October 31, 2025 | By Whitney Bixby (A25)

The Greenfield Library is an incredible resource containing multiple valuable and historical tomes, from the seminal three-volume Plato compilation published by Henri Estienne (Stephanus) in 1578 that established standard dialogue line numbers to novelist E. M. Forster’s personal copy of the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” by Chaucer. Each has a personal history and influence waiting to be uncovered, and, as a recent Johnnie graduate in Annapolis, I had the opportunity last summer to research the library’s five rare editions of Euclid’s Elements while volunteering in its Rare Books Room.

The oldest edition of Elements at St. John’s was published in 1536, and the most recent in 1944. I was fascinated by how Euclid’s ideas from the fourth century B.C.E. passed through these texts over generations. While studying the general history of each edition, I began to see how each of the books represented different points in human history.

The Greenfield Library’s earliest edition of Euclid’s Elements was published by Joseph Klug in Wittenburg, Germany, in 1536, amid a period of religious tension in Europe. In 1517, Martin Luther sparked the Lutheran Reformation in Wittenburg by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church, which, by extension, led to his tiny town becoming of the most important printing centers in Germany.

Klug’s Elements has other ties to the Reformation through the book’s preface author, Philip Melanchthon, who was a leading proponent of Protestantism and at times referred to as Luther’s right-hand man. The book itself was published in Latin by Klug. Aside from Elements, two other classical works were bound into the same volume: Practical Arithmetic and A Theory of Planets by Georg von Peurbach, an Austrian mathematician and astronomer, and Liber De Mensibus Atticis by Theodorus Gaza, a Greek scholar, humanist, and well-known translator of Aristotle. Since books were then far more expensive and less accessible than they are today, it is likely that these works were bound together to reduce the cost of production. Additionally, the title page indicates that the book was collected for John Vogel, a professor at a Viennese school, and it is possible that the book was also used for teaching.

The Greenfield Library is notably home to one of history’s most important editions of Euclid’s Elements, one referred to as the “Clavius edition.” It was published in 1589 by Bartholomeus Grassius in Rome and edited by Christopher Clavius; St. John’s owns a second edition copy. This book gained significance at the time for being the most complete edition of the Elements, and it became a standard teaching edition for more than 200 years after being donated to the Protestant colleges of the University of Oxford. Interestingly, the title page suggests that the book contains 15 elements instead of the standard 13 studied today.

Scholars believe that Books 14 and 15 of the Clavius edition were not written by Euclid himself but by Hypsicles of Alexandra (ca. 190-120 BCE) and Isidore of Miletus (born 475 A.D.), respectively. In ancient times, it was common to attribute works to a celebrated author even if they were not actually written by them, and accordingly, it is possible that this resulted in the two apocryphal books being mistakenly included in the Euclidean tradition for centuries. In fact, the library’s 1651 and 1732 editions also contain 15 elements, showing how misinformation can arise and persist through time.

The Greenfield Library’s 1651 edition of Elements provides another example of a work wrongly credited to Euclid. This version was also bound with a Treatise of Regular Solids by Campane and Flussas, along with Euclid’s Data and a Treatise of the Divisions of Superficies, prefaced by John Dee. Published by R. & W. Leybourn in London, it is the third complete edition of the Elements in English. Additionally, it is the first English edition to include Euclid’s Data and a Treatise of the Divisions of Superficies, originally printed in Latin and Italian in 1570. Interestingly, John Dee, a mathematician, natural philosopher, and occultist, indicates in the preface that he believed that the Treatise of the Divisions or Superficies was written by Euclid, even though it was ascribed to Machomet Bagdedine. Also known as Albategnius or Al-Battani, Bagdedine was an Islamic astronomer and mathematician; however, mathematicians such as Sir Thomas Heath (the translator of the Elements studied at St. John’s and published by Green Lion Press) do not believe that the treatise was related to Euclid. Heath attested that the Arabic manuscript was not a translation of Euclid nor even an adaptation, as it contains mistakes and “unmathematical expressions.”

Through the Greenfield Library’s rare editions of the Elements, we can also observe how significant historical figures, such as Isaac Newton, interacted with the text. Our next edition of the Elements, published in London in 1732, was edited by Isaac Barrow, a mathematician and Christian theologian. This edition contains 15 elements, Euclid’s Data, and The Methods of Archimedes, and Barrow’s editions of the Elements and Data were first published in 1656 and 1657 respectively (albeit with many errors). Barrow is widely credited with developing modern calculus, and he was the first to recognize integration and differentiation as inverse processes. His edition of the Elements also greatly impacted the development of mathematics: Isaac Newton was first introduced to Euclid by reading Barrow’s edition of the Elements, and Newton even attended Barrow’s lectures at Cambridge. As we can see from his work Principia Mathematica, Newton was heavily influenced by Euclid, and his introduction to the Elements is thanks to the same edition owned by the library.

The most recent rare edition of Euclid’s Elements at St. John’s is a 1944 edition published by Random House. This edition of the first book of the Elements is filled with 60 colorful woodcut illustrations by artist Bruce Rogers and is one of 500 copies. Rogers was an influential designer of fine books, and the visionary behind the Montaigne and Centaur typefaces. Rogers created woodcut illustrations for the 1944 edition of the Elements towards the end of his career at age 74, and the books he designed and published are still highly valued today. Unlike the other editions of Elements in the Rare Books Room, this edition was created to be a display of artistry and design rather than for practical use.

By understanding the history of each of the library’s editions of the Elements, we may trace a small thread of human history, from early printing in Germany to the first full edition in English, concluding with an artistic rendering. Questions, however, might linger, such as, “How do the Elements differ between each edition?” and “How can we see the history of printing through these books?” I hope someone will pursue similar questions someday using the Rare Book Room’s resources, which are open to students and tutors. Additionally, these rare editions of the Elements will be on display in the Greenfield Library through December 2025 and exhibited with information about how each work’s unique transmission through time. They allow for much contemplation, not just among their pages but within their rich history and transformations. As we continue to study and discuss the work, we continue to pass on Euclid’s legacy.