Union Académique Internationale

It was in the translation by William of Moerbeke, made in the early sixties of the thirteenth century, that Aristotle's texts on the movement of animals (De motu animalium) and on the progression of animals (De progressu animalium) were known to medieval readers. They circulated at the University of Paris as a part of Aristotle's Books on Animals (Book XI and XII respectively), but also figured in a collection of short Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian treatises (including the physiological Parva Naturalia). This volume offers the first critical edition of another translation of De motu animalium which is only known indirectly, through Albert the Great's paraphrase De principiis motus processivi. Albert had based this paraphrase on a translation he had found during his travels "in Campania iuxta Greciam". This translation has since been lost. The edition attempts a reconstruction, based on a comparison of Albert's text to the Greek sources. The discovery of a Greek manuscript that is closely related to the model used by the anonymous translator appears to confirm the hypothesis that the translation was made in Southern Italy.