# Elements

- id: elements
- original title: Στοιχεῖα / Stoicheia
- author: Euclid
- language: Greek
- composed: c. 300 BCE, Alexandria
- field: mathematics

The axiomatic compilation of Greek geometry and number theory, and the most reprinted scientific text ever written. For most of its history, readers west of Byzantium met it through Arabic.

## The chain

- **c. 786–805** Greek -> Arabic, translation [attested]
  al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Matar (translator), Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki (commissioner), Baghdad
  The first known Arabic Euclid, made for the Barmakid vizier during Harun al-Rashid's reign. It survives only indirectly, through the preface and readings preserved with al-Nayrizi's commentary.
  Evidence: Ibn al-Nadim 987; Murdoch 1971 (the transmission history of both al-Hajjaj recensions)
  - **c. 813–833** Arabic -> Arabic, revision [attested]
    al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Matar (reviser), al-Ma'mun (patron), Baghdad
    A second, deliberately leaner recension to win the favor of the new caliph. Al-Hajjaj said he left out the superfluities, filled up the gaps and corrected the errors, for an edition aimed at specialists.
    Evidence: Murdoch 1971 (quoting the preface preserved in the Leiden al-Nayrizi codex)
  - **c. 1120** Arabic -> Latin, translation [attested]
    Adelard of Bath (translator)
    Adelard's Version I, the true translation, made from the al-Hajjaj tradition; which of the two recensions he had is debated. The far more popular Version II, long credited to him, is now attributed to Robert of Chester.
    Evidence: Busard 1992 (reattribution of Version II to Robert of Chester); Murdoch 1971
    - **c. 1255–1261** Latin -> Latin, revision [attested]
      Campanus of Novara (reviser)
      Campanus reworked the Adelard-tradition text with fuller proofs and additions of his own. His redaction became the standard university Euclid for two centuries.
      Evidence: Murdoch 1971
      - **1482** Latin -> Latin, edition [attested]
        Erhard Ratdolt (editor), Venice
        The first printed Euclid, and the first book to solve the printing of geometric diagrams. Through Campanus and Adelard it descends from the Arabic line; a printed Greek text appeared only in 1533.
        Evidence: Murdoch 1971
- **c. 875–900** Greek -> Arabic, translation [attested]
  Ishaq ibn Hunayn (translator), Baghdad
  A fresh translation from the Greek, made in the Hunayn workshop two generations after al-Hajjaj.
  Evidence: Ibn al-Nadim 987; Murdoch 1971
  - **c. 880–901** Arabic -> Arabic, revision [attested]
    Thabit ibn Qurra (reviser), Baghdad
    Thabit collated Ishaq's text against Greek manuscripts and earlier versions. The Ishaq-Thabit recension became the preferred Arabic Elements.
    Evidence: Murdoch 1971
    - **c. 1150–1187** Arabic -> Latin, translation [attested]
      Gerard of Cremona (translator), Toledo
      Made from the Ishaq-Thabit recension as part of Gerard's Toledo program, alongside his Almagest and Canon.
      Evidence: Murdoch 1971; Lemay 1978

## Worth knowing

Europe read Euclid through Arabic for roughly four centuries. The first printed Elements, set in Venice in 1482 with diagrams nobody else had managed to print, descends through Campanus from the Adelard line, which rests on al-Hajjaj's Baghdad Arabic. A printed Greek text appeared only in 1533, in Basel.

## Sources

- Murdoch, John E. (1971). Euclid: Transmission of the Elements. Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 4.
- Busard, H. L. and Folkerts, M. (1992). Robert of Chester's (?) Redaction of Euclid's Elements, the so-called Adelard II Version. Birkhäuser.

Confidence grades: attested (named in the medieval record or settled in scholarship), probable (standard view with real uncertainty), disputed (scholars disagree).