Abstract

The philosophical text is an integral part of the vast humanist project of restoring ancient culture that flourished from the 15th century onwards in Italy and throughout Europe. One cannot philosophise without commenting. If the three major philological practices - editing, translating, and commenting - the foundations of the humanist approach, remain the heirs of the ancient schools and the scholastic university, the humanist gesture renews them by bringing a new methodological rigour and openness. From the university institution to the new centres of knowledge, the frontier is porous and philosophical commentary reveals itself to be the privileged place where various currents meet. It is the dialectic that is established between different approaches that testifies to the philosophical commentary of the Renaissance rather than a radically different and opposed practice. The traditional commentary is nonetheless inflected, and a new way of philosophizing is developed: the enlargement of the corpus and the opening to new currents give the practice of philosophical commentary a remarkable plasticity. The studies gathered in this volume aim to analyse the humanist refoundation of ancient philosophy through the activity of commentary throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.