The Venetian Editions of Philoponus: Issues and Research Perspectives
Tommaso DE ROBERTIS | University of Macerata
Guest of the second meeting in the X cycle of seminars on the Adriatic Humanism, Tommaso De Robertis, in his lecture, presented the manuscript and especially printed transmission of the Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics by the philosopher and grammarian John Philoponus (c. 490 – c. 570), a lecturer in Alexandria who compiled and transcribed all the lessons of Ammonius of Hermias. Turning to the Latin reception of Philoponus’s works, which took place in the fifteenth century, one of the earliest manuscripts to transmit the first four books of the commentary (the remaining four surviving only in fragments) is a codex once owned by Niccoli, sent to him in 1417 by the geographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti (Bibl. Laurenziana, ms. Plut. 87.06), and later used for the edition of the fourth book in the editio princeps.
The first printed edition of the Greek text appeared in Venice in 1535, printed by Bartolomeo Zanetti and edited by Vittore Trincavelli, whereas the first Latin translation was published in 1539, again in Venice, by Ottaviano Scoto. The prefatory letter by the editor Guglielmo Doroteo, which follows the rhetorical convention of professed modesty, mirrors the literal rendering of the text. Particularly noteworthy are the observations concerning the second Latin translation, printed in Venice in 1558, and its editor Giovanni Battista Rasario. Although in his dedicatory epistle Rasario, adopting a sharply critical tone toward the previous translator, seems to announce a qualitatively superior version, he in fact merely reproduces Doroteo’s translation with fidelity. When, in 1569, another Latin edition of the commentary was published in Venice by Vincenzo Valgrisi, again edited by Rasario, the translation diverged substantially from the earlier ones.
In the peculiar prefatory note to this edition, the editor claims that a friend of his, having found the lost books of Philoponus’s commentary, was ready to send them for printing. This assertion, however, must be regarded as spurious, and understood in the light of Rasario’s previous forgery activities. Indeed, he had fabricated Greek texts of lost works by Galen, falsely declaring their discovery, and the preface in question seems to hint at a similar enterprise. The Galenic project, which had occupied him considerably, likely prevented him from producing a genuinely new Latin translation of Philoponus’s commentary. If by 1569 Rasario was still referring to the four missing books, this, as De Robertis suggests, was due to two complementary reasons: Rasario, who had perhaps already spoken of the discovery of these books to friends and printers, felt the need to justify his failure to complete the translation after so many years, and he may not have entirely ruled out the possibility of editing and translating the remaining books in the future.
Thank you all for your participation, and see you again on December 9.