¹ These commentaries (in their Latin translation) are now receiving an edition: The Greek Commentaries of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. In the Latin Translation of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1253), ed. Paul, H. Mercken, F., 3 vols., Corpus Latinum commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum VI.1 (Leiden, 1973); VI.3 (Leuven, 1991). On Salutati's familiarity with the Byzantine commentators, see n. 54 below.Google Scholar

The initial research for this article was funded by a fellowship for Medieval Latin literature and philology from the Fondazione Ezio Franceschini in Florence. Further research and the writing of this article were funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), grant 200–22–295. I wish to thank my colleagues at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Natural Philosophy (University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands), where this study was finished, for their stimulating insights into the Aristotelian commentary tradition. Special thanks are also due to Prof. Charles Lohr, who furnished me with printouts from his database of Aristotelian commentaries and offered suggestions.Google Scholar

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² Salutati, , Ep., 4.1:37–39. It is worthwhile to quote the text: “De scripto vero tuo quod in Ethicis compilasti, si respondent ultima primis, indubitatam audeo ferre sententiam, nichil umquam clarius, nichil copiosius, nichil verius super his quod in manus venerit scriptum esse. Neque enim Eustrachium, Ephesium Michaelem et Albertum Magnum commentatores solum exsuperas, sed Alberto, Gerardo, Gualtero de Burlei disputatorique tuo Iohanni Buridani, Henrico Theutono ordinis heremitarum, subtilissimo et copiosissimo questionum enucleatori; cuius scripta nescio si vidisti; per illa quidem, que duobus illis tuis quaternulis legi, nullam prorsus doctoris huius mentionem facis; nec istis tantum, sed Aquinati Thome Romanoque simul Egidio, longissimis spaciis antecellis, ut tibi cunctisque tecum habende sint grafie Deo, qui te quod scriberes inspiravit et quod perficeres adeo eleganter adiuvit.” This letter was brought to my attention by Bianchi, , “Un commento,” 53–54. Casini's commentary is listed in the Appendix below, no. 24.Google Scholar

³ Acciaiuoli's Expositio super libros Ethicorum (Florence, 1478) is examined especially in Bianchi, , “Un commento.” On this work see the Appendix below, no. 14. (Thomas and Giles of Rome), they too, like all the other commentators mentioned, spent most of their lifetimes in northern Europe; for most of them, the center was not Italy but Paris. This is why Salutati heaped so much praise on Francesco Casini — finally an indigenous Italian tradition might develop; its beginnings were promising indeed.Google Scholar

⁴ See especially Dunbabin, Jean, “The Two Commentaries of Albertus Magnus on the Nicomachean Ethics,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 30 (1963): 232–50.Google Scholar

⁵ For a fuller listing, including praelectiones, annotations, marginalia, and translations connected with the Ethics in Italy up to 1600, see Lines, , Teaching Virtue, Appendix C, 305–20 (an updated listing will be presented in my Moral Education in Renaissance Italy, in preparation). On the European interpretation of the Ethics during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, see especially Wieland, Georg, “The Reception and Interpretation of Aristotle's Ethics” in CHLMP, 657–72; Gauthier, , L'Éthique, 91–159; Kraye, Jill, “Moral Philosophy”; eadem, “Renaissance Commentaries.” Google Scholar

⁶ Compendia: anonymous (Assisi, BCom. 584), Bartolomeo da Pisa, Corrado d'Ascoli, and Guido Vernani da Rimini's Summa (Appendix, no. 1–4); Extracts (conclusiones and auctoritates): Geremia da Montagnone and Paulo Nicoletto Veneto (Appendix, nos. 10, 12); Prologues: Remigio Fiorentino (Appendix, no. 20); Lecturae: Guido Vernani (Appendix, no. 18); Quaestiones: anonymous (New York, Columbia Univ., Plimpton 17) and Giacomo da Pistoia (Appendix, nos. 17, 19).Google Scholar

⁷ The lost works are Guido Guezzi's Commentarium and Michele da Bologna's Quaestiones (Appendix, nos. 26 and 29). It is unclear whether Francesco Casini's commentary is from the fourteenth century or from the beginning of the fifteenth (see above). For convenience’ sake, I group it with the fifteenth-century works.Google Scholar

⁸ See, for example, the case of Petrus de Corveheda's Sententia (Appendix, no. 45), which is in fact a compendium. Google Scholar

⁹ Lohr, , Traditio 26:136, reports part of the dedication as follows: “Serenissimo principi domino Roberto Jerusalem et Siciliae Regi frater Jacobus de Alexandria ordinis minorum reverentiam et in eo qui est fons sapientiae … vestris itaque votis, quae mihi censeo reputanda praecepta, me coaptare desiderans, libros naturales, metaphysicales necnon et morales distinctis capitulis conatus sum ad evidentiam clariorem reducere….” Google Scholar

¹⁰ The uncertain works include Pietro d'Aquila's compendium (Appendix, no. 30) and two or three extracts: anonymous (Milan, BN AD.IX.20, possibly 15th century); anonymous (Modena, BEst., Fondo Est. 14); and Miliano da Spoleto (Appendix, nos. 31, 32, 35). The doubtful works include two compendia: anonymous (Vatican, Pal. lat. 1024) and Petrus de Corveheda's Sententia (Appendix, nos. 44, 45); likewise, it is doubtful that Petrus de Corveheda's Auctoritates notabiles (Appendix, no. 46) are to be connected with Italy.Google Scholar

¹¹ The questions are in Milan, BAmbr. M.56. Sup. and Vatican, Vat. lat. 829 (Appendix, nos. 41,43).Google Scholar

¹² See Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 37* and n. 99.Google Scholar

¹³ All of the manuscripts listed by Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 38*–39* refer to the work as Summa de virtutibus. Google Scholar

¹⁴ Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 37*–43*.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 41*: “At certe, … certum est opus fratris Guidonis e Thomae Sententia Libri Ethicorum totum pendere et nihil esse nisi huius epitomen, haud spernendam quidem, nam, omnibus quae ad Aristotelis verba explananda spectant omissis, ne sententiarum perpetuitatem interrumpat nec a doctrina mentem legentis distrahat, cui liber Aristotelis forsitan praesto non esset, omissisque omnibus subtilibus rationibus et argumentis, moralem doctrinam Aristotelis a Thoma digestam tradit, ipsis doctoris verbis saepius retentis.” Google Scholar

¹⁶ Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 37* and 41*; the Liber de virtutibus survives in a single manuscript: Venice, BMarc. VI, 13 (XV), fols. 7r-27v.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ullmann, , Studies, 81–115.Google Scholar

¹⁸ On florilegia see at least Grabmann, , Methoden, 156–88; Schmitt, C. B., Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 53–54; idem, “Auctoritates, Repertorium, Dicta, Sententiae, Flores, Thesaurus and Axiomata: Latin Aristotle florilegia in the Renaissance,” in Aristoteles: Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet, vol. 2, Kommentierung, Überlieferung, Nachleben, ed. Wiesner, J. (Berlin-New York, 1987), 515–37; Hamesse, Jacqueline, Les Auctoritates Aristotelis. Un florilège médiéval: Études historiques et tradition critique (Louvain, 1974); eadem, “Les florilèges philosophiques, instruments de travail des intellectuels à la fin du moyen âge et à la Renaissance,” in Filosofia e teologia nel Trecento. Studi in ricordo di Eugenio Randi , ed. Bianchi, Luca (Louvain, 1994), 479–508; eadem, on Florilegia philosophica, forthcoming in Typologie des sources médiévales. Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cf. Munk Olsen, B., “Les classiques latins dans les florilèges médiévaux,” Revue d'histoire des textes 9 (1979): 46–121 and 10 (1980): 115–162, esp. 144–45.Google Scholar

²⁰ Weiss, , Il primo secolo, 15–50; Ullmann, , Studies, 81–82.Google Scholar

²¹ For Paris, see Šenko, W., Repertorium commentariorum medii aevi in Aristotelem latinorum quae in Bibliothecis publicis Parisiis asservantur, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1982). For England, see now Luscombe, David, “The Ethics and the Politics in Britain in the Middle Ages,” in Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages, Proceedings of the International Conference at Cambridge, 8–11 April 1994, ed. Marenbon, John, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale 5 (Turnhout, 1996), 337–49.Google Scholar

²² The fact becomes evident by perusing the Aristotelian repertories for Vienna, Erfurt, Prague, and so forth. See, for example, Korolec, , Repertorium Universitatis Pragensis; Markowski, Miecislaus and Włodek, Sophia, Repertorium commentariorum medii aevi in Aristotelem Latinorum quae in Bibliotheca Iagellonica Cracoviae asservantur (Warsaw, 1974); Markowski, Miecislaus, Repertorium commentariorum medii aevi in Aristotelem Latinorum quae in bibliothecis Wiennae asservantur (Warsaw, 1985); idem, , Repertorium commentariorum medii aevi in Aristotelem Latinorum quae in Bibliotheca Amploniana Erffordiae asservantur (Breslau, 1987).Google Scholar

²³ Florence, BRicc. 111 (XIV; cf. AL no. 1418 [sign. BLaur., C. 553]); Florence, BLaur., Plut. XII Sin. Cod. 7 (XIV), fols. 76r-142v (cf. Marchesi, , L'Etica, 40).Google Scholar

²⁴ See the literature cited for these various authors in the Appendix, under the individual commentators.Google Scholar

²⁵ On Guido Guezzi and Michele da Bologna see the Appendix, nos. 26 and 29.Google Scholar

²⁶ The latter manuscript may not be connected with Florence if the author of the annotations is to be identified with Petrus Landelberg (see fol. 66v: “Liber magistri Petri Landelberg”). The paternity of the annotations, however, does not affect the provenance of the manuscript.Google Scholar

²⁷ Examples are Brunetto Latini's Tesoretto, Dante's Convivio. Google Scholar

²⁸ Examples are Michele da Bologna, Guido Vernani, Remigio Fiorentino. Paulo Nicoletto affirms that he wrote his compendium during his studies in the Augustinian Studium of Padua (see Appendix, no. 12).Google Scholar

²⁹ See Lines, David A., “The Importance of Being Good: Moral Philosophy in the Italian Universities, 1300–1600,” Rinascimento, n.s. 36 (1996): 139–93, esp. 141–48.Google Scholar

³⁰ On the prologue and its relationship to teaching, see Panella, E., “Un'introduzione,” esp. 70. Gauthier thinks that some notes in Vat. lat. 1172 (XIV), fols. 3v-90r represent a lectura given by Guido Vernani da Rimini in Bologna to a lay audience. However, Guido refers to readers of his work rather than to hearers; if these were notes taken from a lecture, one would not expect them to address instead a reading public: “… in praesenti opere prosequar plano stile, ut legentes intelligant et secundum doctrinam moralium boni fiant” (Vat. lat. 1172, fol. 3v, quoted in Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 40* and note). Gauthier quotes other manuscripts as well, which accord with the fact that legentes are in view: “ut rudes sine multo laboris studio de moribus et felicitate erudiantur, et iam scientes ea quibus in hac scientia indigent possint facilius invenire …”; and especially, “Procedemus autem quantum poterimus plano stilo, ut legentes faciliter et clare possint intelligere que dicentur et opere adimplere que ad vitam vere milicie requiruntur” (Venezia, BMarc. VI.13 [XV], fol. 7r).Google Scholar

³¹ Mattesini, F., “La biblioteca francescana di S. Croce e Fra Tedaldo della Casa,” Studi francescani 57 (1960): 254–316; Vicario, Mario Claudio, “Scheda 8,” in Umanesimo e Padri della Chiesa. Manoscritti e incunaboli di testi patristici da Francesco Petrarca al primo Cinquecento (Catalogo della mostra, 5 feb.-9 agosto 1997, Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana), ed. Gentile, Sebastiano (Florence, 1997), 153–56.Google Scholar

³² This fact is suggested by the silence about Tedaldo in Park, Katherine, “The Readers at the Florentine Studio according to the Communal Fiscal Records (1357–1380, 1413–1446),” Rinascimento, n.s. 20 (1980): 249–310.Google Scholar

³³ Prof. Alfonso Maierù informs me that Galvano Fiamma read moral philosophy in the Dominican convent of Milan in 1315: “Cum … hoc anno Studium philosophiae moralis in ordine sit introductum” (cf. Airaghi, Laura, “Studenti e professori di S. Eustorgio in Milano dalle origini del convento alla metà del XV secolo,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 54 [1984]: 355–80, esp. 357–58). However, it is not known in what capacity Galvano did this reading, nor for how long he taught. Maierù also observes that in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, there was a reader of physics and one of metaphysics, but no reader of ethics (cf. Orlandi, Stefano, ed., Necrologio di Santa Maria Novella, 1235–1504, 2 vols. [Florence, 1955] 2:520). He concludes that any teaching of the Ethics seems irregular at best (Alfonso Maierù, private communication, 12 Jan. 1997).Google Scholar

³⁴ See the works by Giacomo da Pistoia, Corrado d'Ascoli, and Guido Vernani's Lectura and Summa. Paulo Nicoletto Veneto relies on Thomas as well as on Eustratius and Albert the Great for his compendium. Google Scholar

³⁵ *Florence, BLaur., Plut. XIII Sin. Cod. 6 (XIII), fols. 77r–124v; *Cod. 11 (XIII), fols. 103r–179r; Vatican, BAV, Ottob. lat. 2214 (XIV), fols. 1r–88v; *Pal. lat. 1012 (XIV/XV), fols. 1r–57v; 1017 (XIV), fols. 1r–79r; Urb. lat. 1325 (XIV), fols. 1r–97v (esp. 1r^a–18r^b). I mark with an asterisk manuscripts I have seen; for the others I rely on Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, passim.Google Scholar

³⁶ *Bologna, BUniv. 2252 (XIV), 109 ff.; Poppi, BCom. 14 (XIV in.), fols. 2v–64v; Siena, BCom. Intr. H.VI.1 (XIV ex.), fols. 1r–86v; H.VI.4 (XIV), fols. 1r^a–4v^b; Vatican, BAV, Vat. lat. 2996 (XIV), fols. 1r–58v (esp. 11v–18r, 24v–25v).Google Scholar

³⁷ *Parma, BPalat., Fondo Parm. Palat. 65 (XIV), fols. 1r–84v; *Siena, BCom. Intronati L.III.17 (XIV), fols. 1r–96v; *Vatican, BAV, Ottob. lat. 2524 (XIV), fols. 101r–140v; *Pal. lat. 1020 (XIV), fols. 2r–118v; and Vat. lat. 2995 (XIV), fols. 6r^a–63r^b.Google Scholar

³⁸ *Bologna, BUniv. 2295 (XIV), fols. 62r–106v.Google Scholar

³⁹ Thomas's Sententia survives in at least 125 complete and incomplete manuscripts, of which forty-one are in Italian libraries. Some of these belonged to eminent Italians (e.g., Vatican, BAV, Urb. lat. 212 [XV] and 1366 [XIV] belonged to Federico II of Urbino). In addition to the sheer number of manuscripts in Italy, there are manuscripts now elsewhere bearing indications of ownership by Italians (e.g., BNF, Lat. 6457, XIII/XIV). On the Sententia and its manuscripts see Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 9*, 14*.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Lines, , “The Importance of Being Good” (n. 29 above), passim.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Michael, Bernd, “Buridans moralphilosophische Schriften, ihre Leser und Benutzer im späten Mittelalter,” in Das Publikum politischer Theorie im 14. Jahrhundert, ed. Miethke, Jürgen with Bühler, Arnold, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs: Kolloquien 21 (Munich, 1992), 139–51, esp. 149–51.Google Scholar

⁴² See Heidingsfelder, G., Albert von Sachsen: sein Lebensgang und sein Kommentar zur Nicomachischen Ethik des Aristoteles (Münster i. W., 1927); Lohr, , Traditio 23:352.Google Scholar

⁴³ See Lines, , Teaching Virtue, 210–12; Kraye, , “Renaissance Commentaries,” 105. On Lefèvre, besides the literature and works cited in Lohr, Charles H., Latin Aristotle Commentaries, 2, Renaissance Authors (Florence, 1988), 138–42, see CHRP, 823–24 and Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (1450–1536). Actes du colloque d’Étaples les 7 et 8 novembre 1992 …, ed. Pernot, Jean-François (Paris, 1995).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The reasons for the Italians’ loss of leadership in the interpretation of the Ethics in the sixteenth century are too complex to be discussed here. Some hints can be found in Poppi, , “Il problema.” On Vettori, see Kraye, , “Renaissance Commentaries,” 114–15 and Lines, , “Ethics as Philology”; on Piccolomini, see at least Poppi, , “Il problema” and Lines, , Teaching Virtue, 222–63.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ The fifteenth-century compendia are represented by five works: Acciaiuoli, Donato, Barbaro, Ermolao Jr., Girolamo Savonarola, Giovanni Battista Cambio, and Ludovico da Ferrara (Appendix, no. 5–9). Domenico di Fiandra's Compendium philosophiae moralis (Appendix, no. 23) has not survived. The only certain extract is by Giovanni di Casale (Appendix, no. 11). There are two or three anonymous extracts in Milan, BN AD.IX.20 (possibly from the fourteenth century), Pavia, BUniv., Aldini 557, and Vatican, Urb. lat. 207 (Appendix, nos. 31, 33, and 34). The four surviving commentaries are by Agostino Favaroni da Roma, Donato Acciaiuoli, Guglielmo Becchi Fiorentino, and Niccolò Tignosi (Appendix, nos. 13–16). Five other commentaries have gone lost; they were written by Angelo Catone da Benevento, Cristoforo Landino, Francesco Casini, Francesco Nani, and Giovanni Becchetti da Fabriano (Appendix, nos. 21, 22, 24, 25, and 28). It is not certain whether three anonymous commentaries (in Naples, BN VIII.G.52; Subiaco, BAbbaz. XXIV; and Sydney, Univ. of Sydney Lib., Nicholson 15) should be associated with Italy (Appendix, nos. 37–39). The same is true of the Lectiones in Ethicam et Politicam in Genoa, BUniv. F.VII.9 and the Recollectiones in Oxford, Bodl. lib., lat. class. c. 9 (Appendix, nos. 40, 42). Note that no questions seem to survive for the fifteenth century.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ For the manuscript diffusion of Bruni's writings see Hankins, James, Repertorium Brunianum: A Critical Guide to the Writings of Leonardo Bruni , Fonti per la storia dell'Italia medievale, Subsidia 5 (Rome, 1997–), vol. 1, Handlist of Manuscripts. Google Scholar

⁴⁷ I have not examined Subiaco, BAbbaz. XXIV; if this anonymous commentary were related to classroom teaching, all the surviving fifteenth-century commentaries would either come from university courses in moral philosophy or have been written by university professors. One should also consider, however, the lost commentaries of Angelo Catone da Benevento, Francesco Nani, and Giovanni Becchetti da Fabriano, which were probably not an outgrowth of university teaching.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See Park, , “The Readers” (n. 32 above), 275, 277.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ This does not, of course, explain what brought about this increasing tendency to lecture on the Ethics in the universities and to leave behind commentaries associated with this teaching. At least in Florence, however, these effects can be associated with the humanist audience of the Ethics (see the last section of this paper). The history of the Renaissance universities and of humanism have too often been treated as separate and independent phenomena.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Kristeller, P. O., “Thomism and the Italian Thought of the Renaissance,” in idem, Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning, ed. Mahoney, Edward P. (Durham, N.C., 1974; repr. New York, 1992), 29–91.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Bianchi, , “Un commento,” 35–36.Google Scholar

⁵² See Florence, BN, Naz. II.I.104; often one reads in the margins “S.T.” (“Sanctus Thomas”), followed by snippets from his commentary.Google Scholar

⁵³ For reasons that remain unclear, Buridan was not very influential in fifteenth-century Italy. On this topic, see especially Michael, , “Buridans moralphilosophische Schriften” (n. 41 above). Much less informative is Garin, Eugenio, “La circolazione in Italia, di pensatori quali Buridano … Giornale storico della filosofia italiana 37 (1958): 153–54.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Florence, BN, Conv. Soppr., I.5.21 (XIII), fols. 1r–227v: see AL no. 1408; de la Mare, A. C., The Handwriting of Italian Humanists (Oxford, 1973), 1/1:32, n. 4; 34–35 (plates IXb and IXe); Franceschini, Ezio, Scritti di filologia latina medievale, 2 vols. (Padua, 1976) 2:463.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ “Plures viri clarissimi libros istos commentati sunt: Eustratius, Averrois, Albertus et sanctus Thomas, quorum palma est. At novo labore fuit opus ut haec nova translatio, quam Leonardus arretinus vir nostri temporis doctus et orator summus ediderat, nequamquam scrineis aut pluteis truderetur” (Florence, BLaur., Plut. LXXXVI, 49, fol. 1r^a–b).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See Bianchi, , “Un commento,” 43–51.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See AL no. 1561; AL Suppl. p. 149; Gauthier, , Sententia Thomae, 26*–27*.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Cf. AL no. 1394.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ It is actually uncertain whether to connect these two works with the teaching of Aristotle's Ethics. Toscanella apparently taught poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy, and we do not know for which course this generic oration was given; see Müllner, K., Reden und Briefe italienischer Humanisten (Vienna, 1899); repr. with intro., bibliog., and indices by Hanna Barbara Gerl (Munich, 1970), 192–97. As a testimony to his interest in the Ethics there is, however, a reference to a manuscript copied by him; see Franceschini, Adriano, Giovanni Aurispa e la sua biblioteca. Notizie e documenti (Padua, 1976), 92, item 180. Lapo's prolusion to a course on moral philosophy (Müllner, , Reden und Briefe, 139–42) does not specify the intended teaching text.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ See especially Garin, Eugenio, “Le traduzioni umanistiche di Aristotele nel secolo XV,” Atti e Memorie dell'Accademia Fiorentina di Scienze morali “La Colombaria” 16, n.s. 2 (1947–50 [but 1951]): 55–104; Lines, , Teaching Virtue, 168–74.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Chrysoloras was in Florence “docendo grecas litteras et doctrinam”; see Statuti della Università e studio fiorentino dell'anno MCCCLXXXVII, ed. Gherardi, Alessandro (Florence, 1881), 370 (14 March 1397). Cf. Cammelli, G., I dotti bizantini e le origini dell'umanesimo, 1, Manuele Crisolora (Florence, 1941), 43–98; Garin, Eugenio, Il ritorno dei filosofi antichi (Naples, 1983), 35 ff.; and Weiss, Roberto, “Gli inizi dello studio del greco a Firenze,” in Medieval and Humanist Greek: Collected Essays (Padua, 1977), 227–54.Google Scholar

⁶² Rerum suo tempore gestorum commentarius, ed. Pierro, Di, 431–32, quoted in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts , ed. Griffiths, Gordon, Hankins, James, and Thompson, David, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 46 and The Renaissance Society of America, Renaissance Text Series 10 (Binghamton, N.Y., 1987), 23.Google Scholar

⁶³ A possibility also envisaged by Robey, David, “Humanism and Education in the Early Quattrocento: The De ingenuis moribus of P. P. Vergerlo,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 42.1 (1980): 27–58.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The manuscripts are listed in Hankins, , Repertorium Brunianum (n. 46 above). Bruni's work on the Economics has been especially studied by Josef Soudek, in “The Genesis and Tradition of Leonardo Bruni's Annotated Latin Version of the (Pseudo-) Aristotelian Economics Scriptorium 12 (1958): 260–68; idem, “Leonardo Bruni and His Public: A Statistical and Interpretative Study of His Annotated Latin Version of the ps.-Aristotelian Economics,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5 (1968): 49–136; idem, “A Fifteenth-Century Humanistic Bestseller: The Manuscript Diffusion of Leonardo Bruni's Annotated Latin Version of the ps.-Aristotelian Economics,” in Philosophy and Humanism: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller , ed. Mahoney, Edward P. (Leiden, 1976), 129–43.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See especially the bibliographical references in Gerl, Hanna Barbara, Philosophie und Philologie: Leonardo Bruni's Übertragung der Nikomachischen Ethik in ihren philosophischen Prämissen (Munich, 1981) and Hankins, James, “Translation Practice in the Renaissance: The Case of Leonardo Bruni,” in Méthodologie de la traduction: de l'antiquité à la Renaissance , ed. Ternes, Charles Marie and Mund-Dopchie, Monique (Luxembourg, 1994), 154–75.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Hankins, , “The New Language,” in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, 201–12. This does not of course mean, as some have suggested, that the humanists were per se uninterested in philosophy. On the relationship of good style and philosophy, see most recently Kraye, Jill, “Philologists and Philosophers,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism , ed. Kraye, J. (Cambridge, 1996), 142–60.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The fact can be deduced from the end of Becchi's commentary (see n. 68 below) and from Tignosi's defense treatise, Nicolai Fulginatis ad Cosmam Medicem in illos qui mea in Aristotelis commentarla criminantur opusculum. See Lines, , “Faciliter Edoceri.” Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Florence, BLaur., Aed. 153 (XV), fol. 128: “Haec pauca super libris his Aristotelis, omissis aliis, quae Commento non congruunt, exaravimus; atque id maxime, ut illis morem gererem, qui humanis studiis dediti, non dubiorum multitudinem, non rerum varietatem, non difficultatum perplexitatem, sed philosophi sinceram et claram intelligentiam habere perquirunt, quam, ut arbitror, haec cum legerint, adsequentur. Florentiae, MCCCCLV [=1456], die IX Feb.” The date is misprinted as 1465 in Garin, , La cultura filosofica, 71n.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ A comparative example of broader coverage is offered by Ermolao Barbaro's teaching in Padua. A manuscript of the Ethics and Politics (now Columbia Univ. Lib., Plimpton 17) has Barbaro's following note after the Politics: “Libros politicorum octo praelegi in gymnasio patavino totumque opus perfeci X kalendas martias MCCCCLXXVI quodque magis mireris tribus mensibus et diebus XVIII completa est interpretatio a nobis duce deo quo etiam auctore superiore anno X libros ethicorum opus a nullo ante me perfectum fueram interpretatus”; the note is quoted in Kristeller, , “Un codice padovano,” 346. Barbaro may also have tried to comment on the text more directly, since we have from him a compendium, which includes some questions only at the very end (see Kraye, , “Renaissance Commentaries,” 102–3). On the other hand, he used Grosseteste's text. On Barbaro see the Appendix below, no. 6.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ This should not, however, be considered a specifically humanistic trait, since commentaries from the thirteenth century on always argued that ethics, though a science, remained a practical science. See especially Wieland, Georg, Ethica — Scientia Practica: Die Anfänge der philosophischen Ethik im 13. Jahrhundert , Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, n.s. 21 (Münster, 1981). Cf. Celano, Anthony, “The End of Practical Wisdom: Ethics as Science in the Thirteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (1995): 225–43.Google Scholar

⁷¹ The classic formulation is in Kristeller, P. O., “Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance,” Byzantion 17 (1944–45): 346–74; repr. in idem, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (n. 19 above) 1:553–83.Google Scholar

⁷² On all this, see Lines, , “Faciliter Edoceri.” Google Scholar

⁷³ See n. 69 above. An interesting parallel case in Bologna is discussed in Poppi, Antonino, “Beroaldo e Codro sulla natura della filosofia e sull'etica,” in Sapere e/è potere: Discipline, dispute e professioni nell'università medievale e moderna. Atti del IV Convegno, Bologna 1989, 3 vols. (Bologna, 1990) 1:39–63.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Kraye, , “Renaissance Commentaries,” 104–5.Google Scholar