XO14 Tade enestin en tēde biblō = Haec Aristotelis uolumina in hoc libro impressa continentur

Tade enestin en tēde biblō [Haec Aristotelis volumina in hoc libro impressa continentur] (Venice: apud Aldum, 1498)

Penn Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Folio Inc A-959 vol. 5

This volume – containing Aristotle’s ethical and political treatises – is part of one of the highest achievements of Venetian printer Aldus Manutius: the edition of Aristotle’s Greek works (excluding the Poetics and the Rhetoric), which appeared between 1495 and 1498. The five in-folio volumes are extremely elegant, printed in a refined Greek font designed by Aldus’s usual collaborator, Francesco Griffo. The edition was the result of a collective effort involving several scholars, such as Thomas Linacre and the physicians Francesco Cavalli and Niccolò Leoniceno. They used several codices, to establish the text to publish. After decades of debate about the quality of the Latin medieval translations of Aristotle, the possibility of reading his works in the original Greek was seen by many humanists as an opportunity to recover his eloquence, which medieval Latin versions would have betrayed. On the other hand, several University professors equally embraced the Greek Aristotle, using it in their lectures to gain a better philosophical understanding of the texts. Indeed, there were often blurred lines between university and humanistic cultures.