XO15 Leticha del magnio filosefo Aristotile

Taddeo Alderotti, Leticha del magnio filosefo Aristotile [Italy], [between 1450 and 1499?]

Penn Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Oversize Ms. Codex 243

This manuscript, dating to the second half of the 15th century, is a copy of Taddeo Alderotti’s translation in vernacular Italian of an abbreviated version of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, based on the so-called Summa Alexandrinorum and other sources. Taddeo Alderotti (1223-1295) was a Florentine physician. He taught anatomy at the University of Bologna, combining the scholastic method with empirical clinical analysis. His Aristotelian vernacularization was criticized by no less than Dante in Convivio, I, x, 10. There, Dante explicitly condemns Alderotti’s “poor” translation as damaging to the reputation of the vernacular as a language of elevated discourse.

Nevertheless, Alderotti’s version of the abridged Ethics was very influential. His vernacular was close to Latin and maintained conceptual rigor. Still, it was meant to be brief and not require commentary (as it usually happened, instead, for the Latin texts used in university teaching). Alderotti's version is a testament to the interest in Aristotle's ethical doctrines, which were a secondary subject within university halls, and his vernacularization made the text accessible to a larger readership.

This manuscript was once accompanied by a treatise on the cardinal virtues, now housed at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Marston 43). The combination of these two texts suggests the goal of placing Aristotle in a Christian context.

Achille Giaretta