[Early Printing - Incunabula - Germany - Freiburg im Breisgau] [Logic - Ancient and Medieval works] [Greek Philosophy in Latin Translation]
[Medieval Scholastic Philosophy - Scotism] [Aristotle - Commentaries - 15th century]

[Printed in Freiburg im Breisgau by Kilianus Piscator (Fischer), 1494.]
Text in Latin. Edited by Martin Moelenfelt.

BL ISTC locates only 2 copies of this edition in the US (Johns Hopkins Univ. Library; Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Univ.); the only copy in the UK (in the British Library) is imperfect.

We are offering a complete, attractively rubricated example of this EXTREMELY RARE incunabulum printed at THE FIRST PRESS IN FREIBURG, a city in Baden-Württemberg, Southwest Germany, where only two printers worked in the 15th century. Fischer, the prototypographer of Freiburg. settled in that city in 1491, and moved apparently to neighboring Basel in 1496-7. Less than twenty books were published by Fischer's press at Freiburg.

This is the 2nd or 3rd edition of this influential work, the first edition of which was printed 26 Jan. 1493 at Poitiers by Bouyer and Bouchet.
The book contains commentaries by Pierre Tartaret, a leading theologian of Paris known as the most prominent Scotist of his generation, on the entire body of Aristotle logical writings (usually grouped under the title Organon, i.e. "Instrument"), including:

• Categories,
• On Interpretation,
• Prior Analytics,
• Posterior Analytics,
• Topics,
• On Sophistical Refutations,

preceded, as usual, by the Isagoge or "Introduction" to Aristotle's "Categories", written by the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry in Greek and translated into Latin by Boethius, which was the standard textbook on logic for at least a millennium after his death. It was composed by Porphyry in Sicily in 268-270 AD and includes the highly influential hierarchical classification of genera and species from substance in general down to individuals, known as the Tree of Porphyry.

"Aristotle's logic, especially his theory of the syllogism, has had an unparalleled influence on the history of Western thought. [...] Aristotle's logical works contain the earliest formal study of logic that we have. It is therefore all the more remarkable that together they comprise a highly developed logical theory, one that was able to command immense respect for many centuries: Kant [...] even held that nothing significant had been added to Aristotle's views in the intervening two millennia." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The Organon was used in the school founded by Aristotle at the Lyceum. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, much of Aristotle's work was lost in the Latin West. The Categories and On Interpretation are the only significant logical works that were available in the early Middle Ages. These had been translated into Latin by Boethius. The other logical works were not available in Western Christendom until translated into Latin in the 12th century. However, the original Greek texts had been preserved in the Greek-speaking Byzantium.
The books of Aristotle were available in the early Arab Empire, and after 750 AD Muslims had most of them, including the Organon, translated into Arabic. They were studied by Jewish and Islamic scholars, including Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) and Averroes (1126-1198).

All the major scholastic philosophers wrote commentaries on the Aristotle's logical works. Aquinas, Ockham and Scotus wrote commentaries on On Interpretation. Ockham and Scotus commented on the Categories and Sophistical Refutations. Grosseteste wrote an influential commentary on the Posterior Analytics.

"There were several waves of commentaries during the period after 1350. Some of these were on the individual books from the Organon [...] The most prevalent form of commentary [on Aristotelian Logic] from the late fifteenth century on dealt with the entire Organon in one book. The first commentaries of this sort, [were those] by George of Brussels and Petrus Tartaretus, both first published [...] in 1493." (C. B. Schmitt. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, pp.143-4)

Late-medieval French scholastic logician and theologian Pierre Tartaret (ca. 1460-1522) was born in Romont (Canton de Fribourg), in the diocese of Lausanne (Switzerland). He studied arts in Paris at the College de Reims under Jean Le Sueur, taking his BA in March 1483 and his MA in March 1484; he earned license in theology in 1494 and a doctorate in 1500 at the Collège de Sorbonne. Tartaret was rector of the University of Paris from 15 December 1490 to 24 March 1491.

"Among his pupils were Jerome de Hangest and Jacques Merlin. Johann Amerbach almost put his sons under Tartaret's tutelage in 1502 before finally opting for Nominalist teachers. By that time Tartaret had completed all his books, but they continued to be reprinted in several centres even into the seventeenth century." (Peter Bietenholz, Thomas Deutscher (eds.): Contemporaries of Erasmus, Vol. 3, p.310)

"He became the leading interpreter of the Franciscan scholastic theologian Duns Scotus in Paris and taught logic at the College de Reims. His books on logic, Aristotelian ethics, and Scotist theology were popular with many but were viewed as sterile by humanists such as Lefevre d'Etaples and reformers like Wolfgang Capito. Tartaret was one of the busiest teachers in Paris from 1485 until his death in 1522. His membership on the Faculty of Theology's commission that condemned the writings of Johann Reuchlin (1514) put him even more at odds with the humanists.
Rabelais showed his distaste for Tartaret by presenting him as the author of a book De modo cacandi ('How to defecate')." (Elizabeth A. Chesney, ed.: The Rabelais Encyclopedia, p.240)

The critical attitude to Tartaret by the contemporary humanists is also noted in Contemporaries of Erasmus: "Rabelais enjoyed a play on Tartaret's name, likening him to a barbarian Tartar, and Petrus Ramus also criticized him, while Erasmus mentioned him as a typical representative of Scotist scholasticism and dialectic concerns."

Like his other works, Tartaret's commentaries on Aristotle's logic are, of course, based on the doctrines of John Duns Scotus. Of Scottish birth, John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) was one of the most important and influential philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages. His brilliantly complex and nuanced thought, which earned him the nickname Doctor Subtilis, i.e. "the Subtle Doctor," left a mark on discussions of such disparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problem of universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom.

Bibliographic references:

Goff T38; Hain 15337; GW M45184; BMC III 695; BSB-Ink T-55; Proctor 3218; Walsh 1088.

Physical description:

Chancery Folio, textblock measures 263 mm x 177 mm. Bound in 16th-century full blind-paneled pigskin; all edges rouged; early manuscript title to spine, and a later printed paper title-label to front cover; endpapers renewed.

127 unnumbered leaves (forming 254 pages).
Signature collation: a-v6 x8 [-x8 blank].
COMPLETE (except for the rear blank).

Printed in gothic letter (Typ. 6:140G, 7:64G), in double columns. 60 lines per column; running titles and chapter headings printed in large gothic type. Capital spaces of various sizes (many with printed guide letters) filled in contemporary hand with red painted initials, and all the running titles and chapter headings underlined in red by the rubricator.

The first leaf a1 has the 6-line title on recto (worded: "...Comentationes in libros Arestoteles s[ecundu]m subtilissimi doctoris Scoti doctrinam ...") and blank verso; text begins with Prologue on a2r.

Condition:

Very Good antiquarian condition. Binding rubbed, slightly soiled with most of blindstamping rubbed off and only rather vaguely visible; boards slightly warped. Very early handwritten shelfmark sticker to spine. Some old repairs/patches to leather on the rear cover; seveeral tiny wormholes to covers. Recased with new endpapers. Title-page (a1r) with repair to top margin (somewhat clumsy, but using old paper and without loss). The first quire with minor worming to blank upper margin (no loss of text). A few other leaves with some harmless marginal closed tears or paper-flaws (text not affected). Light water-staining to several quires at the beginning and at the end of the volume, mostly marginal. Quires g-k with a moderate brownish stain (oil or wax) to the upper outer corner, mostly confined to blank margins, and only occasionally spreading slightly into printed area, but with all text perfectly legible. Occasional light soiling. In all, a complete, generally clean and solid example of this exceedingly rare incunabulum.

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