XO16 [Organon]

[Organon], Italy, between 1450 and 1499

Penn Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Ms. Codex 765

Born in Constantinople between 1405 and 1415, John Argyropoulos (d. 1487) studied philosophy in Padua and then taught in Florence, producing influential Latin translations of the corpus Aristotelicum. This splendid manuscript, which includes dedicatory letters to Cosimo and Piero de’ Medici, contains his translations of some of Aristotle’s logical works, which represented the foundation of the university curriculum. Argyropoulos’s versions – which read like paraphrases – were meant to replace medieval translations of the Philosopher’s corpus. The script of this manuscript, its layout, and decoration are typical of fifteenth-century humanistic books.