The work discusses the ways a prince should approach philosophical contents and, above all, moral and political philosophy. The author does not focus on specific matters, but finds in Aristotle the main reference for an ideal compendium.
The work is part of a larger section on bees which includes excerpts from a vernacular translation of Pliny's Natural History (Trattato delle pecchie secondo Plinio libro XI, ff. 153r-180v). The translation of Aristotle is based on the Latin version…
Beltrami's notes to Bulgarini discuss the notion of allegory referring to several sources. The main frame of Beltrami's account is Aristotelian: as stated in the preface letter, he is following the division of Aristotle's text (Poetics) below Maggi…
Pompeo Vizzani's Compendio della scienza dei costumi, dedicated to the author's nephew, Camillo, is in essence a summary paraphrase of Books III—V and again VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, with attention centred on the various virtues. The…
At the age of 81, the Aristotelian philosopher Francesco Piccolomini wrote the Instituzione del principe and the Compendio della scienza civile dedicating the two works respectively to the young prince Cosimo de Medici and to his mother, the Grand…
The anonymous compendium of Aristotle's Politics might be dated around 1598 (the text is followed in the ms. Rome, BVall, R 55 by a document copied by the same hand in 1598). An other copy of the work, copied by the same scribe, but in a more cursive…
Pompeo Vizzani's Compendio della filosofia naturale is part of a wider set of works conceived as an abridgement of classical philosophy (cf. the Compendio della scienza dei costumi). The work, dedicated to Pompeo's brother, Giasone, to whom an…
The work is a compendium mainly based on Aristotle: it is made up of three trattati respectively dealing with the definition of habitus-passion-virtue, virtues and friendship. The author refers to other classical sources as well (such as Cicero,…
The anonymous compendium follow the general structure of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as well as the division in 10 books. The work is completed by a short summary of the Ethics.
The Compendio de i morali d'Aristotele is much more than a compendium of the Ethics, as it appears just looking at the very small number of pages. After a brief definition of soul, will and virtue, the author distinguishes between intellectual…
The text (witnessed by ms. Vatican City, BAV, Ott. Lat. 2196) is unfortunately almost illegible because of a thin protective film stuck on the folios. Almost nothing is known about the author (an other work by him in Florence, BNC, ms. IX.139). As…
The censure on Alessandro Piccolomini's Annotationi nel libro della Poetica di Aristotele collect several remarks (mainly critical) on Piccolomini's interpretation of Aristotelian passages witnessing - together with other contemporary documents - the…
Sozzini's Dichiaratione is a commentary on a short section from Aristotle's Rhetoric, book 1 on the difference between the notion of sign and verisimile.
The Breve ragionamento follows in the ms. Florence, BNC, Magl.XII.12 a Latin work by the same author on a similar subject (Epilogus doctrinam Aristotelis de anima quam brevissime complectens, ff. 4r-25v), dedicated - as the Italian one - to the duke…