Abstract
This article analyses the changes that were made between the well-known edition of all the works of Aristotle with the commentaries of Averroes published by Giunta brothers in Venice in 1550 (with a prefatory volume dated 1552), and an edition of 1562 from the same publishing house. It shows how the differences reflect the changes of interest in the time, especially in the University of Padua.
I am grateful for the help of Dag Nikolaus Hasse.
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Notes
- 1.
Aristotle, Omnia quae extant opera (Venice: Giunta, 1552–1550), VI: ‘Aristotelis Stagiritae Libri omnes ad animalium cognitionem attinentes cum Averrois Cordubensis variis in eosdem commentariis, quorum titulos, numerum, ac ordinem versa pagina narrat.’
- 2.
Ibid., I, fol. 2v: ‘Sed cum Aristoteles principia, modos et quae generalia sunt ita tractasset ut aliis multa diligentius inspicienda ac contemplanda relinqueret, in eo Graeci parum admodum, ne dicam nihil, laboris sibi sumpserunt. At Arabes, non contenti nudis interpretationibus, materiam totam, hoc est res ipsas de quibus tractandum fuerat, multo diligentius ac fusius sibi inspiciendas putaverunt, idque vel praecipuum in Averroe laudatur, cuius solidissima doctrina de Graecorum fontibus non magis hausta quam expressa usque eo enituit ut solus ‘commentatoris’ nomen sibi iure vendicarit, ac iam constet inter omnes qui proximis saeculis sunt philosophati, eas philosophiae partes quae ab Aristotele sunt omissae, ab alio hactenus nemine vel diligentius inspectas vel fundamentis solidioribus fuisse constitutas.’
- 3.
Aristotle, Omnia quae extant opera (1552 ed.): ‘M. Antonii Zimarae in Aristotelis et Averrois dicta contradictionum solutiones’; Aristotle, Opera cum Averrois commentariis, 12 vols (Venice: Giunta, 1562; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1962), I, i: ‘Bernardini Tomitani Patavini in Aristotelis et Averrois dicta, Animadversiones quaedam, et Contradictionum solutiones.’
- 4.
Aristotle, Opera cum Averrois commentariis, I, II, title page of second part of first volume in Venice San Marco (= the first part of the third book in the British Library and Minerva reprint): ‘Bernardini Tomitani Patavini logici atque philosophi nostrae aetatis eximii …’
- 5.
Charles Lohr, ‘Renaissance Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Authors So-Z’, Renaissance Quarterly, 35 (1982), pp. 164–256 (201–204).
- 6.
Aristotle, Opera cum Averrois commentariis, I, i, sig…: ‘Hoc Aristotelis Organum, humanissimi lectores, sive horum voluminum primum, in tres divisimus partes, non ut secaremus quod minime secari consentaneum est, sed in vestri gratiam id fecimus, ne vobis oneri esset ob eius crassitudinem sive attrectare, sive ad gymnasia vestra deferre volentibus.’
- 7.
Aristotle, Omnia quae extant opera (1552 ed.), I, fols 7v-8r: ‘Deinceps liber Posteriorum subit, ex Averrois sententia ita collocatus (quamvis de huius ordine non parva lis existat) quem cum expurgare a varijs erroribus coepisset, immatura morte subreptus fuit, adeo, ut ego coactus sim eius insequens vestigia ad graecum exemplar accommodare, atque unum aliud, quod longe difficilius reliquerat imperfectum, persolvere. Nam cum Averrois super hunc librum magna commentaria ab Abramo de Balmes, a Burana Veronensi, Iacoboque Mantino conversa essent, eumque Abrami translatio mendosa esset, atque obscura, manca vero ac depravata Buranae versio foret, quod et ipse in codice suo manuscripto, qui ad nos post obitum Bagolini pervenit, testatur, Mantini autem traductio solum a primo contextu ad centesimumquinquagesimum usque primi libri appareret, Bagolinus unam duntaxat alijs scilicet meliorem elegerat caeterarum collatione, atque ope conformatam, nulla facta additione ex seipso. quod quidem onus initio ferme cursus destituere coactus est. Ego itaque hanc rem aggressus sum, eamque ad finem usque viventis illius ordinem secutus perduxi: has enim tres conversiones ad verbum comparavi, et illam Buranae, quam, velut basim, Bagolinus fecerat, quae adijcienda videbantur, illius more adieci, corrigenda correxi, conversionum diversitates, sensuum, vocabulorumque repertas in margine signavi.’
- 8.
Aristotle, Opera cum Averrois commentariis, I, ii, fol. 1v: ‘Hic nihil deest. Hec vero spatia relinquimus ut translatio translationi aeque respondeat.’
- 9.
Pavese, incidentally, dedicated his work to the same Bishop Bernardo Salviati as received the 1552–1550 Aristotle-Averroes.
- 10.
The two words are probably taʿdīq and taʿawwur respectively.
- 11.
Aristotle, Omnia quae extant opera, I, f. 170r: ‘Ioannes Baptista Bagolinus Veronensis Philosophiae, Medicinae, caeterarumque scientiarum vir eccellentissimus, volumen hoc, reliquis tam absolutis, hucusque perfecit: Residuum vero, quod ipse immatura morte praeventus explere non valuit, MARCUS Odus Patavus, Philosophus ac Medicus Clarissimi ODI filius, viri illius discipulus, maximaque familiaritate coniunctus, eo ordine, quo ab ipso, dum viveret, hoc in negotio fuerat edoctus, reddidit absolutum.’
- 12.
E.g., on fol. 128r (beginning of text) and 156v. Note also fol. 132v: ‘Aliqui codices antiqui addunt haec verba.’
- 13.
Ibid., fol. 17r.
- 14.
On the gradual introduction of the Greek Aristotle and the Greek commentators, at first alongside Averroes’s commentaries, and then as a substitute for them, see Edward P. Mahoney, ‘Philosophy and Science in Nicoletto Vernia and Agostino Nifo’, in Id., Two Aristotelians of the Italian Renaissance: Nicoletto Vernia and Agostino Nifo (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), I, and Dag N. Hasse, ‘Aufstieg und Niedergang des Averroismus in der Renaissance: Niccolò Tignosi, Agostino Nifo, Francesco Vimercato’, in “Herbst des Mittelalters”? Fragen zur Bewertung des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, eds Jan A. Aertsen and Martin Pickavé (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2004), pp. 447–473.
- 15.
Cf. F. Edward Cranz, ‘Editions of the Latin Aristotle Accompanied by the Commentaries of Averroes’, in Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Edward P. Mahoney (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 116–128 (128): ‘But for the first time in the editions whose history we have been following, the primary point of reference is the Greek original. In a curious way, such gifts from the Greeks threaten the very existence of the Latin Averroistic Aristotle. The Latin Aristotle, and even more the Latin Averroes, lose their status as separate and autonomous worlds of thought; they must more and more become ancillary to the Graeca veritas and to philology as queen of the sciences.’
- 16.
The classic text on this subject is John H. Randall, Jr., The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science (Padua: Antenore, 1961), in which Tomitano’s concern with method is mentioned on pp. 48–49.
- 17.
Bartholomäus Keckermann, Systema systematum, ed. Johann Heinrich Alsted (Hanau: Heirs of Wilhelm Antonius, 1613), p. 17b. Quoted in Harry Austryn Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, eds Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), I, p. 385.
- 18.
Aristotle, Omnia quae extant opera, I, fol.7v. For the Latin text, see supra, n. 7.
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Burnett, C. (2013). Revisiting the 1552–1550 and 1562 Aristotle-Averroes Edition. In: Akasoy, A., Giglioni, G. (eds) Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 211. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5240-5_3
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