## 1. Commentaries on Texts from the *Corpus Aristotelicum*




In no other period of the history of philosophy, as far as we know,
have so many commentaries on works by Aristotle been written (both per
year and in total) as in the
 Renaissance.[5] 
 Even on the incomplete basis of Lohr's first version of his catalogue
of Renaissance Latin Aristotle
 Commentaries[6] 
 Richard Blum has counted 6653 such commentaries for the period
1500 to
 1650.[7] 
 The magnitude of this number should be considered
significant--especially in comparison to the ca. 750
commentaries listed for the *fifteenth* century in Lohr's
catalogue of "mediaeval" Aristotle
 commentaries.[8]





The real reasons of this increase of interest are yet
unknown. However, the reasons might include:


* the rising number of universities (probably connected with a
rising number of persons in charge of expounding works of Aristotle to
their students),
* enhanced access to existing scholarship on Aristotle and the *corpus aristotelicum* by the advent of 
 printing[9]
* enhancement of propagation (and thus broader visibility) of
commentaries by the advent of
 printing[10]
* changes in the role of philosophy education at universities
and a resulting need for new commentaries,
* advances and new trends in Aristotle scholarship (including strong
reception of the Greek Aristotle commentaries!), and the need to react
to them,
* impact of texts from outside the Aristotelian tradition,
* reaction to extra-philosophical problems and phenomena.




It is possible to name Renaissance Aristotle commentaries influenced
by one or more of each of these. As a whole, the reasons given above
contribute to the great variety of what can be found in Renaissance
Aristotle
 commentaries[11].
 It may even be that such delightful variety is what chiefly attracts
current scholars to studying this *genre* of philosophical
literature. And yet most of these commentaries have not yet been
studied by anyone since the 
 Renaissance.[12] 




There have been some attempts to sort Renaissance Aristotle
commentators into groups according to their use of or degree of
adherence to pre-Renaissance Aristotle commentaries (e.g.,
"Averroist", "Alexandrist",
"Thomist" schools/groups/traditions). However, it is
doubtful that such a sorting contributes to a better understanding of
their texts and contexts. This is because many authors of Aristotle
commentaries--including some who had a particular preference
for one or more of the earlier commentators--used the earlier
commentaries on a case by case basis.




As far as we know, most of these commentaries were written for use in
a university setting (see below). As a consequence, the choice of
texts commented upon and the degree of detail given to a certain
passage is often due, at least in part, to its use in a classroom, a
universitarian debate or its relevance for exams.




There are no sharp borderlines between commentaries proper, textbooks,
encyclopedias, and treatises. (Philipp Melanchthon's works on ethics
might be a good illustration of this: "Melanchthon on
Ethics" starts as something which is a commentary on parts of
the *Nicomachean Ethics* [Melanchthon, 1535] and--in the
1550 and later versions, now edited and translated by Gunter Frank--was 
developed into something which is a textbook in which rather few
traces of and similarities to the commentary genre are left
[Melanchthon, 2008].) And even where the work in question is a
commentary in the most narrow sense of the word, the text can be some
sort of *bibliographie raisonee* of the previous
literature (e.g., some of Augustinus Niphus's texts), a decent guide
to some probable meaning of Aristotle's text (e.g., some of Cesare
Cremonini's commentaries on the *Parva naturalia*), or a text
written in order to influence the political world of the day (e.g.,
Antonio Montecatini's commentary on the third book of Aristotle's
politics [Montecatini, 1597]), or anything in-between.




Although most of the commentaries apparently deal with those texts
from the *corpus aristotelicum* that have been the focus of
interest from the 13th century to today, the Renaissance is a period
where the percentage of commentaries and other texts dealing with the works of Aristotle less frequently read today (e.g., the
*Problemata,* the *Parva naturalia*) is higher than
one might expect.


## 2. Philosophy at Renaissance Universities




Although there seems to be no simple answer to the question of which
Renaissance institutions of "higher education" should be
considered as
 "universities";[13] 
 there is neither doubt nor conflict about the fact, that there were
many universities, and that many of them were founded in the
 Renaissance.[14] 
 And at virtually all of them much of the philosophy taught there was
directly or indirectly founded on parts of the *corpus
aristotelicum*. And, given the wide range of texts (commentaries,
treatises, textbooks, collections of theses for disputations ...)
making use of that *corpus* and being related directly or
indirectly to some sort of "universitarian" context and/or
use, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of the texts this
entry is about are texts related directly or indirectly to some sort
of such context and/or use, perhaps "Renaissance University
Texts in Philosophy" might be an even better description for
what this entry is about than its real title "Aristotelianism in
the Renaissance".




In general, only some of the fields covered by the *corpus
aristotelicum* were part of any single university curriculum. We
do not yet have a survey on what was taught where and when, so we
cannot yet give a complete
 assessment,[15] 
 but permitting some margin of error, we can say:


* *Logic* was taught everywhere (in some cases with a special
stress on the Prior Analytics material and in some cases with special
stress on the Posterior Analytics material, and in some cases with a
special stress on Topics and argumentation, and in later times--perhaps starting with Antonius Rubius[16]--also on the Categories).
* *Philosophy of nature* was widely taught: more intensively
in universities where philosophy students tended to pursue a medical
degree (e.g., in Bologna and Padua) and less intensively in
universities where philosophy students were trained for going on with
theology (e.g., many Protestant universities and the institutions of
higher education run by religious orders). Apparently the material
taught most prominently was what can be found in *De anima* II
and III and *Physics*, rather prominently what can be found in
*De coelo* and *Meteora*, and only rather rarely what can be found in the rest
of the *libri naturales*.
* *Metaphysics* was sometimes a niche subject without any
relevance for the regular degree examinations (e.g., in Padua),
sometimes of utmost importance (as in some Protestant cases), and
sometimes somewhere in-between (e.g., in Ingolstadt).
* The stress laid on *moral philosophy* differed
considerably, and generally ethics was far more prominent than
politics--let alone
 economics.[17]




It seems difficult (or even impossible) to find a single statement on
which *all* known Renaissance "Aristotelians"
agree. This may be due, in part, to the specialization of teachers
(Melanchthon not agreeing that all knowledge rises from the senses,
Cremonini disinterested in moral philosophy and thus not making
statements on virtues, ...). 




There are a few explicit statements of the reasons for basing the
teaching of philosophy at universities on the *corpus
aristotelicum* or works derived from it. Augustinus Niphus (died
1538)--who probably gave the fullest treatment of this
question--gives the following
 reasons (Niphus, 1544, f. ++++ 2vb): 
 The parts of philosophy are treated by Aristotle one by one in books
each of which is dedicated to just one part of philosophy; he proceeds
from what is better known to us to that which is less known to us; he
finds out about things by discussing views held by others; he treats
everything with apt ampleness and conciseness; his style is that of a
philosopher and not that of an orator; he is consistent.




Philipp Melanchthon states, in his 1536 oration "On
Philosophy" (Melanchthon, 1843), that you have to choose a
*genre* of philosophy which is not sophistic, and which adheres
to the correct method, and that the one taught by Aristotle is such a
 philosophy.[18]
 (He then continues to reject stoic, epicurean and platonic
alternatives ... .)


 

Note that neither Niphus nor Melanchthon claim that a reason for using
the *corpus aristotelicum* as the basis of teaching philosophy
at universities is the *truth* of any of Aristotle's
 statements.[19] 
 Melanchthon goes on to request that, in addition to Aristotle, other
authors should be used for some fields, something that is admitted
also by
 Niphus.[20] 
 Philosophy taught at Renaissance universities uses Aristotle as its
main starting point and main basis, but (at least in many cases)
Aristotle (together with his commentators) is not the only basis of
philosophy taught at Renaissance
 universities.[21] 




Interest in Renaissance university philosophy has been rekindled by
Ernest Renan who investigated several philosophers teaching at Padua
(Renan, 1866), and "Paduan" Renaissance university
philosophy is the part of "Renaissance Aristotelianism"
that has been most thoroughly studied. But as research progresses and
more knowledge is gained about more universities and authors, the
image gets more complex and less apt for generalizations. This adds
insight into the diversity of the traditions at each university and
the diversity of philosophies taught by teachers at each 
 one.[22] 
 These teachers are probably best studied as single philosophers, and
not as mere adherents or members of some
 school.[23]


## 3. Textbooks and Encyclopedias




Textbooks and encyclopedias are not necessarily contrasting
*genres*, as sometimes encyclopedias were used as textbooks. In
spite of being (again) based on Aristotle (and his commentators), some
textbooks did provide more "untraditional" views by
integrating material found in Aristotle (and his commentators) with
material found in other
 authors.[24] 
 Other textbooks provided untraditional views by their choice of what
they retained and what they left out and how they paraphrased what
they
 retained.[25] 




Although these textbooks are not proper 'commentaries' on
the works of Aristotle, in some cases they provide sensible
interpretation of statements by Aristotle beyond many
 commentaries.[26] 




Schmitt's "The rise of the philosophical textbook" (1988)
remains the definitive text to read on philosophical textbooks in the
Renaissance.


## 4. Treatises etc.




Commentaries and textbooks are not the only types of texts used for
interpreting, discussing, defending, adapting and transforming the
doctrines of Aristotle (and his commentators) in the
Renaissance. Specialized treatises cover a wide range of subjects:
on the immortality of the soul, on innate heat, on the agent sense,
on the *regressus*, on vapour, on rhetoric imitation,
.... These treatises often treat a certain subject more or
less for its own sake, and not just in order to find out what was
Aristotle's opinion on it--though the author will often settle
for a position that he believes to be the position of Aristotle.




Many printed collections of theses (for doctoral dissertations or
other purposes) can also be considered as specialized monographs
-- though in the form we have them most of them do not provide us
with the argumentations that lead to the assumptions made.




Francisco Patrizi's *Discussiones peripateticae*
(Patrizi, 1581), although not a pro-Aristotelian text, is one of the
most learned works on the subject of Aristotle and the Aristotelian
traditions we have from the Renaissance. And it does not easily
fit into any of the sections used here.


## 5. Some Remarks on the History of the Habit of Sorting Renaissance Philosophy into Schools




The ancient habit of sorting philosophers into schools or groups seems
first to have been applied to Aristotelian philosophers by Francisco
 Patrizi [Franciscus Patritius][27]
 in his *Discussiones peripateticae*. It is an approach,
that is useful to give order to a text that treats a great number of
Renaissance
 Aristotelians.[28] 
 But in a text not trying to give at least superficial doxographical
information concerning the single philosophers and their works, it
might (correctly) be interpreted as a pretext not to study these
philosophers and their
 works.[29] 
 And the charming character of Renaissance "Aristotelian" texts
is more situated in their (considerable) diversities than in their
(limited) similarities.