WORK I:APOLLONII // PERGAEI CONICORVM // LIBRI QUATTVOR.// VNA CVM PAPPI ALEXANDRINI // LEMMATIBVS, ET COMMENTARIIS // EVTOCII ASCALONITAE. // SERENI ANTINSENSIS // PHILOSOPHI LIBRI DUO // NVNC PRIMVM IN LVCEM EDITI. // QVAE OMNIA NVPER FEDERICVS // Commandinus Vrbinas mendis quamplurimis expur-// gata è Graeco conuertit, & commen- // tariis illustrauit. // CVM PROVILEGIO PII IIII. PONT. MAX. // IN ANNOS X.// BONONIAE, // EX OFFICINA ALEXANDRI BENATII. // M D L X VI.

Edition : First Commandino edition., 17th century mottled calf; spine raised with six (6) bands, compartments gilt, gilt lettered title on two; all edges speckled red. , First edition by Commandino. David Clement judges this edition of the first four books bound with the two books of Sereni on cones and cylinders, to be extremely rare. Also footnote (32) states: [in Bibliotheca Uilenbroukiana P.I. p. 55. Catal. duarum Bibliothecaruin Dom. N. B. & D. L. Hagae - Com. ap. Beauregard, 1747. in 8vo. p. 9, Vogt Libror. rarior. p. 40.] describes this Commandin edition surpassing that of Jean-Baptiste Memmius, which was printed in Venice in 1537. It quotes Fabricius? statement in the Bibliotheca Graeca about Memmius or Memus not having understood the subject at hand, translated from a basically wanting manuscript with manifold, thereby rendering his version weak. It also mentions that this didn?t mean Commandin?s was fault-free remaring the Greek manuscript he had drawn on was filled with failts. Concerning Apollonius?s work Koudela states? Interest in ancient Greek knowledge increased gradually in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in Italy, the leading country of Europe's culture and science of the time. Latin translations of Greek works on conic sections and other curves - Apollonius and Pappus in particular - appeared in several editions. Although some original works were also published in the sixteenth century, no significant progress in the study of conic sections had been made until the work of Kepler. His contribution influenced the further development of projective geometry and can be regarded as the transition from ancient to modern geometry. The spread of Greek knowledge in the Renaissance The invention of conic sections is attributed to Menaechmus (4th cent. BC), a member of Plato's Academy at Athens. Various species of conic sections were obtained by truncating an acute-angled, right-angled and obtuse-angled cone by a plane perpendicular to the generator of the cone. Conic sections were also investigated by Aristaeus the Elder (4th cent. BC) and by Euclid (c. 325 - c. 265 BC). Their works on this subject are now lost. The works of Archimedes (287 - 212 BC) contain some important results concerning the properties of conic sections, especially parabolas. The greatest ancient writer on conic sections was Apollonius of Perga (c. 262 - c. 190 BC). His famous work Conics consisted of eight books and contained 487 propositions. Apollonius introduced the terms ellipse, parabola and hyperbola and showed that various sections of the cone can be obtained by varying the inclination of the intersecting plane. Among other ancient authors dealing with conic sections, we should mention Pappus of Alexandria (c. 290 - c. 350 AD), the last of great Greek geometers. His main work known as Collection is valuable - among other things - because it provides an account and comments on the results obtained by his predecessors. Pappus introduced the notion of the focus and the directrix of a hyperbola (Kline, 1990, p. 128 ). Apollonius? work influenced the greatest scholars of the modern era, such as Descartes and Newton. The Latin translation of the first four books of Apollonius by Gianbattista Memo appeared in Venice in 1537. The present edition of Apollonius? Conics of the sixteenth century is based on the translation and important new edits by Federico Commandino (1506-1575), who published ?classical Greek mathematical texts under the auspices of the Duke of Urbino.? Horblit: ?The most influential early edition of this highly important text, entirely superceding Memmo?s version of 1537? Other sources state that, in total, the Conics consist of 387, not 487, propositions published in seven books, with the eighth book remaining unconfirmed. References: Adams A-1310; Brunet I, 347; David Clement, Bibliothèque curieuse historique et critique: A-Aqvino, 1750, p.415/6; Dibner 101; Honeyman 118; Horblit 4; Koudela, L.: Curves in the Hi.…