The article studies a privately owned fragmentary manuscript of Moerbeke’s version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The treatise was transmitted through a very intricate text tradition. It is shown that two of the remaining three parts of the manuscript belong to the so-called “Italian” or independent tradition, for which only six other manuscripts are extant. Although Vuillemin-Diem, the editor of the text in the Aristoteles Latinus series, did not use this manuscript, its text corroborates several of her hypotheses. Moreover, the manuscript (...) considerably adds to our knowledge of Moerbeke’s lost autograph. It also contains some interesting similarities with Albert the Great’s commentary on the same text. (shrink)

t. 1. Livres I à IV -- t. 2. Livres V à VII et Notes marginales de Nicolas de Cues.

William of Moerbeke was a prolific medieval translator of Aristotle and other ancient philosophical and scientific authors from Greek into Latin, and he played a decisive role in the acceptance of Aristotelian philosophy in the Latin world. He is often criticized for an allegedly deficient translation method. However, this book argues that his approach was a deliberate attempt to allow readers to reach the correct understanding of the source texts in accordance with the medieval view of the role of (...) the translator. William's project to make all genuine works of Aristotle - and also of other important authors from Antiquity - available in Latin is framed against the background of intellectual life in the 13th century, the deliberate policy of his Dominican order to reconcile Christian doctrine with worldly knowledge, and new trends in book production that influenced the spread of the new translations. William of Moerbeke's seemingly modest acts of translation started an intellectual revolution, the impact of which extended from the Middle Ages into the early modern era. The Friar and the Philosopher will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in Medieval perceptions of Aristotle, as well as other works from Antiquity. (shrink)

The Tria Opuscula by the Late Antique Neoplatonist Proklos are accessible in full in the translation into medieval Latin by Wilhelm von Moerbeke, as well as in fragments in the Greek texts of Late Antique and Byzantine authors. Using the form of a commentary on passages, this work assesses what we can learn from these sources about the original Greek text of the three works. At the same time the commentary serves the elucidation of the first complete Greek retroversion (...) of the Tria Opuscula, which is published here. (shrink)

O fenômeno da incorporação do corpo lexical político aristotélico transliterado do grego ao contexto latino do século XIII nos remete a problemas sobre as presenças e ausências terminológicas, não somente na tradução da Política, feita por Guilherme de Moerbeke, e nos comentários de Alberto Magno e Tomás de Aquino ao texto latino de Aristóteles, mas também à possível reverberação desses vocábulos políticos moerbekianos em alguns leitores da Política, no século XIV. Não se trata apenas de veri*cação de quem usou (...) ou não usou tais ou quais termos, nem mesmo da elaboração de juízos sobre esses usos, como que para rotular pensadores; antes, trata-se de tentar individuar, a partir dos usos terminológicos, o surgimento de um novo modo de pensar e compreender a esfera da vida humana que é a dimensão pública, ou melhor, política. Tentaremos compreender, neste artigo, especificamente como emerge, a partir dessa tradução latina da Política, um novo quadro conceitual, a saber: a esfera política. Constataremos que a tradução da Política de Moerbeke consolida um novo vocabulário e um novo quadro conceitual que será, doravante, um dos fundamentos do pensamento político. (shrink)

Offering the first complete translation into modern English of Aquinas' unfinished commentary on Aristotle's Politics, this translation follows the definitive Leonine text of Aquinas and reproduces in English those passages of William of Moerbeke's exacting yet elliptical translation of the _Politics_ from which Aquinas worked. Bekker numbers have been added to passages from the _Politics_ for easy reference. Students of the history of political thought will welcome this study of a great classic, a commentary by a student of Aristotle (...) who is also a great political theorist in his own right. (shrink)

The twelfth century was a period of transmission and absorption of Arabic learning though it filtered outside of the Arabic world as early as the second half of the tenth century. In general, the lure of Spain began to act only in the twelfth century, and the active impulse toward the spread of Arabic mathematics came from beyond the Pyrenees and from men of diverse origins. The chief names are Adelard of Bath, Robert of Chester, Hermann of Carinthia and Gerard (...) of Cremona. In this time the Latin world became acquainted with the Hindu numerals, the Arabic Algebra and Euclid'sElements. However, not only Spain, but also the Norman kingdom of southern Italy and Sicily occupies a position of peculiar importance, though the works of the translators did not become very influential. There were made direct translations from Greek into Latin. One had to wait a century more to obtain a translation from Greek into Latin of the chief Archimedean scientific and mathematical treatises by William of Moerbeke. In the thirteenth century Fibonacci and Jordanus Nemorarius stand at the threshold of European mathematics. Not only was Fibonacci the first to explain Arabic arithmetic, but his works, especially his later ones, contain many original ideas. Jordanus continued the Greco-Roman tradition rather than the Greco-Arabic one, but he did so with much independence. To Nicole Oresme (fourteenth century) was due a broadened view of proportionality, a geometric proof to determine the summation of convergent infinite series and the proof, evidently the first in the history of mathematics, that the harmonic series is divergent. The Configuration Doctrine was treated by Merton College authors and by Oresme. In the fifteenth century theDe triangulis omnimodis of Regiomontan, a systematic account of the methods for solving triangles, marked the rebirth of trigonometry. (shrink)

Este artículo recoge y aúna, por vez primera en un solo trabajo, los distintos aspectos acerca de la tradición manuscrita, las dataciones y las autorías de las tres principales traducciones de Ethica Nicomachea en circulación durante el s. XIII. El trabajo de Aristóteles, de significativa e ininterrumpida influencia en el ámbito de la filosofía práctica, sorteó para ese entonces no sólo los escollos de las prohibiciones que recayeron sobre otros importantes tratados del Estagirita, sino que además fue honrado por la (...) pluma de tres traductores de reconocida pulcritud y erudición: Burgundio de Pisa, Roberto Grosseteste y Guillermo de Moerbeke. Gracias al trabajo concatenado de diversos filólogos, paleógrafos y otros especialistas en estudios medievales, el itinerario de las traducciones latinas de Ethica Nicomachea representa hoy un modelo de cooperación científica, cuyos numerosos e incluso inesperados resultados se hallan a menudo desperdigados en una abultada bibliografía. Aquí se ofrece un mapa completo y exhaustivo de estos estudios, junto con algunas conclusiones sugeridas por una visión más panorámica de los distintos eventos. (shrink)

Parce que le Liber de causis etait au programme de l'enseignement universitaire parisien au XIIIe siecle, il etait naturel pour le professeur, frere Thomas d'Aquin, de composer un commentaire sur ce texte attribue alors a Aristote. Mais parce que, a ce moment meme, le dominicain Guillaume de Moerbeke venait de decouvrir les Elements de theologie de Proclus et de les traduire en latin (18 mai 1268), Thomas, enregsitrant aussitot cet apport nouveau, comprenait que le Liber de causis etait un (...) sous-produit des Elements de Proclus et devait donc etre retire a Aristote. Du meme coup, il saisissait la nature platonicienne de ce texte qui le rapprochait des doctrines du Pseudo-Denys et permettait d'evaluer son platonisme. C'est pourquoi le Commentaire de Thomas sur le Liber de causis offre une presentation des doctrines platoniciennes dans la construction theologiques des premiers principes. Dans l'elaboration de ce commentaire, Thomas se revele un veritable humaniste en avance de deux siecles sur les savants de la Renaissance. (shrink)

Based on unpublished texts of Estimaverunt Indi, Geomantia attributed to Willelm of Moerbeke and Breviloquium artis geomantie by Bartolomew of Parma, my contribution aims at presenting a general overview of the geomantic technique and its political applications. In order to achieve this aim, I will first offer a few preliminary considerations on the concept of natural divination.

The article analizes the several times of Proclus‘s reception by Nicholas of Cusa’s thought. The direct reading of Proclus can be established because Expositio in Parmenidem Platonis –Cod.Cus. 186– and Elementatio theological –Cod.Cus.195– (Moerbeke’s translation) and De theologia Platonis Libri VI –Cod.Cus.185– (Petrus Balbus’s translation) are in his Library in Bernkastel-Kues with his marginalia. The assimilation of doctrines can be considered assuming that the implicits and explicits references to Plato’s Diadochus, especially in the last works.