Aristoteles
De historia animalium
Translatio Guillelmi de Morbeka, Pars prima: lib. I-V
Pieter Beullens, Fernand Bossier (eds)
- Pages: 172 p.
- Size:170 x 255 mm
- Language(s):Latin, English
- Publication Year:2000
- € 50,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-90-04-11863-8
- Hardback
- Available
Pieter Beullens teaches Latin and Greek, and is researcher at the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Fernand Bossier († 2006) was professor of Greek at the University of Antwerp and senior researcher at the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium.
This volume contains the critical edition of the first Greek-Latin translation of books 1 to 5 of De historia animalium, Aristotle's longest treatise on biology. The translation was made by William of Moerbeke shortly after 1260.
Using the manuscript evidence as a starting-point, the editors examine the spread of this new source of ancient knowledge in the late 13th and early 14th century. The preface also contains a brief survey of the translation's first users, and further deals with the Greek sources of the translation, and the criteria for the reconstruction of the original wording of the text.
The edition is particularly important for classical philologists who want to compare the Latin version with the Greek text, for Latin lexicologists because of its vast variety of new terminology, and for all those interested in the spread of ancient scientific thought at the medieval universities and among scholars. It will be completed with the publication of the second part of the treatise (books 6-10), combined with a complete Latin-Greek and Greek-Latin lexicon.