• History of the vocabulary

see Oxford English Dictionary: under the word 'transition'. The OED is a Paris-Sorbonne subscription.

the history of the acceptations of the word 'transition', from the OED:

• the rainbow in the sky, in translation of Ovid (1621)
• discourse (Milton)
• music: passing note (17th c.), modulation (19th c.)

• The aesthetics of the picturesque

'insensible transitions' or 'variations' :

Uvedale Price

(on Price see chapter on Dissymmetrical spaces)