Tuesday’s Treasure To celebrate the start of the Cambridge Science Festival, we’ve selected for this week’s Treasure one of our earliest books of a ‘scientific’ (for the time!) nature, a compilation of works by two early philosophers, John Philoponus (5th-6th century CE) and Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd-3rd century CE). Both are known for their studies on Aristotle, the ancient philosopher famed for helping lay the groundwork for proper scientific method through his work on the natural world. The book (somewhat lengthily entitled Ioannes Grammaticus in libros De generatione, et interitu. Alexander Aphrodisiensis in Meteorologica. Idem de mixtione) is no longer in its original binding, but behind the unassuming cover lies a very early printed text, published in Venice in 1527. The closely printed Greek makes for a beautiful, if rather hard to read, edition of these philosophical works. Handwritten annotations in Latin suggest a close reading of the text by earlier users, and other decorative scrawls add character to the book and provide a glimpse of old penmanship. (A phrase in Greek has been added by hand to the title page, which various faculty members are attempting to decipher…) This particular edition of the work will be of interest to students of philosophy in particular, as it is was previously owned by Gwilym Ellis Lane Owen, the renowned philosopher and expert on Plato and Aristotle who held the Laurence Professorship in Cambridge at King’s College from 1973 until his death in 1982. Owen’s papers and books form one of the Classical Library’s most important scholarly collections, of which this book is a part – Owen’s book plate appears on the inner front cover, and his signature can be seen on the first page. Remember to have a look at our Pinterest page for more photos and related resources at Classics for this weeks treasure: pinterest/libclass/tuesdays-treasure-ioannes-grammaticus/
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:36:14 +0000
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