Medieval Manuscripts on Logic

During the middle ages, the study of logic held a significant role as a preliminary art considered necessary for pursuing philosophy and other sciences. As a result, a substantial number of surviving medieval manuscripts dedicated to philosophy include works on logic, transcending geographical, linguistic, and religious boundaries. These manuscripts often embody their function as study materials through their layout, supplementary materials like diagrams and tables, and marginal notes, annotations, and comments.

In this workshop, we will explore logical manuscripts from diverse linguistic domains—Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew—and across various disciplines such as codicology, philology, and philosophy. We will identify shared characteristics and distinctive traits and pursue new avenues for research and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Wednesday, 3 May 2023

10:00–10:15
Welcoming Address
Giuseppe Veltri (Head of the Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion, University of Hamburg)

10:15–11:00
Hebrew Philosophical Manuscripts (on Logic) as Sites of Engagement
Yoav Meyrav (Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion, University of Hamburg)

11:00–11:15
Break

11:15–12:15
A Philological Approach to the Corpus of Scholia on Aristotelian Logic in the MSS Laur., Plut. 59.17 and Bodl. Barocc. 87
José Maksimczuk (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg)

12:15–13:30
Lunch

13:30–14:30
Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi and the Traditions of Arabic Logic
Tony Street (Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge)

14:30–14:45
Break

14:45–15:45
Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts in the Arabic Philosophical Tradition: The Philosophical Marginalia of the Logic of Avicenna’s Book of Healing
Silvia Di Vincenzo (Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca)

15:45–16:00
Break

16:00–17:00
Diagrams on Logic in Latin Manuscripts, 800–1200
Caterina Tarlazzi (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Università Ca' Foscari)

19:30
Dinner

Thursday, 4 May 2023

10:00–11:00
Describing Complex Objects: 12th -Century Latin Logical Manuscripts
Sofia Orsino (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Università Ca' Foscari)

11:00–11:15
Break

11:15–12:15
Logic in Alphabetical Order: Manuscripts of Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms
Yehuda Halper (Department of Jewish Philosophy, Bar-Ilan University)

12:15–13:30
Lunch

13:30–14:30
An Examination of the Logic Paratexts in Turin NUL Ms. A. I. 14
Charles Manekin (Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland)

14:30–14:45
Break

14:45–15:15
The Surviving Manuscripts of the Hebrew Version of Averroes’s Long Commentary on the Posterior Analytics and its Subsequent Translation(s) into Latin
Michael Engel (Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion, University of Hamburg)

15:15–15:30
Break

15:30–17:00
Final Discussion

in alphabetical order

Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts in the Arabic Philosophical Tradition: The Philosophical Marginalia of the Logic of Avicenna’s Book of Healing
Silvia Di Vincenzo

The manuscript tradition of Avicenna’s Book of Healing counts hundreds of manuscripts, and the number keeps rising as research proceeds. Many of these manuscript witnesses also convey, alongside Avicenna’s text, a rich corpus of philosophical marginalia that still awaits proper analysis. The aim of this paper is to present some of the methodological problems and challenges of studying this corpus through the analysis of some case studies.

The Surviving Manuscripts of the Hebrew Version of Averroes’s Long Commentary on the Posterior Analytics and its Subsequent Translation(s) into Latin
Michael Engel

While the Arabic version of Averroes’s Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics is lost, Qalonymos ben Qalonymos’s Hebrew translation has survived in six manuscripts. Qalonymos’s version was then translated into Latin by three different authors: Abraham de Balmes, Jacob Mantino, and Johannes Franciscus Burana. All three versions are found side by side in the first volume of Giunta edition (Venezia, 1562). In my presentation I will begin by supplying some general observations concerning the difference in language and style among the three translators, relying also on Dag Hasse’s and Charles Burnett’s previous analyses. Most of my presentation however will be dedicated to an attempt to return from the Latin to the Hebrew manuscripts, and to suggest how certain discrepancies within the corpus of the Hebrew manuscripts are mirrored in the Latin versions found in the Giunta. I will conclude by some methodological insights concerning both the advantages as well as the difficulties of comparing the Renaissance Latin translations of Averroes, most of which appear in print only, to their Hebrew source material which more often than not appears only in manuscript form.

Logic in Alphabetical Order: Manuscripts of Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms
Yehuda Halper

The idea is to look at idiosyncrasies, particularly what appear to be short addenda, in manuscripts of the PMZ (Perush ha-Millim ha-Zarot; Explanation of Foreign Terms), with a view to gaining some insight into how the work was used at certain stages of its reception history.

A Corpus of Scholia on Aristotelian Logic in the MSS Laur., Plut. 59.17 and Bodl. Barocc. 87: Origins, Contents, and Functions
José Maksimczuk

This paper probes the exegetical notes on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories preserved in two late, Byzantine manuscripts: Firenze, Laur., Plut. 59.17 (ca. 1430–1435) and Oxford, Bodl., Barocc. 87 (ca. 1450). It discusses the formatting and contents of the corpus, shedding light on its possible functions: i) a teaching tool and ii) an arsenal of quotations for an articulated, long commentary on Aristotelian logic. Lastly, through analysis of the contents of the corpus, this paper proposes to link the corpus to a relevant fifteenth-century scholar, Gennadios Scholarios (ca. 1400–ca. 1472).

An Examination of the Logic Paratexts in Turin NUL Ms. A. I. 14
Charles Manekin

My talk will focus on Turin National University Library, Ms. A. I. 14, a collection of Averroes’s Middle Commentaries, with a complete set of Levi b. Gershom’s commentaries on the Organon and his Book of the Correct Syllogism. The manuscript, which consists of 591 two-column folios, was copied by Crescas Vidal for Mordecai Todros Nathan on October 8, 1470. My talk will focus on the paratexts in the section of the manuscript devoted to logic, which are mostly glosses written by Mordecai Nathan, a prominent Provençal intellectual in his own right. Unlike some manuscripts of elementary logical works in Hebrew, this manuscript does not appear to have been used by students since it lacks characteristic notes and doodles. But the extensive annotations by Mordecai, as well as certain diagrams, are worthy of study. Since this is a manuscript from the Turin National Library, I will also display some examples of the damage it suffered in the 1904 fire and how its restoration has greatly improved our ability to read parts of the manuscript over the older NLI microfilm.

Describing Complex Objects: 12th -Century Latin logical Manuscripts
Sofia Orsino

This talk belongs to the ERC project “Polyphonic Philosophy: Logic in the Long Twelfth Century (c.1070–1220).” The project studies all existing manuscripts of 12th-century Latin logical commentaries (that is to say, commentaries on: Porphyry’s Isagoge; Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione; and Boethius’s De divisione, De differentiis topicis, De syllogismis categoricis, De syllogismis hypotheticis). These amount to around 40 manuscripts, all dating to the late 12th century. From a codicological point of view, these manuscripts share many features: they are small-to-medium-sized books, hard point ruled, written in two columns, without any form of fine decoration; they seem to have been copied by expert but not professional scribes, in a minuta or minutissima transitional script (pregothica, in Derolez’s terminology). Texts also present some peculiar facts (including, for instance, their order in manuscripts; various interconnected versions; and the likely use of schedule or marginal annotations for revising and updating texts). Moreover, while some manuscripts are booklets containing a single commentary only, others unite several logical texts under the same binding; and, in other cases, the logical booklet ended up bound with further material.
In my talk, I will discuss the main questions arising from them: where, when, and how were these manuscripts produced? By whom? For which purpose?

Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi and the Traditions of Arabic Logic
Tony Street

Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi (d. c. 1165) has been recognised recently by Wilfrid Hodges as one of the most important logicians from the point of view of the results he obtained (rather than in respect of his influence, which seems to have been minor). The nature of these results was clouded by poor transmission of the manuscripts. In this talk (which is almost entirely derivative on the research of others), I will sketch the nature of Abu l-Barakat’s important results, share images of the manuscripts which record them, and reflect on the vicissitudes of a text transmitted without the quasi-institutional support of an exegetical community of devoted followers.

Diagrams on Logic in Latin Manuscripts, 800–1200
Caterina Tarlazzi

My talk will focus on Latin manuscripts transmitting logical texts between 800 and 1200. In particular, I will focus on one interesting feature: several diagrams that, in addition to the famous so-called “Square of Opposition” and “Porphyrian tree,” are found in manuscripts dating from before the 12th century. I will try to discuss the meaning of these logical diagrams; their connection to the original text; and some ideas for studying their origin and influence in the Latin tradition.