Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jill Kraye - Aristotle 15th Century Manuscripts
Jill Kraye - Aristotle 15th Century Manuscripts
to Renaissance philosophy
Author(s): Jill Kraye
Source: Renaissance Studies , JUNE 1995, Vol. 9, No. 2, Incunabula: Books, Texts and
Owners (JUNE 1995), pp. 189-211
Published by: Wiley
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Wiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Renaissance
Studies
1 Among the relevant works by these authors are: L. Minio-Paluello, Opuscula: The Latin
Aristotle (Amsterdam, 1972); E. Garin, 'Le traduzioni umanistiche di Aristotele nel secolo XV', Atti
e memorie dell'Accademia fiorentina discienze morali 'La Colombaria', 16 (1947-50), 55-104; F. E.
Cranz, 'The publishing history of the Aristotle commentaries of Thomas Aquinas', Traditio, 34
(1978), 157-92; C. B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass., 1983). For the six
teenth century there is, of course, F. E. Cranz, A Bibliography of Aristotle Editions 1501-1600, 2nd
edn with addenda and revisions by C. B. Schmitt, Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, 38*
(Baden-Baden, 1984).
2 The Biblioteca Ambrosiana catalogue is an example of an enterprise that expired before
reaching 'B': Gli incunaboli dell'Ambrosiana (Vicenza, 1972), I. Though most modern incunable
catalogues follow alphabetical order, J. Walsh, A Catalogue of the Fifteenth-Century Printed Books
in the Harvard University Library (Binghamton, 1991- ) is arranged in Proctor order, that is,
according to the chronological spread of printing from town to town within individual countries,
beginning, of course, with Germany.
3 Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig, 1926), II, 552-669 (nos. 2334-2498). See Cranz and
Schmitt, Bibliography, XI ('Introduction to the Original Edition'): 'The printing history of the fif
teenth century, for editions and translations [of Aristotle], is now to be found in the Gesamtkatalog
der Wiegendrucke.'
* For instance, GW places the Parva logicalia - a much amplified version of the final section of
Peter of Spain's Summulae logicales - under Aristotle (nos. 2394-5); this mistake has been corrected
in ISTC. GW also originally catalogued Leonardo Bruni's Isagogicon moralis disciplinae as a
translation of the Eudemian Ethics, though this is now corrected under Bruni, resulting in double
entries (GW 2384-6 = 5614, 5616-17).
3 It appears in the following editions of Filelfo's Orationes et opuscula: Milan, 1483-4
(H 12919*); Brescia, 1488 (H 12922*); Venice, 1491 (HC 12923*); Venice, 1492 (HC 12924*);
Venice, 1496 (HC 12925*); Basle, not after 1498 (HC 12918*). I will normally give the GW number
for incunable editions cited in this article; but for those editions not yet covered by GW, I will use the
numbers assigned to them either by Hain (H): L. Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum ... (2 vols.,
Stuttgart and Paris, 1826-38); Hain-Copinger (HC): W. A. Copinger, Supplement to Hain's Reper
torium bibliographicum (London, 1895), pt I; or Copinger (C): W. A. Copinger, Supplement to
Hain's Repertorium bibliographicum (2 vols, and addenda, London, 1898-1902), pt II.
6 Aristotle, Opera (Venice, 1496: GW 2341); Aristotle, Decern librorum moralium très conver
siones . . . (Paris, 1497: GW 2359). The Greek text is printed in volume V of the Aldine Aristotle
(Venice, 1498: GW 2334).
' Nicephorus Blemmydes, Logica . . . (Venice, 1498: HC 11748*).
' His translation of De caelo was also printed in this volume. See Minio-Paluello, Opuscula,
483-500, at p. 494.
9 Herman the German's Latin version of Averroes' commentary on the Poetics was, however,
printed in Aristotle, Rhetorica (Venice, 1481: GW 2478); and Johannes Argyropulos' translation of
the prefatory letter of Aristotle to Alexander from the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum was included in
Aristotle, Opera (Venice, 1496: GW 2341).
10 The Greek texts of the Poetics and Rhetorica ad Alexandrum were first printed in the Aldine
Rhetores graeci (Venice, 1508).
" Even those catalogues which attempt to follow a consistent policy of cross-referencing some
times leave gaps: Bibliothèque nationale: Catalogue des incunables (CIBN) (Paris, 1981- ), for
example, does not cross-reference editions of Filelfo's Orationes et opuscula (P—323-7) under
Aristotle, even though they all contain his translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad
Alexandrum: see n. 5 above.
12 Commentaries which do not include some form of Aristotle's name in the title (e.g. Expositio in
libros Posteriorum) will not be picked up by such a search unless the cataloguers have inserted it.
13 These include: CIBN; D. Hillard, Catalogues régionaux des incunables des bibliothèques
publiques de France (Paris, 1989), VI: Bibliothèque Mazarine; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek In
20 Aristotle, Text us Et hic orum ad Nicomac hum . . . cum familiarissimo comment ario in eundem
et compendiosis questionibus ac dubiis ... ad mentem . . . Martini Magistri et Johannis Buridani. . .
(Paris, c. 1491-6: GW 2377; Paris, 1500: GW 2378). For the dating of GW 2377 see Aristotle,
L'Ethique à Nicomaque, introd., trans, and comment, by R. A. Gauthier and J. Y. Jolif (Louvain
and Paris, 1970), i.l, 143-4 n. 171.CIBN, I, 124, takes GW 2378 to be a post-incunable, dating it to
c. 1505 from the state of the publisher's device, though the colophon reads 'vi. kal. octobris
M.CCCC'. Another example of commentaries which are always catalogued under Aristotle are those
of Nicole Oresme on the Ethics and Politics, which were printed together with his own French
translations of these texts: Le livre d'Ethiques d'Aristote (Paris, 1488: GW 2381); and Le lime de
Politiques d'Aristote (Paris, 1489: GW 2449).
21 The scholarly problems which can arise from such practices are well illustrated by Pietro
d'Abano's commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems. It was printed twice in the Fifteenth
century, each time along with the medieval translation of Bartholomaeus of Messina - a version that
does not appear elsewhere in print in the fifteenth century. The fact that there is an incunable edi
tion of this translation is by no means apparent, since the work is standardly catalogued under the
commentator: Petrus de Abano, Expositio problematum Aristotelis (Mantua, 1475: H 16*; Venice,
1482: HC 17*); CIBN, however, places both editions under Aristotle (A —552-3).
22 Cranz and Schmitt, Bibliography, vm, n. 9 ('Introduction to the Revised Edition').
23 Vergil: A Census of Printed Editions 1469-1500, ed. Martin Davies and John Goldfinch, Occa
sional Papers of the Bibliographical Society, 7 (London, 1992).
24 See J. Soudek, 'Leonardo Bruni and his public: a statistical and interpretative study of his an
notated Latin version of the (pseudo) Aristotelian Economics', Stud Mediev R, 5 (1968), 51-136,
esp. the census of printed editions, 135-6; see also his 'The genesis and tradition of Leonardo Bruni's
annotated Latin version of the (pseudo ) Aristotelian Economics', Scriptorium, 12 (1958), 260-8.
" Boethius translated De interpretatione, Prior Analytics, De sophisticis elenchis, Topics and
Porphyry's Isagoge-, the Posterior Analytics was translated by James of Venice; see B. G. Dod,
'Aristoteles latinus', in The Cambridge History of Late Medieval Philosophy, ed. N. Kretzmann et
al. (Cambridge, 1982), 45-79, at pp. 53-5. The translation of the Categories attributed to Boethius
is now regarded as anonymous: Minio-Paluello, Opuscula, 1-39.
26 The only edition to print these texts is: Aristotle, Opera (Venice, 1496: GW 2341); in addition,
Argyropulos' version of the Posterior Analytics was used in Aristotle, Libri Posteriorum resoluti
vorum . . . (Rome, c. 1480: GW 2417), published by Oliverius Servius, who also had printed an
edition of Argyropulos' translation of the Physics: Libri Auscultationis de natura (Rome, 1481-4:
GW 2442); Servius, however, had nothing against Boethius: he published an edition of Boethius'
Topics, along with the Topics of Cicero, accompanied by Boethius' commentary (Rome, 1484: GW
4587).
27 See E. J. Ashworth, 'Traditional logic', in Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy,
143-72; and her Language and Logic in the Post-Medieval Period (Dordrecht and Boston, Mass.,
1974). For critiques by humanists of scholastic logic and their attempts to reform the discipline see,
e.g., Lorenzo Valla, Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie, ed. G. Zippel (2 vols., Padua, 1982); and
Angelo Poliziano, Lamia: Praelectio in Priora Aristotelis analytica, ed. A. Wesseling (Leiden, 1986).
one by Bruni, the other by Argyropulos28 - did not overshadow the ver
sion of Grosseteste: all three translations regularly appear in printed
editions.29 Nor did the different versions necessarily appeal to different
audiences. In the 1476 Louvain edition of the Ethics, the translations of
Grosseteste and Bruni are printed in parallel double columns.30 The
overlap, in terms of interest, between the three translations is well il
lustrated by a Paris edition of the Ethics, printed in the 1490s. This
volume, which was mentioned above,31 gives the Grosseteste version, in
conjunction with quaestiones by Buridanus and Magistri, as well as an
anonymous literal commentary - a typical scholastic product, in other
words. But at the end, the editor, Claude Félix, adds a table of the
Aristotelian virtues and vices (fig. 1), in which is set out not only the
ethical terminology used in the antiqua translatio of Grosseteste, but also
that employed in the versions of Bruni and Argyropulos - even though
those translations are not printed in the volume itself. The vocabulary of
the humanist versions may have been used to gloss the transliterations
from the Greek found in Grosseteste's translation: scurrilitas, comitas and
rusticitas being far more comprehensible to a Greekless reader than
bomolochia, eutrapelia and agrikia (or agrilria as the 'k'-less printer
presents it). It was from this edition that Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples took
over the text of the Grosseteste version which he printed in his own edition
of the Ethics, published in 1497. Lefèvre also included in this volume the
translations of Argyropulos and Bruni; and it may well be that he got the
idea of printing all three versions from this table he encountered in the
earlier edition.32
Printing more than one translation of the same Aristotelian text was
not uncommon in the fifteenth century. The standard format for printed
editions of De anima, De caelo, the Physics, the Metaphysics or book IV
of the Meteorology accompanied by the commentaries of Averroes was to
give a passage first in William of Moerbeke's translation from the Greek,
then in Michael Scot's earlier version, made from the Arabic, followed by
Scot's translation of Averroes' commentary on that passage.33 In the case
28 The Nicomac heart Ethics was also translated by the humanist Giannozzo Manetti, but his
version remained in manuscript: Garin, 'Traduzioni umanistiche', 71-2.
29 There were at least nine printings of the Grosseteste version, seven of the Bruni and six of the
Argyropulos. For the reasons stated above, these figures should be regarded as provisional.
30 Aristotle, Ethica ad Nicomachum (Louvain, 1476: GW 2360). See also Aristotle, Economi
corum libri duo sub gemina translatione (Leipzig, c. 1494: GW 2437; Leipzig, c. 1499: GW 2438;
Leipzig, c. 1499: GW 2439), in which the Latin versions of the Oeconomics by Bruni and Durandus
are printed in alternating gobbets, rather than in parallel columns.
31 See n. 20 above.
32 Aristotle, Decern librorum moralium Aristotelis très conversiones . . . (Paris, 1497: GW 2359).
On this edition see Aristotle, Ethique, ed. Gauthier and Jolif, i.l, 143-4.
33 See the following editions of Aristotle's Opera: Venice, 1483 (GW 2337-8); Venice, 1489 (GW
2339); Venice, 1495-6 (GW 2340); and the following editions of individual texts, all published by
Laurentius Canozius: De anima (Padua, 1472: GW 2349); De caelo (Padua, 1473: GW 2357);
Metaphysics (Padua, 1473: GW 2419); Physics (Padua, c. 1472-5: GW 2443); on the Canozius edi
tions see F. E. Cranz, 'Latin editions of Aristotle accompanied by the commentaries of Averroes', in
Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. E. P.
Mahoney (Leiden, 1976), 116-28. On Michael Scot, see Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 58-9; Dictionary
of Scientific Biography, ed. C. Gillispie (New York, 1974), IX, 361-5; and L. Thorndike, Michael
Scot (London and Edinburgh, 1965). On William of Moerbeke see Guillaume de Moerbeke: recueil
d'études à l'occasion du 700e anniversaire de sa mort (1286), ed. J. Brams and W. Vanhamel
(Louvain, 1989), esp. pp. 319-49; Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 62-4; and Dictionary of Scientific
Biography, ix, 434-40.
34 Of the three fifteenth-century editions of Aristotle's Opera accompanied by Averroes' commen
taries, the Grosseteste translation is printed in Venice, 1483 (GW 2337-8); the Bruni version in
Venice, 1489 (GW 2339) and Venice, 1495-6 (GW 2340). On Herman's version of the commentary
see Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 59-60; Aristoteles latinus, ed. G. Lacombe (Rome, 1939), i.l: Codices,
110-11; and S. Gomez Nogales, 'Bibliograffa sobre las obras de Averroes', in Multiple Averroes.
Actes du Colloque international organisé à l'occasion du 850e anniversaire de la naissance
d'Averroès, Paris . . . 1976 (Paris, 1978), 351-87, at pp. 380-1.
35 Thomas Aquinas, Comment um in libros Politicorum Aristotelis, ed. J. Ferrer (Barcelona,
1478: H 1514b); Thomas Aquinas, Commentum in libros Ethicorum Aristotelis, ed. J. Ferrer
(Barcelona, 1478: H 1514a).
36 Thomas Aquinas, Commentarii in libros octo Politicorum Aristotelis, ed. L. Valentia (Rome,
1492: GW 2448); this edition was reprinted in Venice, 1500 (H 1516*). See Martinus Nimireus' letter
to Ludovicus de Valentia (sigs. I7V-8V, at I8r): 'commutatis . . . paucis quibusdam verbis quae prop
ter novam Leonardi translationem necessarium erat . . . commentaria ipsa Aristotelis sermoni vel
ipsius Leonardi Aretini traductioni coaptata librariis imprimenda tradidisti'; see also Cranz,
'Publishing history', 169-73.
eiusdem Philosophi traduxisse dicunt'; also in the reprint of this edition (Paris, c. 1500-5: GW 2378),
fol. 121".
42 See A. Pelzer, Etudes d'histoire littéraire sur la scolastique médiévale, ed. A. Pattin and E. Van
de Vyer (Louvain and Paris, 1964), 178-83. On Johannes Krosbein, see Lohr, 'Medieval Latin
Aristotle commentaries: Johannes de Kanthi - Myngodus', 253-4. The antiqua translatio was first
attributed to Grosseteste by Amable Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traduc
tions latines d'Aristote (Paris, 1843; reprinted New York, 1974), 59-64.
45 For Bruni's dedication of his Nicomachean Ethics translation to Martin V (Schriften, 75-6) see
the editions of Strasbourg, c. 1469 (GW 2367), Oxford, 1479 (GW 2373) and Zaragoza, 1492 (GW
2374); for his dedication of his Politics translation to Eugenius IV (Schriften, 70-3) see the edition
printed in Valencia, not after 1474 (GW 2370); for his dedication of his commented translation of
the Oeconomics to Cosimo de' Medici see the editions of Cologne, c. 1475 (GW 2434), Venice, c.
1471 (GW 2435) and the Venice, 1489 edition of the Opera (GW 2339).
44 His dedication to Cosimo de' Medici is found in the following editions of his translation of the
Nicomachean Ethics: Florence, c. 1480 (GW 2361), Paris, 1488/9 (GW 2362), Rome, 1492 (GW
2363), Paris, 1493 (GW 2364); Poitiers, not after 1496 (GW 2365) and Paris, 1500 (GW 2366).
45 His dedication of his translation of De animalibus to Sixtus IV appears in the following editions:
Venice, 1492 (GW 2351); Venice, c. 1495 (GW 2352); Venice, 1498 (GW 2353). See also the dedica
tion of the printed edition of Gaza's translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata (Rome, 1475:
GW 2453) to Sixtus IV, which was written by Nicolaus Gupalatinus, who acted as Gaza's scribe and
who saw the work through the press; on this dedication see M. A. Rouse and R. H. Rouse, 'Nicolaus
Gupalatinus and the arrival of print in Italy', Bibliofilta, 88 (1986), 221-51, at pp. 233-5.
Ciceronian Latin, one or both of the thirteenth-century translations: Soudek, 'Bruni and his public',
54-5.
50 Boethius' translations of De sophisticis elenchis and the Topics were included, but this was
because there were no available humanist versions of these texts. On this edition see Minio-Paluello,
Opuscula, 498; Cranz, 'Editions of the Latin Aristotle', 117.
51 For instance, the Basle editions of 1538, 1542, 1548, 1563 and the Lyon editions of 1549, 1561,
1563, 1578 and 1581: see C. B. Schmitt, 'Francesco Storella and the last printed edition of the Latin
Secretum secretorum (1555)', in Pseudo-Aristotle, 'The Secret of Secrets': Sources and Influences,
ed. W. F. Ryan and C. B. Schmitt, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 9 (London, 1982), 14-31,
at pp. 125, 129 n. 8.
52 The one pseudo-Aristotelian treatise to receive a substantial number of commentaries - in the
Middle Ages, at least - was the Liber de causis: see C. d'Ancona, '"Philosophus in libro de causis": la
recezione del Liber de causis come opera aristotelica nei commenti di Ruggero Bacone, dello ps.
Enrico di Gand e dello ps. Adamo de Bocfeld', Doc Stud Trad Filos Mediev, 2 (1991), 611-49.
53 The Aldine Aristotle (5 parts, Venice, 1495-8: GW 2334) includes the following Greek treatises
now regarded as pseudo-Aristotelian: De mundo; De mirabilibus auscultationibus', De Xenophane,
Zenone et Gorgia; Problems; Mechanics. It also mistakenly prints Georgios Pachymeres' paraphrase
of On Indivisible Lines instead of the actual Greek text attributed, wrongly, to Aristotle; that text
was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century by Grosseteste and appears in the editions of the
Opera printed in Venice in 1482 (GW 2336) and 1496 (GW 2341): see my 'Erasmus and the
canonization of Aristotle: the letter to John More', in England and the Continental Renaissance:
Essays in Honour of J. B. Trapp, ed. E. Chaney and P. Mack (Woodbridge, 1990), 37-52, at pp.
46-7. The Aldine edition does not include the Greek version of De plantis - on which see n. 78 below
- but prints instead the botanical works of Theophrastus: see C. B. Schmitt, 'Aristotelian textual
studies at Padua: the case of Francesco Cavalli', in Storia e filosofia all'Universita di Padova nel
Quattrocento, ed. A. Poppi (Padua, 1983), 287-314, at pp. 299-300.
14 The 1479 Augsburg edition (GW 2335) includes only the logical works, while the 1497 Cologne
edition (GW 2342) contains only the libri naturales. Editions of Aristotle's works printed together
with the commentaries of Averroes did not include pseudo-Aristotelian works - with the exception of
the Greek-based Physiognomy, which appeared in only one such edition, published in Venice in 1489
(GW 2339) - presumably because Averroes did not write any expositions of these treatises: see the
Aristotle-Averroes editions published in Venice in 1483 (GW 2337-8) and 1495-6 (GW 2340); on the
other hand, these editions included the Politics and the Oeconomics, even though there are no
Averroes commentaries on them.
" Both editions include De coloribus, Physiognomia and De lineis indivisibilibus (all translated
from the Greek), along with De plantis, De porno and De causis (all from Arabic sources); in addi
tion, the 1496 edition contains the medieval Latin translation by Nicolaus Siculus of De mundo and
the Arabic-derived De proprietatibus elementorum. Both editions also print De inundatione Nili,
which does not have an extant Greek original but which is now generally regarded as a genuine work
of Aristotle: C. B. Schmitt and D. Knox, Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus: A Guide to Latin Works Falsely
Attributed to Aristotle before 1}00, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 12 (London, 1985), 44-5
(no. 61).
" Schmitt and Knox, Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus, 4; and C. B. Schmitt, 'Pseudo-Aristotle in the
Latin Middle Ages', in Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages: The 'Theology' and Other Texts, ed. J.
Kraye et al., Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 11 (London, 1986), 3-14.
57 It was included in the 1255 statute laying out the curriculum for students at the University of
Paris: Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle et al. (Paris, 1889), I, 277-9, at p. 279:
'librum de causis in Septem septimanis'. On this treatise, see R. C. Taylor, 'The Kalam fi mahd al
khair (Liber de causis) in the Islamic philosophical milieu', in Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages,
37-62; C. d'Ancona Costa, 'Le fonti e la struttura del Liber de causis', Medioevo, 15 (1989), 1-38;
Schmitt and Knox, Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus, 18-20 (no. IS); L. Sweeney, Research difficulties in
the Liber de causis', in his Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought (New York, etc., 1992),
309-18.
" Proclus, Elementatio theologica translata a Guillelmo Morbecca, ed. H. Boese (Louvain,
1987).
" Thomas Aquinas, Super Librum de causis expositio, ed. H.-D. Saffrey (Fribourg, 1954), 3:
'[Liber de causis] videtur ab aliquo philosophorum arabum ex . . . libro Procli excerptus, praesertim
quia omnia quae in hoc libro continentur, multo plenius et diffusius continentur in illo.'
60 Aristotle, Opuscula per divini Thome Aquinatis commentaria compendiose exposita (Padua,
1493: GW 2430): altissimi Proculi De causis cum . . . Thome commentationibus'.
" See S. L. Vodraska, 'Pseudo-Aristoteles, De causis proprietatum et elementorum: critical edition
and study', PhD diss. (University of London, 1969); Aristoteles latinus, i.l: Codices, 91-2; S.
Williams, 'Defining the Corpus Aristotelicum: scholastic awareness of Aristotelian spuria in the High
Middle Ages',/ Warburg C, 58 (1995), forthcoming; Schmitt and Knox, Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus,
20 (no. 14); and C. B. Schmitt, 'Renaissance Averroism studied through the Venetian editions of
Aristotle-Averroes (with particular reference to the Giunta edition of 1550-2)', in L'Averroismo in
Italia. Convegno internationale, Roma . . . 1977 (Rome, 1979), 121-42, at p. 137. Albertus Magnus
wrote a commentary on the treatise: see his Opera omnia (Münster i. W., 1980), v.2, 47-106.
62 It does not appear in any edition of Aristotle's works printed after 1500: Schmitt and Knox,
Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus, 51-2 (no. 75). For an edition of this text see: 'Aristotelis qui ferebatur
Liber de pomo', ed. M. Plezia, Eos, 47 (1954), 191-217; see also The Apple or Aristotle's Death (De
pomo sive De morte Aristotelis), trans. M. F. Rousseau (Milwaukee, 1968); and Dictionnaire des
philosophes antiques, ed. R. Coulet and P. Hadot (Paris, 1989), I, 537-41.
63 Aristotle, De pomo et morte (Antwerp, about 1486-91: GW 2451), which also includes Jean
Gerson's De scientia bonae mortis.
64 Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 51; Schmitt, 'Pseudo-Aristotle', 9.
65 Aristotle, Tractatus de pomo et morte . . . (Cologne, c. 1472: GW 2450).
66 Aristoteles Latinus, i.l: Codices, 72-3.
67 See n. 55 above.
68 For the Greek text see Scriptores physiognomonici Graeci et Latini, ed. R. Förster (Leipzig,
1893), I, 5-91; on Bartholomaeus of Messina see Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 62.
69 See n. 55 above.
70 See J. Wilcox, 'The transmission and influence of Qusta ibn Luqa's "On the Difference between
Spirit and Soul ", PhD diss. (The City University of New York, 1985), esp. p. 113, for its appearance
together with Aristotelian works in the manuscript tradition; on this point see also D. Jacquart,
'Aristotelian thought in Salerno', in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P.
Dronke (Cambridge, 1988), 407-28, at p. 426; and Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 50-1; see also
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, xi, 244-6.
71 Chartularium, I, 278: 'librum De differentia Spiritus et anime in duabus septimanis'.
72 Aristotle, Tractatus (Cologne, c. 1472: GW 2450), sig. b7v: 'Liber de differentia spiritus et
anime incipit féliciter. Constantinus Arabicus luce amico suo scriptori eiusdam regis hoc opus edidit
. . For the form of his name found in manuscripts of John of Seville's translation of the treatise,
made in Spain in 1130, see Wilcox, 'Transmission and influence', 143: 'consta ben luce'. Wilcox
wrongly states that the treatise 'never appeared in any early printed edition of the works of Aristotle'
(p. 112), citing as her authority the first edition of F. E. Cranz, A Bibliography of Aristotle Editions,
1501-1600 (Baden-Baden, 1971); she is apparently unaware that printing began some fifty year
before 1501. In the sixteenth century, the treatise appeared in the 1536 Basle edition of the works of
Constantine the African.
73 On Johannes Hulshot de Mechlinia see C. H. Lohr, 'Medieval Latin Aristotle commentaries.
Authors: Jacobus-Joannes Juff, Traditio, 26 (1970), 135-216, at pp. 205-7.
74 Aristotle, Textus Parvorum naturalium . . . (Cologne, 1491: GW 2428), sig. P5V.
75 Aristotle, Textus Parvorum naturalium . . . (Cologne, 1498: GW 2429), the main title-page:
'De sensu et sensato / De memoria et reminiscentia / De somno et vigilia / De longitudine et brevitate
vite / De iuventute et senectute / De inspiratione et respiratione / De vita et morte / De motu
animalium / De motu cordis'. The secondary title-page (sig. M4r) is the same as the 1491 edition
(fig. 2). The index to Aristotelian incunables in GW, II, 554, lists both these editions under De motu
cordis, even though the actual text appears in neither.
öe qmmtor aliqtï
uo£ naturaliö
nop naturaliii Sïriftoteli
slriftoteli
mrta
iurta Docrnna
oocrrina Albert!
Ulbert! m
m
ftdcrto fatagentes p:to:i
fidcrio fatagenteo pziozi
berenria
bcrentta acetufdem
ac ciufdem i1pp
cognttioncm adiuctl < (f
cognttionem admcti
Dc iuuentütc
De iuuentute ct
et fenec
Deinfpirattoneet ref
IDcinfpirattoncct re
De r>tta
Oc et
»ita et mo:te
mozte
De
Dc motu animalium
mora animalium
De motu
IDc mom coîdts
cozdis
76 Alfred of Sareshel, De motu cordis, ed. C. Baeumker (Münster i. W., 1923); see also C.
Baeumker, Die Stellung des Alfred von Sareshel (Alfredus Anglicus) und seiner Schrift De motu
cordis in der Wissenschaft des beginnenden XIII. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1913); C. S. Barach,
Excerpta e libro Alfredi Anglici De motu cordis . . . (Innsbruck, 1878; repr. Frankfurt, 1968);
Pelzer, Etudes d'histoire littéraire, 241-71; Alfred of Sareshel, Commentary on the Metheora of
Aristotle, ed. J. K. Otte (Leiden, etc., 1988), 4-7, 15; Dod, 'Aristoteles latinus', 58.
77 Thomas Aquinas, De motu cordis, in his Opuscula omnia (Rome, 1976), xliii, 95-130; see also
E. Paschetto, 'La natura del moto in base al De motu cordis di S. Tommaso', in Thomas von A quin:
Werk und Wirkung im Licht der neuerer Forschungen, ed. A. Zimmermann, Miscellanea
Mediaevalia, 19 (Berlin and New York, 1988), 247-60.
78 Nicolaus Damascenus, De plantis: Five Translations, ed. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs and E. L. J.
Poortman, Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus (Amsterdam, etc., 1989), 465-561. Alfred's Latin version
was translated into Greek by an anonymous Byzantine scholar in the thirteenth century {ibid.
563-624); it is this text which appears in Greek printed editions of Aristotle's works, including that of
Bekker(814a10-830b3).
79 On De mineralibus, see Schmitt and Knox, Pseudo-Aristoteles Latinus, 43-4 (no. 59); Alfred of
Sareshel, Commentary, 8, 11-13. The work was first printed in Aristotle, Secretum secretorum . . .
De mineralibus . . ., ed. Alessandro Achillini (Bologna, 1501), fols. 2T-22V; see H. S. Matsen,
Alessandro Achillini (1463-1512) and His Doctrine of 'Universals' and 'Transcendentals': A Study in
Renaissance Ockhamism (Lewisburg, Pa, 1974), 35-6, 220 n. 190.
80 Alfred of Sareshel, De motu cordis, xi: none of the seven manuscripts listed by Baeumker has
any ascription to Aristotle.
81 Aristotle, Tractatue propleumatum . . . multas in naturalibus questiunculas admiratione
dignas in se continens legentibus multum iucundus ac utilis (Leipzig, 1494: GW 2460), sig. Dlr ('De
corde'): 'Quare cor continue movetur. Respondetur secundum Arest. in libro de motu cordis . . .
quia ibi Spiritus generatur qui est subtilior aere . . .'; cf. Alfred of Sareshel, De motu cordis, 47: 'cum
a dextro cordis thalamo sanguis, a sinistro Spiritus procedat, in utroque Spiritus reperitur et sanguis'.
82 Nicholas of Paris, Compilatio de libris naturalibus, MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
elm 14460, fol. 150v, cited in M. Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben: Abhandlungen zu
Geschichte der Scholastik und Mystik (Munich, 1936), II, 192: 'Et sie patet divisio totius naturalis in
ferioris in istos libros, scilicet, librum de celo et mundo, librum phisicum, de generatione et corrup
91 See, e.g., Pseudo-Aristotle, Problems, in Aristotle, The Complete Works, ed. J. Barnes (2 vols.,
Princeton, N.J., 1984), II, 1336 (II.26): 'Why is [it] that the feet of those who are nervous perspire
and not the face?'; 1341 (in.3): 'Why is it that those who drink slightly diluted wine have worse
hangovers than those who drink wine absolutely unmixed?'; 1350-1 (iv.2): 'Why do the eyes and but
tocks of those who indulge too frequently in sexual intercourse sink very noticeably, though the latter
are near and the former far from the sexual organs?'
92 Aristotle, Tractatus propleumatum . . . (Leipzig, 1494: GW 2460), sigs. A5r, B6r, Elv, E6V.
93 The Problemata appear in part IV of the Aldine Aristotle (Venice, 1497: GW 2334); for the two
incunable editions of the thirteenth-century translation of Bartholomaeus of Messina see n. 21
above; Theodore Gaza's translation was published in Mantua, c. 1473 (GW 2452) and Rome, 1475
(GW 2453).
94 The following Latin editions were printed in Germany: Magdeburg, c. 1483-4 (GW 2454),
Magdeburg, 1488 (GW 2455), Leipzig, c. 1489-90 (GW 2456), Leipzig, c. 1489-90 (GW 2457),
Leipzig, 1494 (GW 2460), four in Cologne, c. 1490 (GW 2468-71), Cologne, c. 1493 (GW 2472), two
in Cologne, c. 1495 (GW 2473-4); as were these editions of the German translation: Augsburg, 1492
(GW 2462), Augsburg, 1493 (GW 2463), Memmingen, c. 1495 (GW 2464), Augsburg, 1496 (GW
2465), Ulm, 1499 (GW 2466), Ulm, 1500 (GW 2467). Editions of the Latin text were printed in
Antwerp in 1490 (GW 2458) and 1491 (GW 2459), and in Paris c. 1499 (GW 2475), 1500/1 (GW
2476), 1500 (GW 2477) and after 1500? (GW 2461).
95 The Latin text was published in London in 1583 together with the Problems attributed to
Alexander of Aphrodisias (in the translation of Angelo Poliziano) and those composed by Marcan
tonio Zimara in the mid-sixteenth century, under the title: Problemata Aristotelis ac philosophorum
medicorumque complurium . . . (STC 761); in 1595 an English translation of this volume was
published in London: The Problems of Aristotle with Other Philosophers and Phisitions (STC 762-3:
catalogued as genuine works of Aristotle). Late in the eighteenth century, it began to be printed
along with two sex manuals: Aristotle's Masterpiece and Aristotle's Last Legacy, and a third work
called The Compleat and Experienced Midwife. See D. Power, The Foundations of Medical History
(Baltimore, Md, 1931), 147-78; J. Needham, A History of Embryology (New York, 1975), 91-2;
Lawn, Salemitan Questions, 100-1; V. L. Bullough, 'An early American sex manual, or, Aristotle
who?', Early Am L, 7 (1973), 236-46; R. Porter, "'The Secrets of Generation Display'd": Aristotle's
Masterpiece in 18th-century England', in Unauthorised Sexual Behavior during the Enlightenment,
ed. R. P. Maccubbin, Eight-Ct L, 9 (1985), 1-21.
96 Aristotle's Masterpiece, one of the two sex manuals regularly printed in The Works of Aristotle,
was included in a list, drawn up in 1954 by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the permanent
under-secretary of the Home Office, of 'works recognised throughout the civilised world as estab
lished classics', which, though they contained 'erotic passages which many would think obscene',
were to be exempt from seizure under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857; also on the list were
works of Aristophanes, Ovid, Catullus, Juvenal, Boccaccio, Rabelais and Defoe: see the report in the
Independent on Sunday (31 July 1994), 24-5.