During the Renaissance, the Arts curriculum in universities was based almost exclusively on the teaching of Aristotle. With the revival of Plato, however, professors of philosophy started to deviate from the official syllabus and teach Plato’s dialogues. This collection of essays offers the first comprehensive overview of Platonic teaching in Italian Renaissance universities, from the establishment of a Platonic professorship at the university of Florence-Pisa in the late 15th century to the introduction of Platonic teaching in the schools and universities of Bologna, Padua, Venice, Pavia and Milan in the 16th and 17th centuries. The essays draw from new evidence found in manuscripts and archival material to explore how university professors adapted the format of Plato’s dialogues to suit their audience and defended the idea that Plato could be accommodated to university teaching. They provide significant and fundamental insight into how Platonism spread during the 16th and 17th centuries and how a new interpretation of Plato emerged, distinct from the Neoplatonic tradition revived by Marsilio Ficino.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Maude Vanhaelen, “Teaching Plato in Sixteenth-Century Italy”

Chapter 2 – Simone Fellina, “Teaching Plato in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Florence and Pisa: from Francesco Cattani da Diacceto to Girolamo Bardi”

Chapter 3 – Barbara Bartocci, “Shifting Away from Aristotelianism towards Platonism. Paolo Beni’s Project”

Chapter 4 – Eva Del Soldato, “Plato between Pavia and Milan in the Sixteenth Century”

Bibliography
Index of Names

226 p., 156 x 234 mm, PB, ISBN: 978-2-503-60568-5 / eISBN: 978-2-503-60569-2
Series: Brepols Library of Christian Sources, vol. 9

This book contains a study and translation of the works on natural philosophy by the 13th-century thinker Peter of Ireland, who taught Thomas Aquinas at the University of Naples.

Peter of Ireland (Petrus de Ybernia) was born sometime around the beginning of the thirteenth century in Ireland, probably of a Norman family. He probably left Ireland aged around age 15 to pursue his studies abroad. His interest in medical and scientific questions would suggest a stay at Oxford, whereas his approach to logic would suggest a Parisian influence. By the middle of the century he was Professor of Logic and Natural Philosophy at the University at Naples. Peter is perhaps one of the best known of medieval Irish thinkers on the continent owing to the fact that he was held to be the teacher of the young Thomas Aquinas at Naples University from 1239–44. As such, it would be he who, in all likelihood, first introduced Thomas to the study of Aristotle and perhaps also to the commentaries of Avicenna and Averroes. The works presented here date from at least a decade later, and relate to lectures given at Naples in the 1250s and 1260s. The extent to which he was held in respect by his contemporaries is to be seen in his solution (determinatio) to the disputed question on the origin of the design of an animal’s body which was held before King Manfred around 1260. It was, perhaps the culmination of a famous scholarly career.