Scholia Latina in Platonem. La recezione del Menone e del Fedone nel Medioevo latino

This study offers a reinterpretation of the direct tradition of medieval Platonism on the basis of new evidence from the Meno and the Phaedo translated into Latin by Henry Aristippus between 1154 and 1160. In particular, it provides an edition of interlinear and marginal annotations and glosses of the Meno and the Phaedo: the manuscript tradition is particularly useful for understanding which aspects of these two Platonic dialogues were particularly studied during the Middle Ages, as it preserves the considerations of various readers on Platonic philosophy. In the most fortunate cases, it is precisely the manuscript tradition that offers new perspectives that can be used to redesign the networks of reception of the two Platonic texts examined in this study in the centuries following their translation, with particular reference to the 13th and 14th centuries. The research was carried out on unpublished material and manuscript testimonies, with the help of two strategies. First, the medieval sources were submetted to a doxographic analysis, through a bottom-up approach consisting in the identification of the terms ‘Plato’, ‘Meno’, ‘Phaedo’ (or ‘Fedrone’ according to medieval usage). This allowed to understand in which contexts and in relation to which themes the references to the three terms appeared and to provide a list of authors who, between the 13th and the 14th century, had the opportunity to read the Meno and/or the Phaedo in Henry Aristippus’ translation. The second strategy, which we could perhaps describe as ‘inside-out’, was applied in the editing phase of the interlinear and marginal annotations and glosses of the two translations. As an especially important paratextual element, the ‘marginal’ writing proves to be particularly useful for deriving the constituent elements of the two dialogues (inside) that were commented, re-written, re-elaborated and interpreted in the margins of the two texts (outside). By employing both strategies, it is possible to reveal the core concepts of Platonic philosophy that, to a greater or lesser extent, caught the attention of medieval readers of the Latin Meno and the Phaedo.