ARCHIMEDES of Syracuse. Monumenta omnia mathematica, quae extant ... ex traditione ... Francisci Maurolici ...
Palermo: Cyllenius Hesperius, 1685.

First edition of Maurolico’s translation of Archimedes, one of the two most important versions of the sixteenth century (the other being Commandino’s). Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) “ranked with Commandino as a first-rate student of Archimdes, and indeed these two … were the outstanding interpreters of Archimedes in the first three-quarters of the century. However, Maurolico’s interest, unlike Commandino’s, was not in establishing a philologically sound version or translation of the Archimedean texts that survived but in presenting mathematically coherent texts that achieved Archimdedes’ objectives. This will become particularly clear when we examine … those texts in which Maurolico skillfully grafted medieval material onto the traditional Archimedean texts” (Clagett, Archimdes in the Middle Ages, vol. 3, part III, p.749; all of his chapter five, ‘Francesco Maurolico in the Medieval Archimedes’, pp.749-1053, is devoted to this translation).

“This paraphrase of Archimedean texts was made by the Sicilian Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) probably between 1534 and 1550. A partial edition was printed at Messina between 1670 and 1672 by Paolo Bonacota, printer to the Senate of Messina, which largely paid for the edition. This was, however, never published, as the editor, Borelli, had to leave Sicily for Rome. The sheets of what had been printed remained stored in the house of one Lorenzo di Tommaso, an apothecary, who had obtained the original manuscript from the family of Maurolico. In 1678 these were confiscated by the Spanish authorities and taken to Palermo. This is recorded in a letter here printed.

“Juan Silvestre Salva says that he acquired the sheets: we know from a letter that he acquired 425 copies of the original aborted edition, but it is difficult to determine to what extent these sheets may be present in this edition, although the preliminaries and sheets Mm-Rr would seem to be from a different press (the paper is different, they are signed differently, etc.). The statement that six books had been printed would take us to the end of De lineis spiralibus on Ff1 recto (followed by a line of ornaments).” (Arnaud de Vitry 32).

Folio: 302 x 201 mm, pp. viii 296, title printed in red and black, with woodcut arms of the dedicatee,18th century calf with richly gilt spine. A fine and clean copy. Scarce.