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Book Series
Aristoteles Latinus, vol. XVI 1a
- Pages: approx. clxx + 50 p.
- Size:178 x 254 mm
- Language(s):Latin, English, Greek
- Publication Year:2026
- € 220,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62165-4
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Jul/26)
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Aristotle's treatise on the factors influencing lifespan, as read for the first time in the medieval Latin West.
Subject(s)
BIO
Tilke Nelis is postdoctoral researcher at the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium). She obtained her PhD with a dissertation on the translatio vetus of Aristotle’s De longitudine et brevitate vitae (critical edition and reception study). Currently, she is preparing a new critical edition of the translatio vetus of Aristotle’s De anima.
Summary
Aristotle's De longitudine et brevitate vitae is a natural philosophical treatise on the factors influencing lifespan in plants and animals. It became accessible to Latin scholars in the medieval West by means of its first Greek-Latin translation. This translation, also known as the translatio vetus, was made by James of Venice in the first half of the twelfth century. Being part of a collection called the Corpus vetustius, James’s translation of the treatise circulated widely, especially during the thirteenth century.
The present volume offers the first critical edition of James's translation of De longitudine et brevitate vitae, including Greek-Latin and Latin-Greek indices. The edition is preceded by both an in-depth examination of the known Latin manuscript tradition in its entirety and a penetrating inquiry into the translation’s relation to the Greek tradition of the treatise as we know it today. The 112 extant Latin manuscripts go back no further than the thirteenth century. They reveal that James’s translation has been subject to desperate contamination and textual corruption. The Greek model used by James is now lost. This model, however, must have been very closely related to the Greek treatise as transmitted in a few extant manuscripts dating from the fourteenth century.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Chapter 1: Aristotle’s De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae
1.1 The Ancient Greek Text
1.2 Two Medieval Greek-Latin Translations
1.3 Averroes’s Epitome and the Reception of the Translatio Vetus: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 2: The Known Extant Manuscripts Transmitting the Translatio Vetus
2.1 Preliminary Remarks
2.2 Conspectus Codicum
Chapter 3: The Relation between the Translatio Vetus and the Known Greek Tradition
3.1 State of the Art
3.2 Greek Parva Naturalia Editions Containing De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae
3.3 A Comparison between the Translatio Vetus and the Greek Text in Manuscripts ZCc(*)Mi
3.4 Deviations from the Text in ZCc(*)Mi, or from the Known Greek Tradition in General, in Nearly the Entire Translatio Vetus Tradition
3.5 Double Readings in the Translatio Vetus Tradition
Chapter 4: The Translatio Vetus: Editorial Principles
4.1 Selection of the Best Manuscripts
4.2 Constitution of the Text
4.3 Orthography
4.4 Chapter Division and Punctuation
4.5 The Latin Critical Apparatus
4.6 The Greek-Latin Comparative Apparatus
4.7 The Indices Verborum
Bibliography
Appendix I: Corrections and Additions to Variants in ZCcMi as Mentioned in the Greek Editions of De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae by Ross and Siwek
Appendix II: Analysis of the Individual Translatio Vetus Witnesses: The Correspondences to Variants Exclusively Present in ZCc(*)Mi
De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae - translatio Iacobi
Conspectus siglorum
Textus
Indices
