Beschreibung:

[4] (of [6]), 57 (of 60) leaves (with 3 facsimile leaves at end). ii6 (-ll2-3?), A-P4 (-P2-4). (4to) 18x13.5 cm (7¼x5¼"), period vellum, later endpapers. The first translation into Spanish of Optics and Catoptrics. "Optica" is ascribed to Euclid; the 'Catoptrica' ('Reflections') is not by Euclid but is, rather, a later compilation from ancient works on the subject. "Optica et Catoptrica" is the earliest surviving Greek work on perspective, and until the arrival of Newton's Opticks, the most important. The translator of the present work, Pedro Ambrosio Onderiz, was appointed by King Philip II to a chair in the newly established Academia de Matemáticas, and was expressly charged with the translation of scientific works into Spanish. The only earlier work by Euclid that had been translated into Spanish was the 1576 "Los seis libros primeros de la geometria"; prior to that, the only printing of Euclid in Spain was a truncated "Mathematicae quaedam selectae," done in 1566. This copy lacking two leaves of the preliminaries, including the errata, and the final three leaves, which have been supplied in facsimile.