L’Euclide di Bartolomeo Zamberti: convergenze culturali nella Venezia di inizio Cinquecento

The Latin version of Euclid’s works edited by Bartolomeo Zamberti in 1505 was the first translation based on Theon of Alexandria’s Greek revision, super- seding the long medieval Arabic tradition which had until then provided the only usable text of Euclid’s geometry. The essay analyses Zamberti’s edition as an example of the newly awakened interest on the part of philologists in Ve- nice in classical scientific works, looking especially at the graphic appearance of the book, published by Giovanni Tacuino. The incipit of Zamberti’s edition of the Greek mathematician clearly evokes the classicizing figurative style found elsewhere in Venetian artistic production in the same period, in painting and sculpture as well as in such renowned works as Mantegna’s engraving of the Battle of the Sea Gods and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The essay concludes by examining the colophon of Zamberti’s edition and the development of the privilege system in early 16th-century Venetian publishing.