JANDUNO, Joannes de

NO COPY RECORDED IN THE US

JANDUNO, Joannes de Perspicacissimi speculatoris Joannis Gandavensis Super paruis naturalibus Aristotelis questiones perutiles.

Venice, per Boneto Locatello mandato et expensis haer, Ottaviano I Scoto, 1505

£3,950.00

FIRST EDITION. Folio. ff. 85 (i). Gothic letter, double column. Printer’s device to last, decorated initials. Occasional slight marginal foxing, intermittent light and mostly marginal water stains, a bit heavier to upper inner corner of some ll., the odd early annotation. Good, very well-margined copy on thick paper, crisp and generally clean, in later Italian vellum, recased, spine restored. The odd early annotation.

A good, well-margined copy of this uncommon first edition of Joannes de Janduno and Marcantonio Zimara’s commentaries to Aristotle’s theories on the natural world. Joannes de Janduno (or Jean de Jandun or Johannes de Gandavo) (c.1285-1323) was a French philosopher and theologian. Professor at Paris, he was influenced by Averroism, a ‘radical’ form of Aristotelianism. Averroists thought that philosophy was separate from theology and the natural (philosophical) order from the supernatural; they were accused of teaching the existence of two potentially contradictory truths. De Janduno was excommunicated for heresy by Pope John XXII, having been charged with co-authoring a treatise on the separation of temporal and secular authority. The ‘Questiones’ engages with numerous issues discussed by Aristotle in different works. These include the senses (is sight more conducive to knowledge than hearing?), memory (is memory different to remembrance?), sleep and wake (do plants sleep?), life (is it possible to determine the length of one’s life?), life and death (is there sadness in natural death?), and fortune (does ‘fortune’ exist?). De Janduno’s commentaries were fundamental to the diffusion of Averroism in C14 Europe. Marcantonio Zimara (1460-1532) was professor of natural philosophy at Padua, and a renowned editor of medieval philosophical works. His ‘Tabula dilucidationum in dictis Aristotelis et Averrois’ (1537) became an essential instrument for scholars of philosophy. His brief ‘questio’ comments on Aristotle’s and Averroës’s theories of motion—physical and spiritual—and its causes, with the help of ancient and medieval philosophers.

Octavianus Scotus collaborated with Boneto Locatelli on the publication of numerous Italian and Latin texts, including editions of the works of Aristotle and Averroës.

No copies recorded in the US.USTC 762270. Not in BM STC It or Brunet.
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