Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622), warden of Merton College, Oxford, was one of the foremost scholars of his day and a patron and donor to the library established by his friend Thomas Bodley. The Praelectiones are a series of lectures on Euclid's Elements delivered to inaugurate the Savilian professorships in Geometry and Astronomy, which he founded. Euclid was a life-long interest of Savile's. He stated at one point that he could forget to eat or sleep when absorbed by his study of the Elements. His lectures are today "still of scholarly worth" (Oxford DNB). Though many copies of this book exist in old British libraries (especially at Oxford), it is quite scarce on the market, and ESTC notes only five copies in American libraries