Oliver Byrne — The Elements of Euclid — Notebook

The document, understood — then kept in use.

The document

Euclid taught without words. In 1847 Oliver Byrne proved the theorem of Pythagoras in blocks of pure colour instead of letters: flat primaries and hard edges — the look of a screen-print sixty years early.

The notebook

The sheet is the cover; the spine carries the title. Inside, eleven pages of archival introduction — where the document comes from, who made it, how it was made, and what it left behind — and then the book gets out of the way: 106 pages to write in, 86 ruled and 20 dot grid.

Oliver Byrne · The Elements of Euclid, colour proof · prop. i.47 · 1847 · The Elements of Euclid · London, 1847 · William Pickering · Chiswick Press · Public domain