RICERCA ITALIANA     

Philosophy and Science in the Middle Ages. Editions and studies.

Abstract

The aim of the program is to collect data and to publish edited manuscripts, commentaries, translations and critical studies, in order to widen our knowledge of the medieval philosophical paradigms. The research units will analyze various stages of the development of medieval philosophy (Trivium Artes between the 7th and 12th century, philosophy of nature and hermeticism, wisdom and mystics in the German cultural area, the scholastisc tradition in the medieval Universities). Most of the texts object of research are yet unpublished, and therefore editions of them are planned. We refer here especially to the following texts:
1) «Grammatica», «Logica» and «Rhetorica antiquioris mediae aetatis» for the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, Brepols (anonymous texts on grammar, dialectic and rhetoric in the IX-XI centuries)
2) Hermes latinus, Textus magici (Corpus Christianorum, CM 146): De imaginibus sive septem planetarum; Liber planetarum (Liber Saturni); Liber Mercurii; De imaginibus et horis; Liber septem planetarum ex scientia Abel; Liber orationum planetarum septem – [Belenus] Liber imaginum Lunae; De viginti quattuor horis; De imaginibus diei et noctis; De quattuor imaginibus magnis; De discretione operis differencia ex iudiciis Hermetis; De imaginibus septem planetarum; De lapidibus Veneris – [Toz Graecus] De stationibus ad cultum Veneris – [Toz Graecus / Germa Babiloniensis] Liber Veneris; De quattuor speculis; De duodecim annulis – [Germa Babilonensis] Flores super opera artis magicae,
3) Garnerius von Rochefort, Contra Amaurianos,
4) Honorius Augustodunensis, Clavis physicae, II part.
5) Ulrich of Strasbourg, De summo bono, lib. IV tr. 2,8-16 (Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, vol. I,4,2),
6) Meister Eckhart, Lateinische Werke, vol. I/2, Lief. 5-6 (Expositio super Genesim),
7) Jordan of Quedlinburg, Sermones (Philosophische Predigten aus dem 14. Jahrhundert, Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, Misc. III),
8) ps. Eckhart, Collationes (ibid.),
9) Geistbuch (critical edition - international cooperation Lecce, Freiburg, Leiden)
10) Nicolaus of Strasbourg, Summa, I-II, 1-2 (Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, vol. V,1 and 2,1-2), (international collaboration, Lecce-Paris/Sorbonne)
11) Henry of Lübeck, Quodlibet I-II (Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, vol. IV, 1-2).
12) Aristoteles, Meteora IV, translatio Aristippi (international cooperation, Lecce-Leuven, Aristoteles latinus)
13) Durandus, Commentaria in Sententiarum libros, Book II (international cooperation, Lecce-Cologne)
14) John of Lichtenberg, Quaestiones disputatae qq. 19-38 (Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, vol. III,2),
15) Henry of Gent, Quodlibet VIII (Opera omnia, VII),
16) Eustratius, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI,
Vols 1 are to be edited by Unit I
Vols 2-4 are to be edited by Unit II
Vols 5-13 are to be edited by Unit III
Vols 14-16 are to be edited by Unit IV
For further projected studies and translations see the special programmes of the different Research Units involved.
- The texts considered in the project focus on three problematic issues (the “logical-methodological”, the "philosophical-naturalistic" and the "theological-philosophical"), and raise fundamental questions regarding the history of medieval philosophy, epistemology, theology, and natural science. At issue is the determination of the formal rules of the true scientific knowledge, in the beginning of the Middle Ages. In the following centuries the focus is on the relationship between learned and popular culture, the difference between the languages of knowledge (Latin and vernacular), the creation of areas possessing a cultural dynamic of their own (in particular late medieval Germany), the role played in all this by the large body of Hermetic and Neoplatonic writings, and the continuity of late Medieval and Renaissance thought. Another important question is the varying nature of the transmission of the various texts, and thus the necessity to create adequate heuristic, catalographic, editorial and critical methodologies. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the scholars who are participating in the research units of this project are not only specialists in the history of philosophy, theology and science, but also in the Latin, Italian and Germanic philologies. <<<

Principal Investigator

Loris Sturlese Università degli Studi del SALENTO

Research Objectives

The identification, study and the publication of unedited texts appears to be a very important step towards reconstructing large sections of medieval philosophical thought in a persuasive way, and it constitutes therefore a first-priority objective of research. The project proposed here is intendet to addres this important step, and with the involvement of different groups and forms of expertise it aims to publish a new and well-defined series of annotated editions and studies, to start a new series of annotated editions and finally to provide a series of interpretive studies, translations and commentaries to accompany the editorial work. - The specific research projects (which profit from a wide already operating international collaboration) are centered in different epochs of medieval philosophy. The four research Units will develop a common methodology in order to investigate and edit their texts as relevant moments in the history of medieval thought.
The working plan of Unit I focuses on the identification, cataloguing, edition and doctrinal study of texts concerning the study of the arts of the trivium produced in the Latin West between the 7th and 12th centuries. The main aim is to highlight the influence of this study on the philosophical-theological production of the period. This could contribute to a definitive evaluation of the impact of logical studies on John Scottus’ great «metaphysic epopee».
The continuity of the neoplatonic tradition seen from a “philosophical-naturalistic” point of view is the core of the work of Unit II. In collaboration with an international team of scholars, the unit is working on a new volume of texts from the “Hermes Latinus” (to be published in “Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis”, Brepols, Turnhout), on the Census of the mediaeval and Renaissance Hermetic Manuscripts, and is attending to a critical edition of a monument of the eriugenism of the 12th century, the Clavis physicae of Honorius. Unit III also studies an author particularly relevant for the development of the "philosophical-naturalistic" tradition like Albert the Great, by planning a critical edition in cooperation with the Albertus Magnus Institut and with scholars of the University of Munich and Geneva. This critical edition will contain a translation of De intellectu et intelligibili. In addition. Unit III will study problems of medieval meteorology, with a critical edition of the latin translation of Meteora by Henricus Aristippus.
- However, the editorial activity of Unit III covers texts which are concerned with a more general issue, the “philosophical-theological”. This is the result of a decision to concentrate on researching a topic which has previsously proved to be particularly fruitful, that is the German philosophical culture seen in terms of its relations with Parisian scholasticism, in the period between the beginnings of Albert's activity as professor in Cologne and the death of Berthold of Moosburg. - An annotated editio is planned of some paradigmatic works of this culture (in which the so-called "German Mysticism" was born) viz. Meister Eckhart (Lateinische Werke vol. I/2), Ulrich of Strasbourg's De summo bono, Jordan of Quedlinburg’s Sermons, Nicolas of Strasbourg’s Summa, Berthold of Moosburg’s Commentary to Proclos (all to be published in Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi, Meiner, Hamburg). Transcriptions and collations of the Quodlibets of Henry of Lubec and of Durandus’ Commentary to the Sentences and a new annotated Italian and German translation of the middle high German works of Eckhart and of the Works of Theodoric of Freiberg are also planned. An annotated edition of the recently discovered mhg. and mn. Geistbuoch (an important document of the vernacular philosophy in the first half of the 14.th Century) is planned in cooperation with a Research Unit of the University of Leiden.
- Unit IV is working on the unpublished Quaestiones disputatae by John of Lichtenberg (to be published in Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi). This work enlarges the "German" horizon of Unit 1II to the Parisian Scholastic, bringing forward the edition of Henry of Ghent, an author who had great influence in German circles (Quodlibet VIII). The critical edition of Eustratius’ Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, book VI, is also planned.
- The primary and immediate goal of the program is the publication, commentary, and historico-philosophical evaluation of important often unpublished texts which constitute a broad, homogenous, and concrete basis for the discussion, the development and the perfection of innovative philological and critical methods. Small symposia will be dedicated to the doctrinal study of the edited texts. Furthermore, an important goal of the programme is to contribute to a better unterstanding of the organisation of scientific, philosophical and theological learning in the Middle Ages. Several philosophical medieval texts will be translated into Italian in order to make them available to University students.
A longer-term objective is the coordinated and systematic promotion, on both the structural level (links with foreign research groups, training of young researchers, study grants), and infrastructural level (libraries, special catalogues, websites), of medieval philosophical studies in the Mezzogiorno, where the universities involved in the research are located. To this end, work meetings will be regularly held, open to invited specialists and interested scholars, and a large part of the financial resources will be used (as in the past) in developing the libraries of the departments involved, which are linked to each other by an inter-library loan service. The project also includes the further development of the website dedicated to the study of medieval history of philosophy (“Philosophia Medii Aevi”).
- The innovative character of the project consists in making available to the research a large body of unpublished or until now neglected material which, if adequately analyzed, may significantly help to change what is known of medieval thought.
- The section of the work proposed here is of two years’ duration, and is conceived as being achievable in completely autonomous fashion.
- The methodologies used are conform tothe philological standard generally recognized.
- The total amount of the requested grant matches the guidelines published by the Guarantee Commission of the Ministery. <<<

First Results

Editing of texts of following authors: Meister Eckhart, Ulrich of Strasbourg, Berthold of Moosburg, Jordan of Quedlinburg, Hermes Latinus, Geistbuoch, Nicolas of Strasbourg, Henry of Gand, John of Lichtenberg, Aristoteles Latinus, Durandus of St. Pourçain, Eustratius, Honorius Augustodunensis, anonymous text on the Trivium Arts between IX and XI century. - Critical studies in medieval theology and philosophy, translations of philosophical texts.

Fundamental points regarding the comprehensive advancement of the research: 1) the reconstruction, on the basis of surveys of the manuscript tradition, of the diffusion and influence of authors and works, followed by the location, analysis, and publication of the published and unpublished documents which are of interest to the research; 2) critical editions of unpublished texts and new commented editions of published texts; 3) the demonstration of particular streams of influence of the principal models of knowledge in various chronological-cultural spheres of the Latin West, corresponding to the specific fields of the participants; 4) the identification of new and useful approaches for themes, currents, and problems not yet sufficiently investigated and detailed—approaches useful for a fecund reconsideration of the history of the forms of thought and knowledge which dominated in medieval culture; 4) the production of scientific essays, directed toward documenting the more significant acquired results.
The project will methodologically privilege interpretive proposals based upon a detailed and philologically attentive analysis of medieval texts which have been submitted to a cultural, contextual, and lexical-linguistic recontextualization. The project also intends to demonstrate the effective historical range of scientific techniques and arguments, mental procedures, and currents and tendencies of thought. Along with this textual analysis, the project will begin an accompanying comparative study of all the available documents which offer concrete information regarding the genesis and finality of the speculative works of the Middle Ages. By considering these works from the perspective of their relationship with the history of dogma and religious thought, this study will examine their reception by contemporaries and their relationship with the theoretical plan of the authors, currents of thought, or contemporary schools.
An important costituent element of this project will be the creation of databases. These will be especially organized for the classification and the thematic filing and for the lexicographical check of the examined texts. The project must also take into account expenses related to the acquisition of computers and other hardware material necessary for the work upon the documentary material (for printing, making of masters, and the storage of data) and the archiving of data acquired in foreign libraries and other institutions. Moreover, it will be necessary to use a significant part of the resources in order that the department libraries involved in the research might acquire international bibliographical documentation (specialized books, periodicals, microfilms, and photocopies) and computer databases and electronic media (lexicons, catalogues, databases), which will be indispensable for the research in the field of medieval studies. Finally, an essential part for the completion of the project will be the national and international travels of the members to specialized libraries for the gathering of published and unpublished materials, as well as for the participation in and/or active contribution to national and international meetings and conferences regarding appropriate themes of research.
The realization of the project will be a precious opportunity for the insertion of young researchers into all of the local unit. The contribution of these new scholars will open new sectors of study and investigation for the amplification and amelioration of the research. Such participation will be of great usefulness for these young students in this phase of formation, both for the growth in their competence and the perfection of their methodologies. For this reason, one finds among the members of the individual research units some post-doctoral and doctoral students whose research and doctoral theses are being fully integrated with the objectives and developments of the collective program. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The researchers who set up the project share the belief that, for the historian of medieval philosophical and scientific thought, the interpretative function should be closely linked to the philological and text-editing dimensions, and that important innovations for the discipline would emerge from the work of recovery and publication of so far unpublished texts.
Several books and articles published between 2000-2006 by members of the four Research Units define the immediate scientific starting point for the project proposed here, which aims at the realization of a series of annotated editions and critical studies over a two-year period.

CCM = "Centro di cultura medievale della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa". Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 1985 –
CPTMA = "Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi". Herausgegeben von L. Sturlese unter Mitwirkung von R. Imbach und B. Mojsisch. Hamburg, Meiner, 1977 –
HGOO = "Henrici de Gandavo Opera omnia". Edited by P. Macken et al., Leuven, University Press, 1979 –
HL = "Hermes Latinus". Sotto la direzione di P. Lucentini. Turnhout, Brepols, 1994 –
HM = "Hermetica Mediaevalia". A cura di P. Lucentini. Firenze, Polistampa, 2001 –
LE = "Lectura Eckhardi". Herausgegeben von G. Steer, L. Sturlese. Koordiniert von D. Gottschall. Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1998 –
LW = "Meister Eckhart, Die lateinischen Werke". Herausgegeben von L. Sturlese und A. Zimmermann. Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1936 –
Nutrix = “Nutrix. Studies in late antique, medieval and renaissance thought”. Ed. by G. d’Onofrio. Turnhout, Brepols, 2007 –

A. Edizioni critiche di testi inediti pubblicati negli ultimi sette anni:

Meister Eckhart, Die lateinischen Werke, Bd. V, Lief. 5-8: Acta Echardiana. Mag. Echardi Responsio ad articulos sibi impositos de scriptis et dictis suis. Hrsg. von L. Sturlese. Stuttgart, Kohlhammer (LW V), 2000, pp. 241-520. -
Bertoldo di Moosburg, Tabula contentorum in Expositione super Elementationem theologicam Procli, a cura di Alessandra Beccarisi. Presentazione di Loris Sturlese. Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore (CCM 9), 2000. -
Berthold von Moosburg, Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, prop. 35-65. Mit einem Vorwort von L. Sturlese. Hg. von A. Sannino. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VI, 3), 2001. -
Lucentini, P. - Perrone Compagni, V., I testi e i codici di Ermete nel Medioevo. Firenze (Hermetica Mediaevalia 1) 2001. -
Porro, P. (ed.), Le «Quaestiones super Metaphysicam» attribuite a Enrico di Gand: elementi per un sondaggio dottrinale, «Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale», 13 (2002), pp. 507-602. -
Berthold von Moosburg, Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, prop. 66-107. Mit einer Einleitung von L. Sturlese. Hrsg. von I. Zavattero. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VI, 4), 2003. -
Berthold von Moosburg, Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, prop. 160-183. Hg. von U. R. Jeck, I. Tautz. Prolegomena und Indices von N. Bray. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VI, 7), 2003. -
Hermes Trismegistus, Astrologica et divinatoria (De stellis beibeniis, De accidentibus, De spatula, Antimaquis [Liber spiritualium operum Aristotelis], Lectura geomantiae, Liber runarum), ed. C. Burnett, T. Charmasson, P. Kunitzsch, P. Lucentini (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 147 [HL IV.4]), Turnhout, Brepols, 2004. -
Texte aus der Zeit Meister Eckharts I: Betram von Ahlen, Opera De via contemplationis et cognitionis Dei - Excerpta super XV Quodlibet primae et secundae partis Summae Henrici de Gandavo et X Quodlibet Godefridi et III Jacobi, hg. von Alessandra Beccarisi mit einem Vorwort von Loris Sturlese. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VII, 1) 2004. -
Texte aus der Zeit Meister Eckharts II: Berthold von Wimpfen, Opera Hortus spiritalis - Speculum virtutum - Collationes sanctorum doctorum / Anonymus, Quaestio de intellectu / Anonymus, De natura accidentis / Ps. Betram von Ahlen, De investigatione creatoris per creaturas, hg. von Alessandra Beccarisi. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VII, 2), 2004. -
Ulrich von Straβburg, De summo bono, lib. III, tract. 1-3. Mit einer philologischen Vorbemerkung von L. Sturlese. Hg. von S. Tuzzo. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, I,3/1), 2004. -
Enrico di Herford, Catena aurea entium, Tabula quaestionum VIII-X, a cura di A. Palazzo. Presentazione di L. Sturlese. Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore (CCM, XII), 2004. -
Giordano di Quedlinburg, Opus Ior, Registrum sermonum, Tabula contentorum per ordinem alphabeti, a cura di N. Bray. Presentazione di Loris Sturlese. Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore (CCM, XIII), 2004. -
Ulrich von Straβburg, De summo bono, lib. IV, tract. 3. Mit einem Vorwort von L. Sturlese. Hg. von A. Palazzo. Hamburg. Meiner (CPTMA, I,4/4), 2005. -
Henricus de Frimaria, De decem preceptis, édition par B.-G. Guyot OP. Presentazione di L. Sturlese. Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore (CCM, XIV), 2005. -
Meister Eckhart, Die lateinischen Werke, Bd. V, Lief. 9-10: Acta Echardiana. Indices. Hrsg. von L. Sturlese. Stuttgart, Kohlhammer 2006, 521-651
Ulrich von Straβburg, De summo bono, lib. II, tract. 5-6. Hg. von A. Beccarisi. Hamburg. Meiner (CPTMA, I,2/2), 2007. -
Berthold von Moosburg, Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, prop. 136-159. Mit einem Einleitung von L. Sturlese. Hg. von F. Retucci. Hamburg, Meiner (CPTMA, VI, 7), 2007. -


B. Books:

2001
Porro, P. (ed.), The Medieval Concept of Time. Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy, Brill, Leiden-Köln, 2001.
Travaglia, P., Una cosmologia ermetica. Il Kitab sirr al-haliqa / De secretis naturae, Napoli, 2001.
2002
Avicenna, Metafisica. La Scienza delle cose divine dal Libro della Guarigione, a cura di O. Lizzini / P. Porro. Milano, Bompiani, 2002.
Tommaso d’Aquino, L’ente e l’essenza, a cura
di P. Porro. Milano, Bompiani, 2002.
2003
Bray N./Sturlese L. (edd.), Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo. Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (S.I.S.P.M.) Lecce, 27-29 settembre 2002, a cura di N. Bray e L. Sturlese, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2003.
Sturlese, L. (ed.), Lectura Eckhardi. Predigten Meister Eckharts von Fachgelehrten gelesen und gedeutet, II, hrsg. v. G. Steer und L. Sturlese, koordiniert von D. Gottschall. Mit Beiträgen von Alessandra Beccarisi, Kurt Flasch, Rolf Schönberger, Maarten Hoenen, Walter Haug, Dietmar Mieth, Niklaus Largier, Bernard McGinn (LE II). Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 2003.
d’Onofrio, G., Storia della teologia. II. Età medievale, Casale Monferrato, Piemme, 2003.
Mainoldi, E. (ed.), Giovanni Scoto Eriugena, De praedestinatione liber. Dialettica e teologia all’apogeo della Rinascenza carolingia, Firenze, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003.
2004
Gottschall, D., Konrad von Megenbergs Buch von den natürlichen Dingen. Ein Dokument deutschsprachiger Albertus Magnus-Rezeption im 14. Jahrhundert. Leiden-Boston, Brill (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 83), 2004.
Lucentini, P./Parri, I./Perrone Compagni, V. (edd.), Hermetism from Late Antiquity to Humanism. La tradizione ermetica dal mondo-tardo antico all’Umanesimo. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Napoli, 20-24 novembre 2001, Brepols, Turnhout 2004.
2005
Parri, I., La via filosofica di Ermete. Studio sull'Asclepius, Firenze (HM 2), 2005.
Sturlese, L., Vernunft und Glück. Die Lehre vom “intellectus adeptus” und die mentale Glückseligkeit bei Albert dem Groβen. Münster, Aschendorff (Lectio Albertina, 7), 2005.
2007
Sturlese, L., Homo divinus. Philosophische Projekte in Deutschland zwischen Meister Eckhart und Heinrich Seuse, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer 2007
Lucentini, P., Platonismo, ermetismo, eresia nel Medioevo. Introduzione di L. Sturlese, Louvain la Neuve 2007.
d’Onofrio, G., Vera philosophia. Studies in Late Antique, Early Medieval and Renaissance Christian Thought, Turnhout 2007 (Nutrix, 1)
Catalani, L., I Porretani. Una scuola di pensiero tra alto e basso Medioevo, Turnhout 2007 (Nutrix, 2).
The Medieval Paradigm, Papers of the Congress (Rome, LUMSA 31 oct. – 3 nov. 2005), ed. G. d’Onofrio with the collaboration of A. Bisogno, R. de Filippis, L. Catalani, Turnhout 2008 (in print) (Nutrix 4) <<<