READING ARISTOTLE THROUGH DANTE: THE CASE OF "METEOROLOGICA" IN FRANCESCO DA BUTI'S 'COMMENTO'

Abstract

Francesco da Buti (1324?–1406), Pisan by birth and a notary from 1352, started his career as a Magister at the Pisan Studio in 1351, where, twenty years later, he was appointed to the Chair of Latin, and, for almost the rest of his life, he taught classical Latin literature at the University. This essay explores the ways in which Buti provided his audience with Aristotelian material on meteorology in his Dante commentary. The article has three principal aims: to provide a case study of Buti’s relationship with Aristotle’s Meteorologica; to assess Buti’s indebtedness to earlier sources; and to highlight some unknown features of Cristoforo Landino’s indebtedness to Buti. More generally, the study discloses the complexity of investigating sources in Dante commentary. It does this by illustrating, through this case study, the extent of the compilation and the nature of the commentary tradition, as well as the dangers of viewing similarity in expository technique as evidence of borrowing.