Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T07:55:57.250Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rethinking Renaissance Aristotelianism: Bernardo Segni’s Ethica, the Florentine Academy, and the Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Italy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David A. Lines*
Affiliation:
University of Warwick

Abstract

In 1550 Bernardo Segni, a member of the Florentine Academy, published an Italian translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Practically unstudied, Segni’s work represents an important moment in the evolution of vernacular Aristotelianism (and philosophy more generally) in the Renaissance. This essay examines Segni’s approach to the text, his familiarity (or not) with the Greek and Latin traditions, and his discussion of a philosophical problem, the freedom of the will. It shows that in all these areas Segni was well aware of Latin interpretations. The essay thus argues that studies of Renaissance Aristotelianism need to abondon their longstanding concentration on the Latin tradition alone and consider the complex and multilevel interactions of Latin and vernacular philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Research for this essay was generously supported by the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. The author wishes to thank especially Alison Knowles Frazier, Eugenio Refini, Luca Bianchi, and Simone Bionda — in addition to Claudio Ciociola, Eva Del Soldato, Simon Gilson, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers — for their helpful comments on early drafts of this article. All translations are the author’s own except where otherwise noted.

References

L’Accademia e il suo principe: Cultura e politica a Firenze al tempo di Cosimo I e di Francesco de’ Medici. Michel Plaisance. Manziana, 2004.Google Scholar
Acciaiuoli, Donato. Expositio super libros Ethicorum. Florence, 1560.Google Scholar
Magnus, Albertus. Opera omnia, vol. XIV.1: Super Ethica: Commentum et quaestiones, Libros quinque priores. Ed. Wilhelm Kübel. Aschendorff, 1968.Google Scholar
Alighieri, Dante. La “Commedia” secondo l’antica vulgata. Ed. Giorgio Petrocchi. 4 vols. Milan, 1966–67.Google Scholar
Andreoni, Annalisa. La via della dottrina: Le lezioni accademiche di Benedetto Varchi. Pisa, 2012.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Opera omnia. 5 vols. Venice, 1495–98.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelis Opera quaecumque impressa hactenus extiterunt omnia, summa cum vigilantia excusa, per Des(iderium) Eras(mum) Roterodamum. Basel, 1531.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelous Ethikon Nikomacheion biblia deka. Paris, 1540.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelous Ethikon Nikomacheion biblia deka. Strassbourg, 1545.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . De Moribus ad Nicomacum filium libri decem. Ed. Pier Vettori. Florence, 1547.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelis Stagiritae summi philosophi ethicorum sive moralium Nicomachorum libri decem. A Iovanne Bernardo Feliciano Latinitae donati. Louvain, 1548a.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Opera quae in hunc usque diem extant omnia. … 3 vols. Ed. Hieronymus Gemusaeus. Basel, 1548b.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelis Moralium Nicomachiorum libri X ab Jacobo Lodoico Strebaeo et Johanne Bernardo Feliciano a graeco in latinum conversi. Paris, 1549a.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelis opera, post omnes quae in hunc usque diem prodierunt editiones, summo studio emaculata et ad graecum exemplar diligenter recognita. 2 vols. Lyon, 1549b.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Ed. L. Bywater. Oxford, 1894.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea. Translatio Roberti Grossateste lincolnensis sive “Liber Ethicorum”: A. Recensio Pura. Ed. René Antoine Gauthier. Aristoteles latinus 26:3. Leiden, 1972.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea. Translatio Roberti Grossateste lincolnensis sive “Liber Ethicorum”: B. Recensio Recognita. Ed. René Antoine Gauthier. Aristoteles latinus 26:4. Leiden, 1973.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. 2 vols. Princeton, 1984.Google Scholar
Armour, Peter. “Dante’s Contrapasso: Contexts and Texts.” Italian Studies 55 (2000): 1–20.Google Scholar
Bekker, Immanuel, ed. Aristotelis Opera. 5 vols. Berlin, 1831–70.Google Scholar
Bernardi Mirandolano, Antonio. Lectiones in I librum Ethicorum. Vatican, BAV (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), Urb. lat. 1414. 1547.Google Scholar
Bessi, Rossella, ed. Umanesimo volgare: Studi di letteratura fra Tre e Quattrocento. Florence, 2004.Google Scholar
Besso, Giuliana, Barbara Guagliumi, and Federica Pezzoli. “Accademia e politica attiva: Le edizioni, le traduzioni e i commenti alla Politica di Aristotele in Italia nei secoli XV–XVI.” Res Publica Litterarum 30 (2007): 1–22.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Luca. “From Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples to Giulio Landi: Uses of the Dialogue in Renaissance Aristotelianism.” In Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Jill Kraye and Martin W. F. Stone, 41–58. London, 2000.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Luca. “Un commento ‘umanistico’ ad Aristotele: L’Expositio super libros Ethicorum di Donato Acciaiuoli.” In Studi sull’aristotelismo del Rinascimento, 11–39. Padua, 2003.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Luca. “Per una storia dell’aristotelismo ‘volgare’ nel Rinascimento: problemi e prospettive di ricerca.” Bruniana & Campanelliana 15.2 (2009): 367–85.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Luca. “‘Reducing Aristotle’s Doctrine to Simple Truth’: Cesare Crivellati and His Struggle against the ‘Averroists.’” In Christian Readings of Aristotle from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, ed. Luca Bianchi, 397–424. Turnhout, 2011.Google Scholar
Bionda, Simone. “La Poetica di Aristotele volgarizzata: Bernardo Segni e le sue fonti.” Aevum 75.3 (2001): 679–94.Google Scholar
Bionda, Simone. “Aristotele in Accademia: Bernardo Segni e il volgarizzamento della Retorica.” Medioevo e Rinascimento n.s. 13 (2002a): 241–65.Google Scholar
Bionda, Simone. “La copia di tipografia del Trattato dei Governi di Bernardo Segni: breve incursione nel laboratorio del volgarizzatore di Aristotele.” Rinascimento 42 (2002b): 409–42.Google Scholar
Boethius, Severinus. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Perihermeneias, pars posterior. Ed. C. Meiser. Leipzig, 1880.Google Scholar
Boethius, Severinus. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. P. G. Walsh. Oxford, 1999.Google Scholar
Bramanti, Vanni, ed. Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565): atti del Convegno, Firenze, 16–17 dicembre 2003. Rome, 2007.Google Scholar
Brundin, Abigail. “Literary Production in the Florentine Academy under the First Medici Dukes: Reform, Censorship, Conformity?” In Forms of Faith in Sixteenth-Century Italy, ed. Abigail Brundin and Matthew Traherne, 57–76. Aldershot, 2009.Google Scholar
Bruni, Leonardo. Aristotelis Stagyritae Ethicorum libri ad Nicomachum interprete Leonardo Aretino, in Decem librorum Moralium Aristotelis tres conversiones, prima Argyropili Bizantii, secunda Leonardi Aretini, tertia vero Antiqua per capita et numeros conciliatae. Paris, 1497.Google Scholar
Bryce, Judith. “The Oral World of the Early Accademia Fiorentina.” Reniassance Studies 9 (1995): 77–103.Google Scholar
Burley, Walter. Expositio super libros Ethicorum. Venice, 1521.Google Scholar
Caroti, Stefano. “L’ ‘Aristotele italiano’ di Alessandro Piccolomini: Un progetto sistematico di filosofia naturale in volgare a metà ’500.” In Il volgare come lingua di cultura (2003), 361–401.Google Scholar
Cranz, F. Edward, ed. A Bibliography of Aristotle Editions, 1501–1600. 2nd ed. with addenda and corrections by Charles B. Schmitt. Baden Baden, 1984.Google Scholar
Gaetano, De, Armand L, . Giambattista Gelli and the Florentine Academy: The Rebellion against Latin. Florence, 1976.Google Scholar
Soldato, Del, Eva, . Simone Porzio: Un aristotelico tra natura e grazia. Rome, 2010.Google Scholar
d’Étaples, Jacques Lefèvre. Commentarii in X libros Ethicorum (X librorum moralium Aristotelis tres conversiones). Paris, 1497.Google Scholar
Di Filippo Bareggi, Claudia. “In nota alla politica culturale di Cosimo I: L’Accademia Fiorentina.” Quaderni storici 8.2 (1973): 527–74.Google Scholar
Dionisotti, Carlo. Gli umanisti e il volgare fra Quattro e Cinquecento. Milan, 2003.Google Scholar
Eustratius, . Eustratiou kai allon tinon episemon Ypomnemata eis ta deka tòn tou Aristotelous ethikon Nichomacheion biblia meta tou ypokeimenou. Eustratii et aliorum insignium Peripateticorum commentaria in libros decem Aristotelis De moribus ad Nicomachum. Venice, 1536.Google Scholar
Eustratius, Aspasius, Ephesius, Michael, et al. Aristotelis Stagiritae Moralia Nicomachia, übersetzt von Johannes Bernardus Felicianus. Neudruck der Ausgabe Paris 1543 mit einer Einleitung von David A. Lines. 2 vols. Facsimile edition. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 2006.Google Scholar
Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I. Turin. 1997.Google Scholar
Gelli, Giambattista. Letture edite e inedite sopra la Commedia di Dante. Ed. Carlo Negroni. 2 vols. Florence, 1887.Google Scholar
Gilson, Simon A. “Tradition and Innovation in Cristoforo Landino’s Glosses on Astrology in His Comento sopra la Comedia (1481).” Italian Studies 58 (2003): 48–74.Google Scholar
Gilson, Simon A. “‘Aristotele fatto volgare’ and Dante as ‘Peripatetico’ in Sixteenth-Century Dante Commentary.” L’Alighieri: Rassegna Dantesca n.s. 39 (2012): 31–63.Google Scholar
Grafton, Anthony. “On the Scholarship of Politian and Its Context.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40 (1977): 150–88.Google Scholar
Grendler, Paul F. The Universities of Renaissance Italy. Baltimore, 2002.Google Scholar
The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts. Trans. Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins, and David Thompson. Binghamton, 1987.Google Scholar
Huss, Bernhard. “‘Il Petrarca, che ordinariamente suole essere Platonico’: Die Petrarca-Exegese in Benedetto Varchis Florentiner Akademievorträgen.” In Questo leggiadrissimo poeta! Autoritätskonstitution im rinascimentalen Lyrik-Kommentar, ed. Gerhard Regn, 297–332. Münster, 2004.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard. “The Transformation of Aristotelianism during the Renaissance.” In New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought: Essays in the History of Science, Education and Philosophy in Memory of Charles B. Schmitt, ed. John Henry and Sarah Hutton, 137–47. London, 1990.Google Scholar
Kirkham, Victoria. The Sign of Reason in Boccaccio’s Fiction. Florence, 1993.Google Scholar
Kraye, Jill. “Erasmus and the Canonization of Aristotle: The Letter to John More.” In England and the Continental Renaissance: Essays in Honour of J. B. Trapp, ed. Edward Chaney and Peter Mack, 37–52. Woodbridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Kraye, Jill. “Philologists and Philosophers.” In The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye, 142–60. Cambridge, 1996.Google Scholar
Kraye, Jill. Classical Traditions in Renaissance Philosophy. Aldershot, 2002.Google Scholar
Kraye, Jill. “Italy, France and the Classical Tradition: The Origins of the Philological Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.” In Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300–1600, ed. Carlo Caruso and Andrew Laird, 118–40. London, 2009.Google Scholar
Lambin, Denys. Aristotelis de moribus ad Nicomachum libri decem, nunc primum e graeco et latine et fideliter, quod utrumque querebantur omnes praestitisse adhuc neminem, à Dionysio Lambino expressi. Venice, 1558.Google Scholar
Landino, Cristoforo. Comento sopra la Comedia. Ed. Paolo Procaccioli. 4 vols. Rome, 2001.Google Scholar
Langer, Ullrich. Perfect Friendship: Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccaccio to Corneille. Geneva, 2004.Google Scholar
Lines, David A. Aristotle’s Ethics in the Italian Renaissance, ca. 1300–1650: The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education. Leiden, 2002.Google Scholar
Lines, David A. “Sources and Authorities for Moral Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance: Thomas Aquinas and Jean Buridan on Aristotle’s Ethics.” In Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity, ed. Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen, 7–29. Dordrecht, 2005.Google Scholar
Lohr, Charles H. “Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Authors G–I.” Traditio 24 (1968): 149–245.Google Scholar
Lohr, Charles H. Latin Aristotle Commentaries, II: Renaissance Authors. Florence, 1988.Google Scholar
Re, Lo, Salvatore, . Politica e cultura nella Firenze cosimiana: Studi su Benedetto Varchi. Rome, 2008.Google Scholar
Gentile, Lupo, Michele, . Studi sulla storiografia fiorentina alla corte di Cosimo I de’ Medici. Pisa, 1905.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Edward P. Two Aristotelians of the Italian Renaissance: Nicoletto Vernia and Agostino Nifo. Aldershot, 2000.Google Scholar
Mair, John. Ethica Aristotelis Peripateticorum principis, cum Ioannes Maioris Theologi Parisiensis commentariis. Paris, 1530.Google Scholar
Marenbon, John. Le temps, l’éternité et la prescience de Boèce à Thomas d’Aquin. Paris, 2005.Google Scholar
Martin, Craig. Renaissance Meteorology: From Pomponazzi to Descartes. Baltimore, 2011.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Martin. Literary Imitation in the Italian Renaissance. Oxford, 1995.Google Scholar
Mercken, H. Paul F. The Greek Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle in the Latin Translation of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. 2 vols. Leiden, 1973–.Google Scholar
Nardi, Bruno. Saggi sull’aristotelismo padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI. Florence, 1958.Google Scholar
Nauta, Lodi. “Philology as Philosophy: Giovanni Pontano on Language, Meaning, and Grammar.” Journal of the History of Ideas 72.4 (2011): 481–502.Google Scholar
Olmos, Paula. “Humanist Aristotelianism in the Vernacular: Two Sixteenth-Century Programmes.” Renaissance Studies 25.4 (2011): 538–58.Google Scholar
Olschki, Leo. Bildung und Wissenschaft im Zeitalter der Renaissance in Italien. Leipzig, 1922.Google Scholar
Pazzi, Alessandro. Aristotelis Poetica, per Alexandrum Paccium, patritium Florentinum, in latinum conversa. Venice, 1536.Google Scholar
Périon, Joachim. Aristotelis ad Nicomachum de moribus quae Ethica nominantur libri X, Joachimo Perionio … interprete … Commentarii eiusdem in eosdem libros… Paris, 1540a.Google Scholar
Périon, Joachim. De optimo genere interpretandi commentari. Paris, 1540b.Google Scholar
Périon, Joachim. Aristotelis Ethicorum, siue De Moribvs, Ad Nicomachum filium, Libri decem: Cum locuplete rerum et uerborum memorabilium Indice. Basel, 1555.Google Scholar
Perrone Compagni, Vittoria. “Cose di filosofia si possono dire in volgare. Il programma culturale di Giambattista Gelli.” In Il volgare come lingua di cultura (2003), 301–37.Google Scholar
Piccolomini, Alessandro. De la institutione di tutta la vita dell’huomo nato nobile et in città libera. Venice, 1542.Google Scholar
Piccolomini, Alessandro. Della institutione morale libri XII. Venice, 1560.Google Scholar
Plaisance, Michel. “Côme Ier ou le prince idéal dans les dédicaces et les traités des années 1548–1552.” L’Accademia e il suo principe (2004a), 257–69.Google Scholar
Plaisance, Michel. “Culture et politique à Florence de 1542 à 1551. Lasca et les Humidi aux prises avec l’Académie Florentine.” In L’Accademia e il suo principe (2004b), 123–234.Google Scholar
Plaisance, Michel. “Les dédicaces à Côme Ier: 1546–1550.” L’Accademia e il suo principe (2004c), 235–55.Google Scholar
Plaisance, Michel. “Les leçons publiques et privées de l’Académie Florentine (1541–1552).” In L’Accademia e il suo principe (2004d), 271–80.Google Scholar
Plaisance, Michel. “Une première affirmation de la politique culturelle de Côme Ier: La transformation de l’Académie des Humidi en Académie Florentine (1540–1542).” In L’Accademia e il suo principe (2004e), 29–122.Google Scholar
Pontano, Giovanni. Opera. Venice, 1512.Google Scholar
Poppi, Antonino. Introduzione all’aristotelismo padovano. 2nd ed. Padua, 1991.Google Scholar
Porzio, Simone. An homo bono vel malus volens fiat. Florence, 1551.Google Scholar
Refini, Eugenio, with David A. Lines, Simon Gilson, and Jill Kraye. Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy: A Database of Works. First published on 1 May 2012. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/projects/vernaculararistotelianism/database.Google Scholar
Ricci, Antonio. “Lorenzo Torrentino and the Cultural Programme of Cosimo I de’ Medici.” In The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler, 103–19. Aldershot, 2001.Google Scholar
Ridolfi, Roberto. “Bernardo Segni e il suo volgarizzamento della Retorica.” Belfagor 17 (1962): 511–26.Google Scholar
Rilli, Jacopo. Notizie letterarie, ed istoriche intorno agli uomini illustri dell’Accademia Fiorentina, parte prima. Florence, 1700.Google Scholar
Robortello, Francesco. In librum Aristotelis De arte poetica explicationes. Florence, 1548.Google Scholar
Rolandi, M. “‘Facultas civilis’: Etica e politica nel commento di Bernardo Segni all’Etica Nicomachea.” Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica 88.3 (1986): 553–94.Google Scholar
Saarinen, Risto. Weakness of the Will in Renaissance and Reformation Thought. New York, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salvini, Salvino. Fasti consolari dell’Accademia Fiorentina. Florence, 1717.Google Scholar
Scaino, Antonio. L’Ethica di Aristotile a Nicomacho ridutta in modo di parafrasi … con varie annotazioni e diversi dubbi. Rome, 1574.Google Scholar
Scaino, Antonio. La politica di Aristotele ridotta in modo di parafrasi. Rome, 1578.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segni, Bernardo. Rettorica et poetica d’Aristotile tradotte di greco in lingua vulgare fiorentina. Florence, 1549a.Google Scholar
Segni, Bernardo. Trattato dei governi di Aristotile tradotto di greco in lingua vulgare fiorentina. Florence, 1549b.Google Scholar
Segni, Bernardo. L’Ethica d’Aristotile tradotta in lingua vulgare fiorentina et comentata per Bernardo Segni. Venice, 1551.Google Scholar
Segni, Bernardo. Il trattato sopra i libri dell’anima d’Aristotile. Florence, 1583.Google Scholar
Segni, Bernardo. Istorie fiorentine dall’anno 1527 al 1555. Ed. G. Gargani. Florence, 1857.Google Scholar
Sharples, Robert. “Fate, Prescience and Free Will.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius, ed. John Marenbon, 207–27. New York, 2009.Google Scholar
Siekiera, Anna. “Aspetti linguistici e stilistici della prosa scientifica di Benedetto Varchi.” Studi linguistici italiani 33 (2007): 3–50.Google Scholar
Siekiera, Anna. “Benedetto Varchi.” In Autografi dei letterati italiani: Il Cinquecento, ed. Matteo Motolese, Paolo Procaccioli, and Emilio Russo, 337–57. Rome, 2009.Google Scholar
Speroni, Sperone. “Dialogo delle lingue.” In Dialoghi, 97–120. Venice, 1560.Google Scholar
Tignosi, Niccolò. Commenta in Ethicorum libros. Perugia, BCom. Aug., L. 79.Google Scholar
Toste, Marco. “Evolution within Tradition: The Vernacular Works on Aristotle’s Politics in Sixteenth-Century Italy.” In Thinking Politics in the Vernacular: From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, ed. Gianluca Briguglia and Thomas Ricklin, 189–212. Fribourg, 2011.Google Scholar
Trebazio, Bernardino. Aristotelis Philosophiae Moralis ad Nicomachum, Bernardino Trebatio … interprete. Venice, 1547.Google Scholar
Valori, Filippo. Termini di mezzo rilievo … tra gli archi di casa Valori. … Florence, 1604.Google Scholar
Varchi, Benedetto. Lezioni sul Dante. In Opere di Benedetto Varchi ora per la prima volta raccolte, 2:284–439. Triest, 1858–59.Google Scholar
Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (VD 16). Ed. I. Bezzel. 25 vols. Stuttgart, 1983–2000. http://www.gateway-bayern.de/index_vd16.html.Google Scholar
Vettori, Pier. Commentarii in tres libros Aristotelis De arte dicendi. Florence, 1548.Google Scholar
Vettori, Pier. Commentarii in decem libros de moribus ad Nicomachum. Florence, 1584.Google Scholar
Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Mantova, 18–20 ottobre 2001. Ed. Arturo Calzona, Francesco Paolo Fiore, Alberto Tenenti, and Cesare Vasoli. Florence, 2003.Google Scholar
Wasik, Wiktor. “L’aristotélisme populaire comme fragment de la Renaissance.” Revue d'Histoire de la Philosophie et d'Histoire générale de la Civilisation n.s. 9 (1935): 33–66.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, John R. Baldesar Castiglione: A Reassessment of the Courtier. Edinburgh, 1978.Google Scholar
Zanrè, Domenico. Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence. Aldershot, 2004.Google Scholar