Robert Grosseteste’s Translation of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo: Tracking down a Second Manuscript and the Greek Model

Abstract

The note surveys the reception history of Robert Grosseteste's Latin translation of Aristotle's De Caelo and of Simplicius's commentary on the same treatise. It presents the analysis of previously unnoticed fragments from a second manuscript of the translation. Their discovery necessitates the revision of earlier ideas about the limited dissemination of the text. The note also confirms a neglected hypothesis about the Greek model that Grosseteste used for his translation. A late-15th-century manuscript must be considered a direct copy of Grosseteste's lost Greek codex.