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Though the field of geometry was kept alive in the early Middle Ages, its study received a great boost with new Latin translations of Arabic renditions of Euclid's Elements. These translations of Euclid began with Adelard of Bath around 1140 and continued into the thirteenth century and beyond with the work of such scholars as Campanus of Novara around 1260. In the image below, we see the opening page of Campanus of Novara's Latin translation of Euclid's Elements. Basic shapes are drawn in the margin, some of which are identified with Arabic terms such as elmuahim for rhombus.
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University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Room
Schönborn Collection MS 5, fol. 1r
(with kind permission of the Count of Schönborn Art Collection) |
For further reading:
- Marie-Thérèse Zenner, "Imaging a Building: Latin Euclid and Practical Geometry" in ed. John Contreni and Santa Casciani, Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle Ages (Sismel, 2002), 219 ff.
- Menso Folkerts' list of manuscripts for the different medieval versions of Euclid's Elements at:
(http://www.math.ubc.ca/people/faculty/cass/Euclid/folkerts/folkerts.html)
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