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Meteorologica. Translatio Guillelmi de
Morbeka
Charles Burnett
a
a
Warburg Institute School of Advanced Study, Woburn Square ,
London, WC1H 0AB, UK
Published online: 06 Jan 2011.
To cite this article: Charles Burnett (2011) Meteorologica. Translatio Guillelmi de Morbeka, Annals
of Science, 68:4, 579-580, DOI: 10.1080/00033790903428818
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790903428818
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ARISTOTELES LATINUS, X 2.1. Meteorologica. Translatio Guillelmi de Morbeka, ed.
Gudrun Vuillemin-Diem. 2 vols, Brepols, Union Academique internationale:
Bruxelles, 2008. Vol. I xviii 436 pp.; vol. II 220 pp. No price stated. ISBN-13
978-2-503-53078-9.
Aristotles Meteorologica first became known to Latin readers in Medieval Europe
through Gerard of Cremonas translation of an Arabic paraphrase of the first three
books of the text, and Henricus Aristippuss translation of the fourth book. Before
the end of the twelfth century Alfred of Shareshill brought together these two
translations and added what he regarded as Aristotles doctrine on minerals which he
had extracted from Avicennas philosophical encyclopaedia, the Shifa. This hybrid
production had a wide diffusion in the universities of the later Middle Ages and was
the subject of several scholastic commentaries. It was not, however, the genuine
thing, and already in the mid-twelfth century we can see attempts to restore the pure
text of Aristotles work. Burgundio of Pisa, who had made a very faithful translation
of Aristotles De generatione et corruptione from Greek, promised to present to the
emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, a work about the substance, form and movement of
the sky, and about everything that happens from the sky downwards, such as the
Milky Way, comets, winds, thunder and lightning, the rainbow, rain, hail and hoar-
frost, and why the sea is salty, which is exactly the subject-matter of the
Meteorologica. At the turn of the century David of Dinant quoted several passages
from Aristotles work, which he had himself translated from Greek. But it was not
until the second half of the thirteenth century that a thorough new translation of all
four books of the Meteorologica directly from the Greek was produced: that of
William of Moerbeke. William had probably begun his translation some time before
1260 when he was a professional interpreter (interpres) in the Greek court in Nicaea
(pp. 34546). But he successively revised his translation until 1270. This is the text
that is the subject of these two volumes.
With the characteristic thoroughness that we have come to expect from the
editions of Aristoteles Latinus in general and from the pen of Gudrun Vuillemin-
Diem in particular, the textual tradition and the text itself is established. The 170
manuscripts and 19 Renaissance editions are described, the reasons for the selection
of manuscripts used for the edition are given, the evidence for the condition of the
stationers copies in Paris is presented, the relationship between the Latin text and its
Greek exemplar is discussed, the three stages in Williams translating campaign are
distinguished, the place of his translation of Alexander of Aphrodisiass commentary
on the Meteorologica is determined, and the early use of his translation is charted.
We are lucky in that we have the Greek exemplar that William used (MS Vindob. Gr.
100), which even includes his own corrections to the Greek text (nicely illustrated
with two figures), and that one manuscript of the Latin text, Toledo, Bibl. Capit.,
47.11, was copied, probably in 1279, in Williams residence in Viterbo, for Gonzalo
Petrez, the founder of the University of Alcala, within a few years of Williams
translation.
Unusually, Williams name actually appears in this Toledan manuscript (in most
cases of his translations, his authorship is deduced from the style and terminology
of the translation itself). Also unusually, William made an entirely new translation
of Book IV, rather than revising the earlier GreekLatin translation, as he was wont
579 Book Reviews
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to do. The Meteorologica may be Williams first translation (since it predates his
translation of the commentary of Alexander, which is his first dated work). It was
known as the nova or Graeca translatio in contrast to the ArabicLatin
translation of Gerard, which was regarded as being corrupted through the passage
of the text from Greek into Arabic and Arabic into Latin (cf. quotation on pp. 40
41). Guillemin-Diem has fully collated 45 manuscripts. But she has chosen as the
manuscripts on which to base her edition the two Paris exemplaria (from which
the students texts were copied; the textus Parisiacus), a representative of each of
the two Italian groups of manuscripts that are independent of the Parisian
stationers (Editio pristina*textus Italicus a, and Recensio vulgata*textus Italicus
b), and the Toledo manuscript that represents Williams last revision (Recensio
Toletana), together with marginalia in another manuscript (Ravenna, Bibl. Comm.
Classensis, 458) that gives an independent witness to the same revision. None of
these is an autograph of Williams (unlike Ottobonianus lat. 1850 which is an
autograph of his Archimedes translations) and, except for in the case of the
Recensio Toletana, the archetypes of the other families of manuscripts have to be
reconstructed.
In her edition Vuillemin-Diem decides to give the last stage of the translation (the
Recensio Toletana) preference. But in making decisions concerning variant readings
she takes into account both the underlying Greek text and the translation-method of
Moerbeke. She attempts a stemma codicum (p. 404) and shows where each of her
main manuscripts place their capital letters and paragraph-markers indicating
divisions of the text.
The Greek manuscript, Vienna, phil. Gr. 100, is the oldest witness to a
collection of Aristotles works (c.AD 860). It provided William with five of the
texts he translated. The Greek mistakes in this manuscript (except when corrected
by William) account for the mistakes in Williams translation; his diagrams can be
shown to be copied from the diagrams in this manuscript (photographs
demonstrate this). But William also used another Greek manuscript which is
now lost. Very soon after its appearance the translation was being used. First, by
Albertus Magnus, who in his commentary to the Meteorologica of 125060
was still dependent on the Gerard-Aristippus version, but by 12691271 he was
using Williams translation for his Sententiae on the first two books. Witelo
used the third book of the Meteorologica in his Perspectiva written in Viterbo in
12711277 where he was in direct contact with William. And Mahieu le Vilain
used the new translation in his French version of the Meteorologica, composed in
1290.
The second volume gives the text itself. The Bekker page and line number
references of Aristotles texts are placed in the margin, with indications in the text of
where each group of five lines begins. Two apparatuses give, respectively, compar-
isons with the Greek, and the Latin variants. The book ends with an Index verborum
Graeco-Latinus to which an Index verborum Latino-Graecus is tied. While German is
the language of the first volume all the annotation to the second volume is in Latin,
as befits a book whose value will endure forever.
CHARLES BURNETT, Warburg Institute School of Advanced Study, Woburn Square,
London WC1H 0AB, UK
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