The Commentary Literature on Aristotle'sNicomachean Ethicsin Early Renaissance Italy: Preliminary Considerations

Abstract

In a letter of 1404 to the Sienese professor Francesco Casini, the Italian humanist Coluccio Salutati expressed appreciation for the addressee's commentary on Aristotle'sNicomachean Ethics, comparing it favorably with the Greek (XI/XII century) commentaries of Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus, and with the Latin ones of Albert the Great, Albert of Saxony, Gerard of Odo, Walter Burley, and Jean Buridan. He invited Casini not to neglect the works of Henry of Friemar, a minor fourteenth-century figure. Furthermore, Salutati remarked that Casini had even surpassed Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome, whose commentaries were doubtless the most widespread in the Latin West of Salutati's time. As Luca Bianchi has pointed out, Salutati's letter highlights the degree to which Italian humanists depended on the scholastic tradition (whether Byzantine or Latin) when approaching Aristotle'sEthics; even Donato Acciaiuoli's famous commentary, published in 1478, draws heavily on Eustratius, Albert the Great, and St. Thomas. This was actually seen as one of its greatest merits by later commentators.3 However, Salutati's comments invite yet another observation: namely, that Salutati is unable to point to any specificallyItaliantradition connected with this work. In fact, although Salutati does name two Italians (Thomas and Giles of Rome), they too, like all the other commentators mentioned, spent most of their lifetimes in northern Europe; for most of them, the center was not Italy but Paris. This is why Salutati heaped so much praise on Francesco Casini — finally an indigenous Italian tradition might develop; its beginnings were promising indeed.