Rare and substantial Aristotelian codex, with the commentary of an important English fourteenth-century philosopher and pre-eminent Aristotelian editor, and noble Italian provenance. Provenance: Written by a scribe who names himself in the colophon on fol. 300r as “ego andreas scripsi”, and apparently also on fol. 66v as “A.B.” in large red letters there. He states he completed the work on the 24 February 1435 (although the last numeral descends so far below the line that it might just be read as a ‘9’), in Venice.Early, possibly contemporary ex libris of Petri ex Captaneis on verso of last.Conte Pirro de Capitani (d. c. 1669; also Pyrro de Capitaneis), Milanese nobleman, general and sometime ambassador to the imperial court in Vienna: inscriptions in late seventeenth-century Italian hand listing its contents and its donation, presumably to the Capuchin Friars of Monza in Milan, who are recorded as receiving a magnificent gift of books from him (see Philippi Argelati Bononiensis Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, 1745, col. 684).Ercole Giuseppe de Silva (1756-1840, conte di Biandrate), and from his vast family library in Cinisello Balsamo, Milan (which borders Monza): his oval ex libris stamp and in his binding. In the catalogue of his collection: Catalogo de’ libri della biblioteca Silva in Cinisello, Monza, 1811, under ‘Nota de’ Codici manoscritti’, no. 43 (corresponding to “MS / 43” in gilt at foot of spine); his sale with Potier in Paris: Catalogue de livres rares et précieux, imprimés et manuscrits … provenant de la bibliothèque de M. le comte H. de S*** de Milan … les lundi 15 et mardi 16 février 1869, lot 199, and apparently unrecorded since. Text: The changing popularity of the works of Aristotle in the West, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the great sea changes of interest in secular Classical works during the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages and the renaissance of learning that followed the Crusades and the foundation of scholarly translation-schools in Spain and Sicily. Much of Aristotle’s works were translated into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with significant contributions made by William of Moerbeke and Bartholomeus de Messina in the thirteenth century. While fragments of leaves from such manuscripts can be obtained, codices, or even substantial fragments of them, are now of great rarity on the open market. What is of particular note here is that this commentary is by an English medieval theologian, Walter Burley (or Burleigh; c. 1275-1344/5), one of the most prominent and influential philosophers of the fourteenth century. He was probably a Yorkshireman by birth, and after education in Oxford and Paris, served Edward III as courtier, occasional ambassador to Pope John XXII, Lord Treasurer and finally Lord Chamberlain, as well as bishop of Durham. “Of [Burley’s] commentaries those on the Physics are undoubtedly the most important…this last effort which Burley devoted to the exposition and analysis of Aristotle’s Physics contains, it appears, the most significant of his contributions to natural philosophy”. DSB The text is rare both on the market, and in libraries, only a handful of copies are listed as appearing for sale in the last century and none has appeared since the southern French copy of the mid-fifteenth century in the Ritman sale, 6 July 2000. The present copy is the only one listed on Schoenberg.
