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INCUNABLE 1483 ARISTOTLE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Politics Economics 1ST AVERROES Arab
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INCUNABLE 1483 ARISTOTLE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Politics Economics 1ST AVERROES Arab
Price: US $12886.00
[Early Printing - Incunabula - Venice] [Greek Classics in Latin translation] [Greek Philosophy]
[Ethics] [Politics] [Economics] [Medieval Arabic Philosophy]

Venice, printed by Andreas Torresanus de Asula and Bartholomaeus de Blavis de Alexandria for Johannes de Colonia, 3 Feb. 1483.
Text in Latin. VERY RARE.

A complete and very wide-margined example of this beautiful and imposing edition in Royal Folio format (almost 43 cm tall) OF ONE OF THE MILESTONES OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. This magnificent incunabulum, printed in double columns in very elegant gothic types is a true masterpiece of Italian Renaissance typography, produced at the press of Andrea Torresani d\'Asola, FUTURE FATHER-IN-LAW AND PARTNER OF ALDUS MANUTIUS.

The volume Includes the EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE INFLUENTIAL COMMENTARY ON ARISTOTLE\'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS BY THE EMINENT MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC SCHOLAR IBN RUSHD (1126 - 1198), translated into Latin in 1244 by Hermannus Alemanus. It is preceded here by the Latin text of the Nicomachean Ethics itself in its first complete translation by Robert Grosseteste (1246-8), and followed by the Latin text of Aristotle\'s Politica translated by William of Moerbeke, as well as the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica in Latin translation by Durandus de Alvernia.

All three of these treatises were known to the Middle Ages in various 13th-century translations, and were also influential in the Renaissance because of their secular approach to human and political relationships.

This First Edition of Ibn Rushd\'s Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics assumes even greater importance due to the fact that the Arabic original of the work has been lost.

This splendid folio was printed as one of six individual and independent volumes forming the monumental Torresanus/de Blavis edition of Aristotle\'s Opera in Latin, edited by Nicoletus Vernia, which was THE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION OF ARISTOTLE\'S COLLECTED WORKS, called by Joseph Moss \"a very beautiful, and by far the most complete edition of Aristotle, in Latin, which has yet appeared.\" (Moss, Manual of classical bibliography, London 1825, vol.I, p.106)

The editor, Nicoletto Vernia (d.1499), was the leading professor of natural philosophy at the University of Padua. Vernia was probably the most famous Aristotelian scholar of his day, and the teacher of Agostino Nifo and Pietro Pomponazzi.

\"The Opera edition of 1483 represents the consolidation of the medieval tradition of Averroes commentaries, as far as it was to be made available in the Renaissance, and it provided the basic format of later editions through 1542. [...] Nicoletus Vernia served as the editor of the 1483 edition, and he tells us in his preface that the impulse for the work came from Marcus Sanutus while the latter was studying in Padua and while his father Franciscus Sanutus was serving as prefect of Padua.\" (Philosophy and Humanism: Reinaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, p.118-9)

All the volumes of the 1483 Torresanus edition of Aristotle\'s Opera are extremely scarce; complete sets are exceedingly rare and are now virtually unobtainable. BL ISTC locates only one complete set in the UK and only one in the US, the latter being a magnificent copy on vellum in Pierpont Morgan Library, with luxurious illumination by Girolamo da Cremona (sometimes described as \"the most beautiful book in the world\"). Individual volumes were obviously sold separately as well as in sets. The Ethics volume (vol. III.2) is among the rarest: the only other known copy in the US forms a part of the Pierpont Morgan Library set mentioned above.

The Nicomachean Ethics written circa 340 B.C. is Aristotle\'s best-known work on ethics. The work, which plays a pre-eminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum, which were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle\'s son, Nicomachus.

The theme of the work is the Socratic question which had previously been explored in Plato\'s works, of how men should best live. The work pertains to practical rather than theoretical philosophy, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words, it does not only contemplate about good living, but also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle\'s other practical work, Politics (also included in this volume), which similarly strives for betterment of the human behaviour. However, ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.

The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most important philosophical works of all time, and had a vast impact upon the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of Medieval philosophy. It therefore - indirectly - became critical in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are well known in their own right, within different fields. In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread, especially in Europe.

\"No single work of philosophy exercised such a profound influence on the development of Western moral thought as Aristotle\'s Nicomachean Ethics. Until the early thirteenth century, morality was mainly discussed in a theological context, with the Bible, patristic literature, and the Latin classics as its chief authorities. After its rediscovery by the Latins, the Nicomachean Ethics not only gained great authority among theologians, but also provided the framework for a philosophical debate on human virtue and happiness, in apparent detachment from religious concerns. Ever since, Aristotle\'s work has remained a point of reference in any philosophical discussion of morality.\" (István P. Bejczy, Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle\'s Nicomachean Ethics: 1200-1500, p.1)

In addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be, in importance, prior to the family - which in turn is prior to the individual, \"for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part\". He also famously stated that \"man is by nature a political animal\". Aristotle conceived of politics as being a function of an organism rather than that of a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which could exist without the others. Aristotle\'s conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to view human communities in this manner.

Also included in this 1483 edition is the work titled Oeconomica (\"Economics\"), formerly ascribed to Aristotle but believed by modern scholars to have been written by a student - either of Aristotle or of his successor Theophrastus. The work\'s title is derived from the Greek word oikos, meaning household. The term economics originally referred to household management and the roles that different members of the household should perform in order to run it efficiently. In a broad sense, Aristotle considers the household as the beginning of economics as a whole. The natural, every day activities of maintaining a house are essential to the beginning of the economy. From farming, cleaning, cooking to hiring workers and guarding your property, the household becomes the center for modern understanding of a society. Aristotle also describes four different types of economies which he terms the Royal Economy, the Satrapic Economy, the Political Economy, and the Personal Economy.

Aristotle\'s ideas on the economic life of society are found aplenty in his Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics as well, and that is where Averroes often contributes particularly valuable new insights.
\"In the Andalusian part of the Islamic world, Aristotle\'s Nicomachean Ethics with its theorems on the terms of trade and the monetarization of the economy, underwent a spectacular revival in the trend-setting commentaries of the Arab scholar Ibn Rushd. Averroës, as he was called in the Latin West, sided with the political and religious reform movement against the traditional establishment and adapted the Aristotelian economic theorems to his own framework of thought. [...]

\"In keeping with his own theoretical focus and conditioned by the Islamic context, the Andalusian sowed the seeds for the medieval tradition in Aristotelian economics. In the Muslim world he found no audience, but some leading scholastics of the Latin West were influenced by what came to be called Averroism. In the field of practical philosophy Ibn Rushd wrote commentaries on Aristotle\'s Nicomachean Ethics (the text of Politics was not in his possession) and on Plato\'s Republic. [...]
[Ibn Rushd] elaborates Aristotle\'s discourse on ethics rather faithfully, but in a more synthetic way than the original. [...] In some important parts of the discourse on the terms of exchange and on money (NE: V,5), the glosses of the Cordoban interpreter part company with Aristotle\'s original text. In the passage where Aristotle, on metaphysical grounds, admits \'the impossibility for products so different to be rendered commensurable in the strict sense\', Ibn Rushd elucidated the problem somewhat with an interpolation of his own. [...]

\"In the Stagirite\'s discourse, money had only a footing in the exchange relations as a convenient but artificial medium. ... The Andalusian scholar, who lived in a civilization where the monetarization of exchange relations had become an accepted and evident practice, had not the same moral apprehensions against the development of commerce, and its mediation by money, as had the Greek philosophers. In a clear style, the three functions of money are described: money is a medium of exchange (instrumentum conegociandi); it is a standard measure of commensurability between different things (cognitio coequalitatis inter res diversas); and it is also a reserve of purchasing power for the future (tanqnarn fide jussor supplendi necessitatem futuram). While the Greek philosopher professed a monetary nominalism based on pure convention, the Arab scholar recognizes the mediating function of money in exchange relations as a legitimate and necessary practice.\" (L. Baeck, \"The Mediterranean trajectory of Aristotle\'s economic canon\", in M. Psalidopoulos (ed.): Canon in the History of Economics, p.4,.9-10)

Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the Macedonian city of Stagirus. At eighteen, he joined Plato\'s Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BCE). His writings cover many subjects - including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government - and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip of Macedon, became the tutor of his son Alexander the Great. \"Aristotle was the first genuine scientist in history [...] [and] every scientist is in his debt.\" (Encyclopedia Britannica),

Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes, was born in 1126 in Cordoba in Moorish Spain, and died in 1198 in Morocco. Averroes was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against Ash\'ari theologians led by Al-Ghazali. Averroes\' philosophy was considered controversial in Muslim circles; he had a greater impact on Western European thought than on that of his native lands. The detailed commentaries on Aristotle earned Averroes the title \"The Commentator\" in Europe. Latin translations of Averroes\' work led the way to the popularization of Aristotle and were responsible for the development of scholasticism in medieval Europe.

Averroes is remembered \"chiefly for his interpretation of Aristotle which developed into the complete philosophical system of Averroism. The central feature of this was a theory that the world is eternal, not a creation ex nihilo, but actuated by a creative power continuously at work [...]. Averroism was essentially an attempt to reconcile reason and philosophy with faith and religion. Averroes was not unique in this, but he expressed it perhaps more intelligently and forcefully than others [...]. Averroism deeply influenced both Christian and Jewish thought [...] and initiated the Schoolmen into the knowledge of Aristotle. The earliest editions of Aristotle were published with Averroes\'s commentaries (both text and commentary were Latin translations, the latter partly from the Arabic, partly from Hebrew versions) in which, and in various tracts, Averroism was adumbrated.\" (PMM 24).

Bibliographic references:

Hain-Copinger 1660; Goff A 962; GW 2337; Proctor 4701; Sheppard 3774; BSB-Ink A 701; IGI 794; Schweiger I, 57; not in BMC, Oates and Polain.

Physical description:

Royal Folio, textblock measures 428 mm x 285 mm. Extremely large example, probably untrimmed (for comparison: Pierpont Morgan vellum copy measures 409 mm x 272 mm). Neat 20th-century rebinding in full vellum using a bifolium from a huge 16th-century decorated Spanish manuscript antiphonal (with a large initial \'C\' in blue on the ground of elaborate red penwork).

104 unnumbered leaves (forming 208 pages).
Signature collation: 104 Bl. A–C6 CC8 D–Q6 (Q6 blank].
Collated and COMPLETE, including the final blank.

Printed in double columns, 66 lines per column, in Gothic letter: Typ. 3:74G, 8:93G (Aristotle\'s text in larger, and Averroes\'s commentary in smaller type). Capital spaces without guide initials (unrubricated).
Johannes de Colonia\'s woodcut device printed in red.

    Contents:
  • Aristotle, Ethica ad Nicomachum (leaves A1r-CC8v);
  • Averroes, Commentary on the Ethica (leaves D1r-K6r):
  • Aristotle, Politica (leaves L1r-Q1v)
  • [pseudo-] Aristoteles, Oeconomica (leaves Q2r-Q5r).

Colophon and register on leaf Q5v, with the publisher\'s device in red.

Provenance:

Jesuits of Freiburg: manuscript possession note dated 1666 to top margin of the first page (A1r).

Unidentified old stamp with monogram \'VF\' to low margin of A1v and the final page below colophon.

Condition:

Very Good. Complete. Several small wormholes mostly in the first (A) and the last (Q) quires, then quickly diminishing and disappearing towards the middle of the volume; the holes, being quite tiny, catch some individual letters but do not affect legibility. Moderate marginal water-staining, somewhat more noticeable in the first quire (A) where it enters slightly into printed areas. Occasional light soiling, mainly marginal and minor spotting. Small and harmless ink-stain to outer margin of the first leaf A1 (text not affected). in all, a pleasing, bright, clean and solid example, unwashed and unpressed, with vast, probably untrimmed margins; printed on sumptuously thick Renaissance paper.


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