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Erhard Ratdolt - first publisher of Euclid

Erhard Ratdolt was, as far as we can see, the first publisher of scientific material. He is most famous for his 1482 first edition of Euclid, adapted from the medieval translation by Campanus. He remarks in his preface that the technical challenge was to get the diagrams into the book. Exactly how he did this is not apparently known.

Brief biography of Erhard Ratdolt

What Moritz Cantor says about Ratdolt

The Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie entry on Ratdolt.

Ratdolt as typographer

On fifteenth century publishing

Gilbert Redgrave's address on Ratdolt, made to the Bibliographical Society in 1893 and printed by Chiswick Press

Plates

Plate 1 - First page of Ratdolt'a Appianus 1477

Plate 2 - Title page of the Kalendario 1476 (this is, we believe, the very first title page on any book)

Plate 3 - Ratdolt's first set of initial letters 1476

Plate 4 - Cuts of Venice from editions of the Fascicuklus Temporum by Walch and Ratdolt with their initial Gs

Plate 5 - First page of the Cepio 1477

Plate 6 - First page of the Ars Moriendi 1478

Plate 7 - Astronomical diagram in two colours, from the Sphaericum Opusculum of 1485, with text

Plate 8 - Cut of Orion, from the Hyginus of 1482, with text

Plate 9 - Type specimen sheet, dated 1486 (Warning! large image files)

Plate 10 - Ratdolt's Augsburg device

Plate 11 - Ratdolt's advertisement, 1484

Text

Prefatory note List of plates

Chiswick Press also published Byrne's Edition of Euclid.