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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Messer Giannozzo Manetti—if we may give credit to his enthusiastic biographer—was accustomed to say that there were three books which he had got by heart from long handling—Saint Paul's Epistles, Augustine's De civitate Dei, and (among the heathen) Aristotle's Ethics. There may be some exaggeration here; but there is no doubt that Manetti, from the beginning to the end of his long literary career, was deeply interested in the moral writings of Aristotle. Vespasiano tells a story of him in the early period of his studies. He used to give a Latin Ethics to somebody, and taking the original himself, would reel it off so fast in Latin that his hearer was unable to follow him.
1 ‘Usava dire, avere tre libri a mente, per lungo abito: l'uno era l'Epistole di Santo Pagolo, l'altro era Agostino, De civitate Dei, e de' gentili l'Etica, d' Aristotele.’ da Bisticci, Vespasiano, Vite, ed. Frati, , ii. p. 33Google Scholar. Naldo Naldi (‘Vita Jannotii Manetti’ in-Muratori, SS. xx.) repeats the story, col. 532. In reading the De civitate Dei ‘ita diligenter dedisse operam fertur, ut eum constans fama esset ad verbum edidicisse, quaecumque in illis voluminibus continerentur…. Praeterea quas Divus Paulus Epistolas scripserat, & Aristotelis Ethica, ad verbum ediscens, memoriae commendavit.’ Naldi's life however is little more than a paraphrase of Vespasiano's and he cannot be treated as an independent authority.
2 ‘Faceva pigliare l'Etica d'Aristotile in latino, et egli pigliava la greca, e leggevavi suso in latino tanto velocemente che colui che l'aveva in latino non poteva tenergli drieto. Vidine iscontrare libri sei a questo modo’ (Vite, ii. p. 88). Cp. Naldi, Naldo in Muratori, , SS. xx. col. 533Google Scholar.
3 ‘Tradusse i Magni Morali di Aristotile e le dua Etiche: l'una che non fu mai tradotta, che sono libri sei, che la mandò ad Eudimio. Tradusse la seconda Etica ad Nicomacum, la quale aveva tradutta messer Lionardo’ (Vite, ii. p. 178. Cp. p. 79). Naldi simply paraphrases this (Muratori, , SS. xx. col. 596)Google Scholar. There is some discrepancy as to the number of the books in Manetti's translation of the Eudemian Ethics. Vespasiano, and after him Naldi, here make it six. In the list of Manetti's, works which Vespasiano adds to his shorter life he mentions ‘Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Eudemum libri vii’ (Vite, ii. p. 81)Google Scholar. In the list which he adds to the longer life of Manetti, , he mentions ‘Ethicorum ad Eudemium lib. viii.’ (Vite, ii. p. 200)Google Scholar and in this he is followed by Naldi, (Muratori, , SS. xx. col. 607Google Scholar.)
Notice that Vespasiano says that the Eudemian Ethics had never been translated. He cannot have known of the translation by Gregory of Città di Castello which I spoke of in my first Study. Gregory dedicates this to. Nicholas V. and says in his dedication that the translation was made by the Pope's order. It is earlier therefore than the translation by Manetti, who did not settle in Naples till after that Pope's death.
4 Vite, ii. pp. 187, 188. Naldi—the favourite of Phoebus, as his friends called him—simply turns into elegant Latin the unstudied phrases of Vespasiano (Muratori, , SS. xx. col. 601)Google Scholar.
5 Sabbadini, , Scoperte dei Codici, i. p. 55Google Scholar.
6 There are two manuscripts in the Vatican library which, according to the catalogues, contain an Eudemiau Ethics in seven books—Reginensis Gr. 125 and Urbin. Gr. 45—but, as Reginensis Gr. 125 is ascribed by the catalogue to the sixteenth and Urbin. Gr. 45 to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, I have not been at the pains to examine them.
7 In the Vatican there is another manuscript of the Eudemian Ethics by the same scribe—Pal. Gr. 165. See Appendix C.
8 Omont, , Facsimiles, p. 12Google Scholar. Omont's facsimile of his hand is dated 1460. He copied the Politics for Poliziano in 1494 (Susemihl, ed. major of Politics, p. xxvii.).
9 da Bisticci, Vespasiano (Vite, ii. p. 195Google Scholar; Voigt, , Wiederbelebung, i. p. 498Google Scholar, n.).
10 See on the whole subject Calderini, (Aristide) ‘Ricerche intorno alla biblioteca e alla cultura greca di Francesco Filelfo’ in Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, V. xx., Firenze, 1913, pp. 204–424Google Scholar.
11 Brandis, , ‘Die Aristotelischen Handschriften der Vaticanischen Bibliothek’ in Abhandlungen der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Historisch-philologische Abhandlungen) p. 74Google Scholar.
