XO20 Liber de vita et morte Arestotelis: metrice co[n]scripta cu[m] glosa interlineali

Liber de vita et morte Arestotelis: metrice co[n]scripta cu[m] glosa interlineali (Leipzig: Conrad Kachelofen, [1492?])

Penn Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Inc A-1053

This is a poetic biography of Aristotle, first printed in Germany in the late fifteenth century. According to polymath Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), it was published by professors from Cologne, who supported Aristotle’s piety and believed his soul was saved. The poem, partly a rewrite of the apocryphal Liber de Pomo and possibly written in the fourteenth century, has more than 400 verses and celebrates Aristotle’s excellence. The erasures in this printed book are corrections of paleographical errors that occurred in transcribing the manuscript that was used by the press.