Opuscula nuper in lucem edita … — Venice 1525

Opuscula nuper in lucem edita … — (Colophon:) Ex Eventiis, Opusculum hoc ex impressione repraesentavit Bernardinus Vitalis Venetus, 1525 die XXIII Februarii.

Venice, Bern. Vitalis, 23 February 1525.

First edition

4to (210 x 145 mm). a, b⁴ c⁶ d-z, &, con, rum, A-G⁴ H⁶ I⁴: s₄ blank except foliation, H₆ blank: 139, (4) leaves. Last quire (Errata) browned. Faint foxing on a few leaves but a crisp copy with wide margins. 19th or 20th century calf, gauffered edges gilt, blindstamped „Burlamacchi“ on rear cover. – Adams L-502; ustc 37974.

¶ The volume starts with two paraphrases of Aristotle’s De motu animalium and De incessu animalium. This is followed by Tomeos new translation with commentary of the ps.-Aristotelian Mechanics, which became the basis for further  study of this text in the 16th century. Some quotations on this from an abstract to Joyce van Leeuwen’s book, The Aristotelian Mechanics : Text and Diagrams. (NY 2016): „The Aristotelian Mechanics enjoyed immense popularity upon its rediscovery in the early modern period. Translations of the Greek text in Latin or vernacular languages were made, as well as paraphrases and extended commentaries. Of particular importance for the early modern spread of mechanics is the Latin translation of the Quaestiones Mechanicae (QM) 1525 by the Italian humanist Niccolò Leonico Tomeo (1456–1531) Although Tomeoʼs QM was not the first Latin translation of the Mechanics, it became the text’s most popular version in the sixteenth century, and was accompanied by Tomeoʼs explanatory comments and diagrams to render its difficulties more accessible. In making these changes Tomeo paved the way for future commentators, who frequently used his work as a basis for their own expositions … [on the diagrams:] While for the text of the Mechanics Tomeoʼs aim was strictly philological – to present a reconstruction of the original text along with a literal translation in Latin – he used the diagrams as a means to extend and comment on the text. He included diagrams that were not prescribed by the author, and inserted additional diagrams representing his own interpretations of the mechanical questions […] Tomeoʼs translation of the Mechanics presents us with a good example of how Aristotelian knowledge was adapted to a specific context and was altered according to the needs and interests of a later time.“

The fourth part in the volume is Tomeo’s Quaestiones amatoriae, starting with: Cur amantes amatorum oculis maxime capiuntur, followed by Quaesiones naturales, „two original works inspired by the peripatetic tradition and focused on the etiology of lover’s behavior and problems about zoology, human physiology and anatomy, botany and mineralogy.“ (Enc. of Renaiss. Philos.)

The last one is a new translation with commentary of Plato’s Timaeus – 35A-36E „De animorum generatione“ – together with the commentary by Proclos on the same passage.