Abstract
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (Latinized Jacobus Faber Stapulensis) was a professor of Arts at the University of Paris and a Biblical scholar active during the late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Heavily influenced by Italian humanists such as Ermolao Barbaro and Pico della Mirandola, Lefèvre became one of the first Northern European proponents of what is nowadays referred to as Renaissance Aristotelianism: he wrote a number of influential textbooks on the various branches of Aristotelian philosophy and significantly contributed to the spread of new translations of the Stagirite’s oeuvre through his editorial activities. Lefèvre combined this fondness for Aristotelian philosophy with a keen interest in Neoplatonism and late medieval mysticism, as found in the oeuvre of Nicholas of Cusa, Ramon Lull, or Marsilio Ficino, whose works he also saw to the press. Thus his oeuvre was of paramount importance in introducing the ideas of Neoplatonic mysticism and Renaissance Aristotelianism to Northern Europe, in a period when late scholastic philosophy still dominated the Northern intellectual scene.
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References
Primary Literature
The list below only contains a selection of the works Lefèvre authored or edited. The most complete bibliography of his oeuvre is still to be found in Rice (1972).
Lefèvre, Jacques. 1492. Totius philosophiae naturalis paraphrases. Paris: Johannes Higman.
Lefèvre, Jacques. 1493. De magia naturali. Bruxelles: Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS Lat. 10875; Olomouc: Universtiy Library, MS M I 119; Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 7454; Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (etc.), MS Lat. Reg. 1115.
Lefèvre, Jacques. 1494a. Introductio in metaphysicorum libros Aristotelis. Paris: Johannes Higman.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. and comm. 1494b. Mercurii Tris-megisti Liber de potestate et sapientia Dei per Marsilium Ficinum traductus. Paris: Johannes Higman
Lefèvre, Jacques. 1494c. Ars moralis in Aristotelis Ethica nicomachea. Paris: Antoine Caillaut.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. and comm. 1495. Textus de Sphera Johannis de Sacrobosco. Paris: Johannes Higman and Wolfgang Hopyl.
Lefèvre, Jacques. 1496. Introductiones in diversos Aristotelis libros. Paris: Guy Marchant [a manual on Aristotelian logic].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. and comm. 1497. Decem librorum Moralium Aristotelis tres conversiones. Paris: Henri Estienne [translations of the Ethica Nicomachea by Argyropoulos, Bruni and Grosseteste, to which is added Giorgio Valla’s translation of the Magna moralia].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1499a. Liber de laudibus beatissimae Virginis Mariae. Paris: Guy Marchant [a work by Ramon Lull].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. and comm. 1499b. Theologia vivificans Dionysii. Paris: Johannes Higman and Wolfgang Hopyl.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1505. Primum volumen Contemplationum Remundi. Paris: Guy Marchant for Jean Petit [an edition of the Blanquerna by Ramon Lull].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1506. Politicorum libri Octo; Commentarij. Economicorum Duo; Commentarij. Hecatonomiarum Septem. Economiarum Unus. Explanationis Leonardi in Oeconomica Duo. Paris: Henri Estienne [an edition of of Leonardo Bruni’s translations of the Politica and Economica, together with excerpts from the De Republica and De legibus of Plato. The Hecatonomiarum libri septem has been re-edited: Jean Boisset and Robert Combès eds. 1979. Hecatonomiarum libri: texte latin des Hécatonomies de Lefèvre d’Étaples, en parallèle avec la traduction latine de Platon par Marsile Ficin. Paris: Vrin].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1508. Georgii Trapezuntii Dialectica. Paris: Henri Estienne.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1509. Quincuplex Psalterium. Paris: Henri Estienne.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. and comm. 1512. Epistolae divi Pauli apostoli. Paris: Henri Estienne.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1514. Recognitio trium voluminum Operum […] Nicolai Cusae. Paris: Josse Bade.
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1515. Aristotelis opus metaphysicum; metaphysica introductio quatuor dialogorum libris elucidata. Paris: Henri Estienne [an edition of the translation of the translation of the Metaphysica by Cardinal Bessarion and Argyropoulos].
Lefèvre, Jacques. ed. 1516. Proverbia Raemundi. Philosophia amoris eiusdem. Paris: Josse Bade [two works by Ramon Lull].
Lefèvre, Jacques, ed. trans. 1530. La saincte Bible en Francoys. Antwerpen: Martin Lempereur.
Secondary Literature
Barnaud, Jean. 1900. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples: son influence sur les origines de la réformation française. Cahors: Coueslant.
Bedouelle, Guy. 1976. Lefèvre d’Étaples et l’intelligence des Écritures. Genève: Droz.
Bedouelle, Guy. 1979. Le Quincuplex Psalterium de Lefèvre d’Étaples: un guide de lecture. Genève: Droz.
Bedouelle, Guy. 2008. Attacks on the Biblical humanism of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples. In Biblical humanism and scholasticism in the age of Erasmus, ed. Erika Rummel, 117–142. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Bianchi, Luca. 2000. From Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples to Giulio Landi: Uses of the dialogue in Renaissance Aristotelianism. In Humanism and early modern philosophy, ed. Jill Kraye and Martin W.F. Stone, 41–58. London/New York: Routledge.
Copenhaver, Brian P. 1977. Lefèvre d’Étaples, Symphorien Champier and the secret names of God. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40: 189–211.
de Gandillac, Maurice. 1973. Lefèvre d’Étaples et Charles de Bovelles, lecteurs de Nicolas de Cues. In L’humanisme français au début de la Renaissance. Colloque international de Tours (XIVe stage), ed. André Stegmann, 115–171. Paris: Vrin.
Graf, Charles-Henri. 1842. Essai sur la vie et les écrits de Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples. Strasbourg: G.L. Schuler.
Hughes, Philip E. 1984. Lefèvre: Pioneer of Ecclesiastical Renewal in France. Grand Rapids: W. E. Eerdmans.
Kessler, Eckhard. 1999. Introducing Aristotle to the sixteenth century: The Lefèvre enterprise. In Philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Conversations with Aristotle, ed. Constance Blackwell and Sashiko Kusukawa, 1–21. Ashgate: Aldershot.
Kieckhefer, Richard. 2007. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and the conception of natural magic. In La magia nell’ Europa moderna, ed. Fabrizio Meroi, 63–78. Firenze: Olschki.
Lines, David A. 2007. Lefèvre and French Aristotelianism on the eve of the sixteenth century. In Der Aristotelismus in der Frühen Neuzeit: Kontinuität oder Wiederangeignung? ed. Günter Frank and Andreas Speer, 273–290. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Llinares, Armand. 1973. Le Lullisme de Lefèvre d’Étaples et de ses amis humanistes. In L’humanisme français au début de la Renaissance. Colloque international de Tours (XIVe stage), ed. André Stegmann, 126–137. Paris: Vrin.
Mandosio, Jean-Marc. 2013. Le De magia naturali de Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples: magie, alchimie et cabale. In Les Muses secrètes: Kabbale, alchimie et littérature à la Renaissance. Actes de la journée en hommage à François Secret, Vérone, 18 octobre 2005, ed. Rosanna Gorris Camos, 37–79. Genève: Droz.
Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo. 1952. Boezio, Giacomo Veneto, Guglielmo di Moerbeke, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples e gli Elenchi Sofistici. Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica 44: 398–411.
Oosterhoff, Richard J. 2014. Idiotae, mathematics, and artisans: The untutored mind and the discovery of nature in the Fabrist circle. Intellectual History Review 24: 1–19.
Pantin, Isabelle. 1988. Les ‘commentaires’ de Lefèvre d’Étaples au Corpus Hermeticum. In Présence d’Hermès Trismégiste, ed. Antoine Faivre, 167–183. Paris: Albin Michel.
Pernot, Jean-François. ed. 1995. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (1450?–1536): actes du colloque d’Étaples, les 7 et 8 novembre 1992. Paris: Champion.
Porrer, Sheila M. 2009. Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples and the three Maries debates. Genève: Librairie Droz.
Rice, Eugene F. 1969. The humanist idea of Christian antiquity: Lefèvre d’Étaples and his circle. In French humanism 1470–1600, ed. Werner L. Gundersheimer, 163–180. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Rice, Eugene F. 1970. Humanist Aristotelianism in France: Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and his circle. In Humanism in France at the end of the middle ages and in the early renaissance, ed. Anthony Levi, 32–49. New York: Barnes and Noble.
Rice, Eugene F. 1971. Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and the medieval Christian mystics. In Florilegium historiale: Essays presented to Wallace K Ferguson, ed. J.G. Rowe and W.H. Stockdale, 89–124. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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Geudens, C. (2022). Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_652
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