284J Aristotle , –Gualtherus Burlaeus. (Walter Burley (c. 1275–1344/5 ))

Expositio Gualteri Burlei super decem Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis (Contains the text of Robert Grosseteste’s translation of the Nicomachean Ethics)

Venice: Simon de Luere for Andreas Torresanus, 4 September 1500                    $11,500

Folio, 12 1/4 X 8 1/2 in.    A8 a6b-x8 y10.  Second edition after the first of 1481.

This copy is bound in contemporary 1/4 blind-tooled goatskin over wooden boards with 3 (of 4) metal catches on front cover, rebacked retaining most of original backstrip, conspicuous termite damage on front cover, rear cover replaced with modern board, endpapers renewed; contents washed with residual soiling on opening leaves, worming through much of volume generally not impairing legibility, crude restoration in blank margins at beginning and end .

Ethica Nicomachea, Books 1-10, in the Latin translation of Robertus Grosseteste( 1175-1253) , incipit “[O]Mnis ars et om[n]is doctrina similiter aut[em] [et] actus [et] electio bonum quodda[m] ap=pete[re] videt[ur]. J[de]o b[e]n[e] enunciaueru[n]t bonu[m] q[uo]d omnia appetu[n]t”, b1r-y9v; colophon (Venetijs impresse arte Simonis de Leure: impensis v[ir]o domini Andree Torresani de Asula. Anno M.D. die v[er]o, IIIJ. Septebris.,), y10r; printer’s register, y10r. Wood cut diagrams.

Walter Burley, was one of the most prominent logicians and metaphysicians of the Middle Ages

“The first Latin translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the Ethica vetus and the Ethica nova, are the object of six commentaries from the first half of the thirteenth century, presumably written by Parisian arts masters. Typical for these early commentaries is the interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine in the light of Christian religion.  In 1246/1248, Robert Grosseteste achieved a complete translation of the Nicomachean Ethics.  The first to write commentaries on it were Albert the Great (twice) and Thomas Aquinas. Both attempted to interpret Aristotle philosophically; the extent to which Aquinas nevertheless admitted theological views is disputed in scholarship. The commentary of Aquinas was a major source for many other commentaries of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Goff; b-1301 ; BMC 15th cent.,; v, 576 (ib. 24667); GW; 5779; ; Hain-Copinger; *4144; Harman, m. incunabula in the University of illinois library at urbana-champaign (1979); 191; ISTC (online); ib01301000; Proctor; 5269; Pellechet; 3080 lines df (2002) 

Aristotle’s ethics in the italian renaissance (ca. 1300–1650): the universities and the problem of moral education. Brill, Leiden

Iacopo Costa. The Ethics of Walter Burley. Alessandro D. Conti. A Companion to Walter Burley. Late Medieval Logician and Metaphysician, A Companion to Walter Burley : Late Medieval Logician and Metaphysician, pp.321-346, 2013, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, ISSN : 1871-6377 ; 41. ⟨halshs-00843864⟩

Conti, Alessandro, “Walter Burley”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/burley/>.