Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina

2012 – 2036

The project provides critical editions of ancient and, especially, Byzantine commentaries, paraphrases, compendia, and scholia on the text of Aristotle.

Aristotle, probably the most influential philosopher of classical Antiquity, continuously attracted the attention of readers and commentators all throughout the Greek Middle Ages, far beyond the end of Antiquity itself. However, the texts documenting the Byzantine reception of Aristotle are still little known nowadays and only a small proportion of them has been made accessible through modern editions. By providing critical editions of these texts, CAGB will both enhance our understanding of Aristotle and originally contribute to the knowledge of philosophy and higher education in Byzantium.

The project will benefit from the co-operation with the Aristotle Archive of Freie Universität Berlin, which hosts an extensive microfilm collection of manuscripts containing the works of Aristotle and his commentators. Along with inventories and descriptions of manuscripts (ca. 1,000 items), prosopographical data on Byzantine authors and on the people who commissioned, copied, owned, and annotated the manuscripts will be collected. The editions will be published in the series ‘Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina’ (De Gruyter).

The project is part of the Research Centre for Primary Sources of the Ancient World at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities. The Academy research project ‘Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina’ is part of the Academies’ Programme, a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, the Programme intends to retrieve and explore global cultural traditions, to make them accessible and highlight their relevance to the present, as well as to preserve them for the future.

More information on the project is available on the website of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities.