Complexio in the Late - Medieval Latin De animalibus

By focusing on the concept of ‘complexion’ in the major medieval Latin commentaries on Aristotle’s so-called De animalibus , this paper identifies and analyzes a case of the use of the concept of ‘complexion’ outside the medical context o r, more precisel y, at the intersection of natural philosophy and medicin e. The preliminary survey under - taken in this paper suggests that ‘complexion’ was a key concept of the De animalibus traditio n, i.e., the principle used to explain, in a unified manner, the issues at stake in the medieval scientia de animalibus . The paper further reflects on the reasons why the notion of ‘complexion’ could have served as an organizational principle of the themes treated in the De animalibus commentaries and on the role that the earliest medieval commentaries on the De animalibus themselves could have played in shaping some of the prominent features of the medieval conceptualization of ‘complexio n. ’


Introduction
Scholarship has traditionally focused on the centrality of the notion of 'complexion' to medieval and Renaissance medicine.Yet little attention has been devoted to use of the notion of 'complexion' in fields beyond medicine or to how this concept created intersections between medicine and other fields.1One of the purposes of this special issue is to investigate the ways and to what extent this notion was taken up outside its main context of medicine in other fields.To contribute to this aim, the present paper offers a preliminary survey of the use of 'complexion' in late-medieval Latin commentaries on Aristotle's so-called De animalibus.This introduction therefore briefly presents the corpus of commentaries on Aristotelian zoological works in which the concept of 'complexion' will be mapped in the rest of the paper.Aristotle wrote extensively on animals, addressing this topic in De pro gressu animalium ("Progression of Animals"), De motu animalium ("Movement of Animals"), De partibus animalium ("Parts of Animals"), De generatione animalium ("Generation of Animals"), and Historia animalium ("History of Animals").2This zoological corpus was transmitted to the Latin Middle Ages thanks especially to a translation by Michael Scot (a Latin translation made from the Greek via the Arabic).3Another important vehicle for the transmission of the De animalibus doctrines to the Latin medieval world was Avicenna's Liber de animalibus (also known as Abbreviatio Avicennae), which was also translated into Latin by Michael Scot.4A Latin translation of the De animalibus, created directly from Greek, was prepared by William of Moerbeke.5While the De progressu animalium and the De motu animalium were mostly circulated as separate treatises, the Historia animalium, De partibus animalium, and De generatione animalium were grouped together as a unified corpus called De animalibus (On Animals).6Like most branches of Aristotle's philosophy upon introduction to the Latin Middle Ages, the zoological corpus was integrated with pre-existing knowledge, and it moreover had a major impact on the development of medieval science.Aristotle's zoology contributed to shaping medieval thought through several textual genres (commentaries, questions, independent treatises, compendia and abbreviations, conclusiones, flores and auctori tates, and tabulae) and was transmitted via several different epistemological Beneduce Early Science and Medicine 28 (2023) 429-451 frameworks (works of theology, natural philosophy, and medicine).7In the context of the university and as far as the teaching of natural philosophy and medicine is particularly concerned, Aristotle's zoological treatises were included among the natural-philosophical works studied in the faculties of Arts (in Paris and Oxford) and were regularly quoted within medical works, such as commentaries on Galen (although it seems that the De animalibus was neither assigned in the curriculum of the faculties of Medicine nor directly commented upon).8 Overall and compared to other commentary traditions, there are relatively few medieval university commentaries on the De animalibus.Of these, only four have come down to us in complete -or nearly complete -form: in chronological order, these are a commentary by Peter of Spain, two from Albert the Great, and an anonymous commentary contained in a Vatican City manuscript, probably prepared in the fourteenth century.9 The corpus attributed to Peter of Spain (thirteenth century) has been much debated, as has the question of to whom it is we are actually referring when we speak of "Peter of Spain."The details of these debates are not strictly relevant to the purposes of this paper.10Here, I simply refer to Peter of Spain as the On the other late-medieval university commentaries on the De animalibus, see the literature quoted above, in n. 6.Later in this paper (see below, n. 21), I will refer to some of these other commentaries, and specifically to Petrus Gallecus's Liber de animalibus, ed.José Martínez Gázquez (Florence, 2000); to Johannes Vath's Quaestiones super libro De generatione animalium, edited in Cova, "Le questioni di Giovanni Vath," as well as to the so-called 'Anonymus Florentinus' .As Stefano Perfetti has shown, the small number of commentaries on the zoological corpus compared to other parts of Aristotle's natural philosophy is not in and of itself indicative of Aristotelian zoology having little influence on medieval thought, because Aristotle's teaching on animals entered the Latin Middle Ages in several forms, not necessarily primarily linked to university commentaries; see  The present paper considers the notion of 'complexion' in these, the only complete (or nearly complete) extant medieval university commentaries on the De animalibus, and shows that 'complexion' was a key concept of that tradition.Starting from the evidence that "complexion" widely appears in these texts and was applied to a wide array of topics, I will ultimately suggest that 'complexion' might be considered as the principle used to explain, in a unified manner, the issues at stake in the medieval scientia de animalibus.Further considerations will also be drawn on the reasons why this might have been the case and on the role the medieval commentaries on the De animalibus could have played in the shaping of the main theoretical features of the notion of 'complexion' itself.

2
Complexio in Late-Medieval Latin Commentaries on the

De animalibus
This section presents a list of questions and chapter titles in which the word "complexio" appears in the four (nearly) complete extant medieval commentaries on the De animalibus.16The titles reported here are from the tabula librorum found on pages 53-110 of Petrus Hispanus, Quaestiones super libro De animalibus, ed.Navarro Sánchez.The page numbers refer to that tabula.The text is composed of general questions divided into several, mostly un-numbered sub-questions.In my list, I have indicated the question to which each sub-question belongs (e.g., "within q. 2," etc.).18 In the subsequent question (q.4) of the twelfth book, yet another occurrence of "complexion" appears in the question title, but not, however, as reported in the tabula libro rum: "Hic restat querere primo de complexione in corporibus superioribus, utrum scilicet sit ibi calor informatiue uel effectiue"; see Petrus Hispanus, Quaestiones super libro De animalibus, ed.Navarro Sánchez, 302.considered in this paper; ideally, those other occurrences of the term should also be mapped for a more comprehensive analysis.21Only an extended inventory could precisely count, map, and connect them all.There is much room, in other words, for further exploration of the extension of the concept's use and applications in the medieval corpus of De animalibus, alongside the lexicographical ways in which the notion entered and was taken up in the Latin tradition against the background of previous Ancient and Arabic thought.
What the above survey demonstrates, in any case, is just how widely used was the concept of 'complexion' in the tradition of medieval university commentaries on the De animalibus.'Complexion' is used in several books of the corpus and in relation to a wide array of topics: it is discussed as a (possible) criterion for distinguishing between humans and animals and between species of animals; it is considered in relation to the regions of the Earth and health, and is addressed in relation to mixture.The various degrees of complexion are noted, and analysis is undertaken of the complexion of uniform bodily parts, of the organs (heart, brain, nerves, and others), and of bodily products or wastes (milk, honey, wax, urine, excrements, snakes' venom, etc.); complexion is also linked to nutrition processes, the five senses, behavior, and to the differences between males and females.commentary tradition thus seems to be enmeshed with several crucial theoretical topics related to human and animal nature and bodily function: the relationship between humans and animals, and their connections with the environment; the constitution of the body and the biological phenomena pertaining to it; normal and pathological conditions of organisms; nutrition and sensation processes; the behavioral and moral attitudes of living beings; and gender differences.This manifold and polymorphic use of the concept of 'complexion' reveal it to be a key concept of the medieval De animalibus commentary tradition.
What is most interesting in this respect is that at least two medieval texts -Peter of Spain's commentary on Aristotle's De anima22 and the set of questions on the De anima by the so-called Anonymus Giele (thirteenth century)23seem to identify bodily complexion as the proper object of the science treated in the De animalibus.In their reflections on the proper object of the science of the soul and comparisons of the science of the soul with other sciences, both texts claim that the science in the De animalibus focuses on bodily complexion.The quaestiones preambulae of Peter of Spain's commentary state that while the science of the soul, as developed in the De anima, addressed the body only insofar as it was connected to the soul, the science of plants and animals (elaborated in De vegetabilibus and De animalibus) focused on the body itself.In particular, Peter of Spain writes that the De animalibus studied the animated body insofar as it is referred to its own complexion and to the disposition of its own parts.24Peter of Spain further states that the animated body has three aspects -namely, the complexion of the body, the disposition of its parts, and their inception and end -and he twice maintains that this is how the animated body is studied in the De animalibus and De vegetabilibus.25Moreover,

24
The statement is found within the quaestiones preambulae's first main problem "[…] de stabilitate subiecti sciencie de anima et de necessitate istius science" (Petrus Hispanus, Commentarium in librum De anima, ed.Manuel Alonso, 59), and, more specifically, in the question "utrum anima sit subiectum in scientia de anima aut corpus animatum" (ibid., 79).The relevant passage reads as follows: "Sexto modo appellatur subiectum in scientia illud ratione cuius formaliter aliquid est subiectum in scientia illa et sic anima est subiectum in scientia ista non de quo est scientia set ratione cuius de aliquo est ista scientia.Est enim de corpore animato non ratione corporis set ratione qua comparatur ad animam.he assigns to complexion an important role in distinguishing between the science of plants and the science of animals: the body of plants is treated by a different science than the one addressing human and animal bodies, because human and animal complexions share some common principles which are not proper to plants.26 The claim that bodily complexion is the proper object of the De animalibus can also be found, though in a shorter and less developed way, in q. 3 of the first book of the Anonymus Giele's De anima.The disposition and complexion of the animated body is emphasized here as the subject matter of the science treated in the De animalibus.27operationum egredientium ab anima determinatarum supra ipsum.Tercium est natura operationum quas habet corpus a parte corporis et que contrahunt materiam ab eo et sic de eo in minoribus libris sicut in libro de sensu et sensato; de morte et vita; de sompno et vigilia" (ibid., 88) From these two texts, there clearly emerges an intimate connection between the De animalibus and the concept of 'complexion.'Following these passages, it even seems that the De animalibus tradition takes the concept of bodily complexion as its proper epistemological object.28 Though this claim seems to appear only sporadically in medieval texts and does not appear explicitly in medieval commentaries on the De animalibus, the key role of 'complexion' in the medieval scientia de animalibus is evidenced by the contents of the medieval De animalibus themselves.In both early passages of Albert the Great's De animalibus (first book, first treatise, chapter one) and later in the text (twelfth book, first treatise, chapters one and four), for example, readers are presented with an extended reading of Aristotle's account of the levels of bodily composition using the concept of 'complexion.'Albert talks about 'complexion' in terms of the "composition of humors," and explicitly refers complexion to the Aristotelian uniform or homogeneous parts.29It dispositionis sit oculus etc. Hoc modo autem non determinatur hic de corpore animato, sed primo modo" (ibid., 27).28 The position of the scientia de animalibus in natural philosophy have been discussed in literature, alongside the problem of its scientific basis (e.g., the problem of whether it deals with particular cases or with universals), and the types of knowledge procedures thereby involved.See Pietro Bassiano Rossi, "Problems of Method According to Some Medieval Commentators on Book I of the De partibus animalium," in Erfahrung und Beweis.Die Wissenschaften von der Natur im 13. und 14.Jahrhundert, ed.Alexander Fidora and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Berlin, 2007), 89-123, and idem, "L'entrata dei libri De ani malibus," which refers to further scholarship (esp.to the previous studies by Köhler) on the epistemological position occupied by the scientia de animalibus and on the nature and method of the research carried out in medieval commentaries on the De animalibus.
The theme of the proper object of the medieval commentaries on the De animalibus is not treated by Rossi.

29
In the twelfth book of his De animalibus, Albert comments on Aristotle's De partibus ani malium, II, 646a7-24.The Aristotelian passage reads as follows: "The nature and the number of the parts of which animals are severally composed are matters which have already been set forth in detail in the book of Histories about animals.We have now to inquire what are the causes that in each case have determined this composition, a subject quite distinct from that dealt with in the Histories.Now there are three degrees of composition; and of these the first in order, as all will allow, is composition out of what some call the elements, such as earth, air, water, fire.Perhaps, however, it would be more accurate to say composition out of the elementary forces; nor indeed out of all of these, as said elsewhere in previous treatises.For wet and dry, hot and cold, form the material of all composite bodies; and all other differences are secondary to these, such differences, that is, as heaviness or lightness, density or rarity, roughness or smoothness, and any other such properties of bodies as there may be.The second degree of composition is that by which the homogeneous parts of animals, such as bone, flesh, and the like, are constituted out of the primary substances.The third and last stage is the composition which forms the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, and the rest."(Aristotle, The Complete Works of is also the case, however, that complexion of the heterogeneous parts, such as the organs, is often mentioned in the two De animalibus commentaries ascribed to Albert, as well as in the other commentaries analyzed above (those of Peter of Spain and the Anonymous).In other words, although especially linked by Albert to the similar parts, the concept of 'complexion' seemed to have played a wider explanatory role in the medieval scientia de animalibus.Explanations in terms of 'complexion' were here applied also to more complex degrees of bodily composition (the organs), to entire sets of biological processes and functioning (such as nutrition, sensation, and generation), and to other topics not immediately pertaining to bodily parts themselves, such as the differences between males and females, or the discussion of the behavior of animated beings.Complexion seems to have functioned as an explanatory Aristotle.The Revised Oxford Translation, ed.Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols.[Princeton, NJ, 1984], 1: 1005-1006).In his text, Albert follows Aristotle's distinction of three kinds of composition: composition out of elements, composition of uniform parts, and composition of non-uniform parts.When referring to the second of these, Albert introduces the concept of 'complexion': "Secunda vero compositio facit complexionem: complexio enim, sicut in antehabitis ostensum est, est qualitas accidens ex qualitatum contrarium compositione in particulis minimis et dividentibus et alternantibus se ad invicem.Et hoc enim accidit in eis una qualitas quae complexio vocatur.Et haec compositio vocatur compositio humorum, faciens ex ipsis membra consimilia animalium quae ex humoribus generantur: et ideo ista compositio dicitur fieri ex illis membris, quae habent partes consimiles ad invicem naturaliter, sicut os, caro, nervus et huiusmodi, quoniam licet incipiat haec compositio ex humoribus, tamen quia humor non est actu pars animalis sicut est membrum simile, quod ex humore generatur, melius dicitur esse compositio ista ex membris similibus."Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, liber XII, tract.I, cap. 1, § 1, 799.Albert is here reprising the distinction between commixtio elementorum, complexio humorum, and compositio membrorum that he made at the beginning of his work: "Scientiam de animalibus secundum eam quam in principio praemisimus divisionem post scientiam de vegetabilibus in huius nostrae naturalis philosophiae calce ponemus: eo quod corpora animalium, de quibus loquimur, tam commixtione quam complexione quam etiam compositione constituentium commixtionem patiuntur elementorum in materia, complexionem autem sustinent humorum tam in generatione quam etiam in nutrimento: et membrorum habent compositionem ad regimen suae vitae pertinentem.Propter quod etiam ultimam partem naturarum de animalibus esse congruit, eo quod in omnibus compositiora considerantur post simplicia et minus composita: eo quod minus composita sunt in magis compositis, sicut saepe ostendimus.Est enim elementorum mixtio in complexione humorum et humorum complexio in quolibet membrorum compositorum, quod ad officium et actum vitae perfectum est." (Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, liber I, tract.I, cap. 1, § 1, 1.) For a comment on Albert the Great's use of the concept of 'complexion' in the first and the twelfth books of the De animalibus, see de Asúa, "Organization of Discourse on Animals," and idem, "War and Peace: Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Albert the Great," in A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences, ed.Irven Resnick (Leiden, 2013), 292-294; see also n. 41 below.tool for different biological functions, and to account for the different levels of bodily composition, up to and including human and animal behavioral features; its applications seemed to cover the entire spectrum of biological topics Aristotelian zoology had to offer.All of which is to say that complexion worked as a key principle of the medieval scientia de animalibus, and a unifying principle of explanation of topics pertaining to human and animal biology.

Shaping the Medieval Concept of 'Complexion'
Some attempt can now be made to explain the reasons why the notion of 'complexion' could have had such a fortune in the medieval De animalibus commentary tradition.These reasons might very easily come from the main theoretical features of the concept of 'complexion' itself.Scholarship has so far underlined the 'in-between' nature of the medieval notion of 'complexion.'When defining 'complexion,' late-medieval physicians tried to make it a concept "in between" matter and form, accident and substance, individual and species.30This made complexion "a ductile and intermediate heuristic tool"31 to be advantageously applied in the medical domain, where the animated bodies were concerned.
As something in between matter and form, accident and substance, individual and species, complexion might have been seen as a convenient concept to be 30 On this, see first of all the well-known article by Joël Chandelier and Aurélien Robert, "Nature humaine et complexion du corps chez les médicins italiens de la fin du Moyen Âge," Revue de synthèse, 134 (2013), 473-510, and esp. the following passage at 484-485: "Quoique différente de la substance et de l'âme, la complexion permet au médecin de tenir un discours sur l'homme ayant exactement la même extension que celui du physicien, du psychologue, ou du métaphysicien -l'homme -sans parler directement de la forme substantielle ou de l'âme.Son object, la complexion, se trouve précisément à l'interface entre la matière et la forme, entre la substance et l'accident, entre ce qui est purement corporel et ce qui appartient à l'âme.La notion de complexion permet ainsi de conserver l'unité de l'espèce humaine d'un point de vu métaphysique -tout les êtres humains ont la même forme substantielle -tout en acceptant une variation infinie de degrés dans la complexion -chaque individue a une complexion singulière, quoique toujours humaine."On complexion as an in-between phenomenon -between matter and form, accident and substance, individual and species -see also Chiara Crisciani, "Medici e filosofia," in La filosofia in Italia al tempo di Dante, ed. Carla Casagrande and Gianfranco Fioravanti (Bologna, 2016), 46-51. 31 Crisciani, "Medici e filosofia," 49: "Dunque la complexio si rivela sempre più uno strumento euristico duttile e intermedio, vicino alla forma come alla materia; connessione tra ciò che è solo corpo e quanto spetta all'anima; in grado di coinvolgere tutta la specie, ma capace di dar conto delle infinite varietà, dei concreti particolari che distinguono gli organismi di ciascun uomo.E dunque diventa il paradigma-cardine delle ricerche e degli interventi del medico."(My translation).used while discussing human and animal biology in a zoological domain, too.Humans and animals could here be studied not just in their formal aspect, i.e., their soul, nor only from the perspective of their physical, material, i.e., elemental, composition but exactly as animated bodies, indeed belonging to a species but, at the same time, remaining themselves relevant objects of study in their individual features.By providing an "intermediate space […] between the homogeneous domain of the specific form and the absolutely different variety of the individual accidents,"32 the concept of 'complexion' could offer the De animalibus commentators with a useful epistemic tool to deal with humans and animals as hylomorphic entities, in a framework of Aristotelian natural philosophy.33In short, the concept of 'complexion' clearly lent itself to being used in the scientia de animalibus.
On the other hand, the extensive use of the notion of 'complexion' by the De animalibus commentators could also have played its own role in shaping the medieval concept of 'complexion' in its theoretical features and in making the in-between trait of complexion prominent in late-medieval science.In other words, we might likely think that the medieval commentators on the De animalibus did not just borrow a ready-made notion of 'complexion' but actively contributed to modeling it.How 'complexion' turns out to be exactly described in the medieval zoological tradition of the commentaries on the De animalibus, and to what extent this description contributed to the medieval conceptualization of the concept of 'complexion,' are further questions that need to be addressed in the future.If we refer to the theoretical features of complexion mentioned above, and especially the definition of 'complexion' in relation to matter and form, accident and substance, individual and species, then the medieval commentaries on the De animalibus overviewed in this paper can offer some insights.Peter of Spain described complexion in relation to matter and form.A relevant and extended example is found in a section of his commentary where he discusses the biological transformations implied in digestion and nutrition.The question is about what remains of lettuce once assimilated as food in the body, and especially whether a trace of lettuce's complexion remains and whether such a trace is sufficient to alter the human body (seventh book, within q. 3).In answer, a vestige of lettuce's complexion, capable of altering the body, is said to remain.While the lettuce is deprived of its form and, therefore, of its species, it is not deprived of its complexion, since it cannot be deprived of its matter.Lettuce's complexion is said to be a consequence of its matter ("complexio sequitur materiam") and is neatly distinguished from its form (from which its species derives).34In a discussion about the complexion of bodily parts such as nerves in the question-commentary ascribed to Albert the Great (third book, q. 8), the author claims that nerves are cold and humid as far as matter is concerned, while they are cold and dry as far as complexion is concerned.35Material and complexional aspects of nerves, here, do not overlap at all and are identified as two different perspectives from which nerves' characteristics can be described.From an ontological point of view -to put it differently -, complexion does not collapse with matter; epistemologically, explaining bodily aspects in terms of 'complexion' does not coincide with explaining them in terms of 'matter.'While more research is needed into these developments, there is good provisional evidence to suggest that the earliest medieval De animalibus commentators may have given their own contributions in discussing the theoretical foundations of complexion in relation to matter and form and, ultimately, could have helped to shape that De animalibus commentaries.41Moreover, though little is known about it, the anonymous commentary on the De animalibus contained in the manuscript Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.Lat.2164 is a lengthy example of a work (probably) written in the context of a faculty of Arts that attempts to mix natural-philosophical and medical ideas and that discusses the consequences of the intersection of these discourses for the understanding of animal and human biology.42Previous studies on Peter of Spain's and Albert the Great's De animalibus commentaries have already explicitly referred to the notion of 'complexion' as an example of the interaction of medical and natural-philosophical stances within the De animalibus commentary tradition.Miguel de Asúa, for instance, has pointed out that humoral theory and the concepts of 'humors' and 'complexion' -as basic medical physiology -are used throughout Peter of Spain's treatise.43 De Asúa also underscores the fact that, though not a physician, Albert the Great deployed impressive medical knowledge in his works on animals, including the concept of 'complexion.'In particular, de Asúa remarks that Albert proposed a theoretical synthesis of natural-philosophical and medical ideas by refining Avicenna's humoral and complexion theory.44 Through my short survey of the late-medieval Latin commentaries on the De animalibus and by taking into account some other sources discussing the object of the scientia de animalibus, my aim in this paper has been to push the scholarship a step further, exploring the possibility that, in the entire medieval scientia de animalibus, the core medical concept of 'complexion' is applied as an explanatory tool to the whole spectrum of topics addressed in the De animalibus corpus, so reinforcing the idea that the notion of 'complexion' accounts for the overlap of natural philosophy and medicine in that tradition.The paper has also reflected on the reasons why the notion of 'complexion' could have served as an organizational concept of the De animalibus tradition.Understood as an in-between concept -between matter and form, accident and substance, individual and species -the notion was a useful one to be applied in theories about human and non-human animals, conceived, in Aristotelian hylomorphic terms, as animated bodies.Some discourses on complexion made by the earliest medieval commentators on the De animalibus further suggest that the late-medieval De animalibus tradition may itself have contributed to the shaping of some of the theoretical features of the notion of 'complexion' as were used in later medical and natural-philosophical theories.
Finally, in line with the main aims of the special issue in which this paper is included, the identification of 'complexion' as a key concept of the De ani malibus tradition allows us to pinpoint an example of its pervasive use outside a strictly medical domain.While there is no disputing that the notion of 'complexion' originated in medicine, future studies may help to shed more light on the extensive and cross-disciplinary use of the concept of 'complexion' beyond medicine, starting from its presence in commentary traditions discussing other Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian works.45As it has been stated for other medical concepts, such as that of "radical moisture,"46 more research could particularly explore whether -and to what extent -the concept of 'complexion' throughout the Middle Ages, was not just applied outside medicine but could also have even been modeled by contamination with other domains, especially natural philosophy.

7
On this point, see esp.Van den Abeele, "Le De animalibus d' Aristote," in Steel, Guldentops and Beullens, Aristotle's Animals; Perfetti, "How and When the Medieval Commentary," and idem, "I libri De animalibus." 8 See Perfetti, "I libri De animalibus" and Cova, "Il corpus zoologico di Aristotele." 9 author of the earliest of our commentaries, the Quaestiones super libro De ani malibus Aristotelis contained in the manuscript Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, 1877 and the manuscript VaticanCity, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,  Vat.Lat.6758.11Thiscommentaryseems to have been written in Siena when Peter of Spain was teaching medicine.12Next,twoextensive commentaries on the De animalibus are linked to Albert the Great (ca.1200-1280): a long literal commentary on the De animalibus and a set of Quaestiones super De animali bus, which are conventionally ascribed to Albert but more precisely constitute a reportatio by Conrad of Austria.13Thefinal text that will be considered here, the anonymous commentary of the manuscript Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.Lat.2164, contains questions (sometimes interlaced with expositions) on the three main zoological treatises of Aristotle -Historia animalium, De partibus animalium, and De generatione animalium -though the commentary on books III-V of the De generatione animalium (namely, books XVII-XIX of the De animalibus) is omitted in this manuscript.14This Vatican commentary was ascribed to the fourteenth-century Parisian Master of Arts John Buridan (d.ca.1361) in an inscription later added to the codex.Buridan's the project in José Francisco Meirinhos, "A Project on Petrus Hispanus: Edition and Study of the Attributed Works," Mediaevalia.Textos e estudos, 35 (2016), 149-166.
Perfetti, "I libri De animalibus."Thedearth of commentaries on Aristotle's works on animals is especially evident with regard to the fourteenth century; interest in these works increased in the Renaissance, thanks in part to a newer translation by Theodore of Gaza.On Aristotle's zoology in the Renaissance, see esp.StefanoPerfetti, Aristotle's Zoology and  its Renaissance Commentators (1521-1601) (Leuven, 2000).On Theodore of Gaza's translation, see esp.Pieter Beullens and Allan Gotthelf, "Theodore of Gaza's Translation of Aristotle's De animalibus: Content, Influence, and Date," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 47 (2007), 469-513.10 I refer the reader to the project on Peter of Spain's works, "Critical Edition and Study of the Works Attributed to Petrus Hispanus -1 (2016-2019 ref.PTDC/MHC-FIL/0216/2014)"; see <https://ifilosofia.up.pt/proj/ph/ph>, accessed 1 September 2023, and the presentation of Downloaded from Brill.com 12/24/2023 05:50:44PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/11 On the versions and manuscripts of Peter of Spain's De animalibus, see the Introduction to Petrus Hispanus, Quaestiones super libro De animalibus Aristotelis, ed.Francisca Navarro Sánchez (Farnham, 2015) 31-32, and the literature quoted there.Navarro Sánchez's edition is the one I am following in this paper.12 Miguel de Asúa, "Medicine and Philosophy in Peter of Spain's Commentary on De animalibus," in Steel, Guldentops and Beullens, Aristotle's Animals, 189 maintains that the Quaestiones super libro De animalibus Aristotelis date back to Peter of Spain's teaching medicine in Siena (and not to his teaching in Paris for the faculty of Arts).Perfetti, "I libri De animalibus," 147 has noted that, if this is true, the commentary would represent the only known proper university commentary on the De animalibus written by someone while teaching medicine.13 On Albert the Great's zoological writings, see esp.Tamara Goldstein-Préaud, "Albert le Grand et les questions du XIIIe siècle sur le De animalibus d' Aristote," History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 3 (1981), 61-67; Van den Abeele, "Le De animalibus d' Aristote," 303-307; Miguel de Asúa, "The Organization of Discourse on Animals in the Thirteenth Century: Peter of Spain, Albert the Great, and the Commentaries on De animalibus" (PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame, 1991), 115-189; Henryk Anzulewicz, "Albertus Magnus und die Tiere," in Tiere und Fabelwesen im Mittelalter, ed.Sabine Obermaier (Berlin -New York, 2009), 29-54; and Perfetti, "La disseminazione del sapere sugli animali."The edition of the De animalibus used here is Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, ed.Hermann Stadler (Münster, 1916-1920), while the edition of the Quaestiones super De animalibus is Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones super De animalibus, ed.Ephrem Filthaut (Münster, 1955).14 Anonymus Vaticanus, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.Lat.2164, fols.235r-311v.