his predecessors, 
but added to his translation some ancient scholia as well 
as good notes of his own ; this translation, which appeared 
in 1572, was the foundation of most translations up to the 
time of Peyrard, including that of Simson, and therefore of 
« all those editions, numerous in England, which gave Euclid 
‘ chiefly after the text of Dr. Simson ’. 
The study of Euclid in the Middle Ages. 
A word or two about the general position of geometry in 
education during the Middle Ages will not be out of place in 
a book for English readers, in view of the unique place which 
Euclid has till recently held as a text-book in this country. 
From the seventh to the tenth century the study of geometry 
languished : ‘We find in the whole literature of that time 
hardly the slightest sign that any one had gone farther 
in this department of the Quadrivium than the definitions 
of a triangle, a square, a circle, or of a pyramid or cone, as 
Martianus Capella and Isidorus (Hispalensis, died as Bishop 
of Seville in 636) left them.’ 1 (Isidorus had disposed of the 
four subjects of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy 
in four pages of his encyclopaedic work Origines or Ety 
mologiae). In the tenth century appeared a ‘ reparator 
studiorum ’ in the person of the great Gerbert, who was born 
at Aurillac, in Auvergne, in the first half of the tenth century, 
and after a very varied life ultimately (in 999) became Pope 
Sylvester II; he died in 1003. About 967 he went on 
Hankel, op. cit., pp. 311-12.