Quelques notes générales sur les textes scientifiques de Bessarion

Abstract

About a fifth of the Greek manuscripts that belonged to Cardinal Bessarion refer to the mathematical sciences and the philosophy of nature. This article, which constitutes a general, modest and non-exhaustive presentation, attempts to present a classification of these texts in order to identify the interests of this important scholar of the Renaissance in the field that we call today "sciences" and through him, the interests of the Greek scholars of the Paleologian period. For this purpose, we have followed a classification by theme and by author, distinguishing ancient authors from Byzantine authors and indicating, if applicable, the number of copies of the same text that the cardinal possessed. Thus we can for example note the popularity of the arithmetic of Nicomachus of Gerasa, of the treatise of Philoponus on the astrolabe, of less known texts like the pseudo-Timaeus or more recent ones like the treatise on the astrolabe of Isaac Argyros and of course Bessarion’s personal interest in the Almagest. His penchant for astronomy (including astrology - four copies of the Tetrabiblos) is evident, but the number of mathematical texts is also very large. It is clear that the cardinal had little interest in exegetical texts on creation and the world (only two copies of the very popular Hexaemeron of Basil).