Marco Ghione

In June 2023, a group of ‘Aristotelians without Borders’ met in the splendid Villa San Remigio in Verbania, one of the beautiful premises of the University of Eastern Piedmont. Following in the footsteps of Aristotelians over the centuries, the participants were committed to the belief that engaging in dialogue has a value in itself. Our Aristotelian predecessors have collectively bequeathed to us a common language, a shared form of rationality and a grammar of thought which allow us to engage in dialogue despite our differences.

Visitare il “pianeta d’argento”, conquistare il silenzioso globo che rischiara ogni notte, è stato il sogno dell’uomo di età moderna. Tra Cinque e Settecento, infatti, dall’epoca delle grandi scoperte geografiche al secolo dei Lumi, scrittori, scienziati, uomini di fede e di cultura hanno tentato in ogni modo di concretizzare questa inafferrabile visione. Grazie a un lungo e minuzioso lavoro di ricerca, Marco Ghione racconta la loro storia e illustra le soluzioni tecniche che tanti, eccezionali cittadini della Repubblica delle Lettere hanno elaborato per trasformare l’impossibile in realtà, dalle macchine volanti di Cyrano de Bergerac e Francis Godwin alle creature soprannaturali fantasticate da Keplero e Kircher. Intanto, scienziati e astronomi andavano puntualmente definendo le prime riproduzioni attendibili della superficie lunare, con una nomenclatura sistematica che, a partire dall’Almagestum novum di Giovanni Battista Riccioli, è giunta fino ai giorni nostri, all’impresa dell’Apollo 11 e allo sbarco sulla luna. Completa il volume la prima traduzione italiana di due testi fondamentali della letteratura in materia: l’Iter Lunare, di David Russen (1703), e A Trip to the Moon, di Murtagh McDermot (1727).

Relying on the double meaning of Alkaest on the texts of the first paracelsians, in a first sense the universal dissolvent of the alchemic Work, in a second a wonderful epatic medicine, the paper outlines history and spread of this alchemical substance, from the late XVI century to the early XVIII. With the growing dissemination of Franciscus Van Helmont and his followers writings, the Alkaest as universal solvent earns credibility, touching his peak probably in England, where arouses the strong interest of George Starkey, physician and alchemist, and Robert Boyle, chemist and inventor.

This paper provides an annotated list of printed editions of Aristotle’s Metaphysica Nova, i.e. of the Arabic-Latin 13th-century version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which circulated within the Latin translation of Averroes’ Commentarium Magnum (Tafsīr mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿat). It is shown that this version – the impact of which was second to none –was never printed without at least one Greek-into-Latin version. From the 1473 editio princeps to the 1562 Iunctasedition, complementary material from the Greek into Latin and from the Arabic into Latin Aristotelian traditions was increasingly added. Links to relevant digital reproductions are also provided.

This article proposes a follow up of Fazzo’s contributions on the stemma codicum of Aristotle’s Metaphysics – including her Chora 2015 paper, its completion in the 2017 Revue d’Histoire des Textes and, most recently, a contribution on the text of Zeta 17 in Aristotelica 1 2022. All of these are summarized and framed here in the context of today’s lively debate. We then introduce the data of Marco Ghione’s collation and comparison of the readings of the two oldest manuscripts J and E : J, the Vind. phil. gr. 100, early 9th century – the so‑called “Aristotle of Vienna” – is thus extensively compared with E, Paris. gr. 1853, early 10th century, with selected reference to the earliest hands at work (J, J2, E1). Based on Paul Maas’ theory of errors, we are now in condition to face the crucial issue : does the latter depend on the former? This helps resolving the one residual opacity or incertitude concerning the upper part of the Metaphysics’ stemma.