Euclid's Elements
The Elements is a geometrical treatise that is the basis of Euclidean geometry and was compiled by Euclid in the time of ancient Greece. It is divided into thirteen volumes, each consisting of definitions, "common notions" (common arithmetical axioms), postulates (geometrical axioms), and "propositions", or theorems. Several propositions in fact should have been either common notions or postulates, as some of Euclid's methods of proof were faulty.
History
Euclid wrote The Elements circa 300 BC, as a conglomerate of others' work and his own. It was possibly translated into Latin during the reign of the Roman Empire, but this is doubtful. The Arabs acquired copies of The Elements circa 750 AD, and it was translated into Arabic circa 800 AD. The first printed edition was printed in 1482.
Original Greek manuscripts still exist in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, and at the library of Vatican City.
