[Incunable] - Paulus Venetus / Aristotele - De Generatione et Corruptione - 1498

INCUNABLE - THE MATTER, ITS BIRTH AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE WORLD - MONASTIC BINDING COEVA
Fascinating product of late-medieval university culture, this rare fragment preserves part of Paulus Venetus’s Expositio on the De generatione et corruptione of Aristotle, one of the pillars of teaching natural philosophy in European universities between the 14th and 16th centuries. The work addresses the great questions of matter, the transformation of the elements, the birth and dissolution of natural bodies. If the text is today preserved in an incomplete form, the specimen possesses exceptional historical value thanks to the survival of its authentic 15th-century use binding, with wooden boards, dry-pressed decorations, manuscript title, and traces of the original clasps. A rare material document of the everyday life of students and religious who used these volumes in the schools and monasteries of Renaissance Italy.

MARKET VALUE
The incunabula of Paulus Venetus are sought after by scholars of scholastic philosophy and by specialized collectors of 15th-century university books. Although this exemplar is heavily incomplete, the preservation of the original binding on wooden boards with a contemporary manuscript title and traces of metal clasps significantly increases its collectible interest. On the international market, incomplete but bound in their original bindings, they can command roughly between €2,500 and €4,000, with possible increases in the presence of documented provenances or bindings particularly well preserved.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Incunable in old folio. Contemporary binding on cedar wood boards, with partial brown leather cover decorated in dry fashion using vegetal and geometric tools. Contemporary manuscript title written on the front board. Traces of the original metal clasps. Decorated initials, some rubricated by a later hand. Pages with physiological browning, foxing, specks and some worm holes. Second sheet partially missing. Extraordinary testimony to the binding use in Northern Italy at the end of the 15th century. Incomplete: 80 pages present. Text set in two columns. The edition is catalogued in ISTC (Goff P-209), IGI 827-A and GW, with collation A-L8, M6, N-P8 for a total of 118 leaves. In old books, with a centuries-long history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Paulus Venetus.
Expositio magistri Pauli Veneti super libros De generatione et corruptione Aristotelis. Eiusdem De compositione mundi cum figuris.
Venetiis, per Bonetum Locatellum Bergomensem, impensis Octaviani Scoti, 21 May 1498.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The De generatione et corruptione represents one of the fundamental texts of Aristotelian physics. Aristotle analyzes the structure of matter and the processes by which elements combine, transform, and dissolve. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this work formed a cornerstone of the university teaching of natural philosophy. Paulus Venetus’s commentary achieved enormous diffusion, offering a scholastic systematization particularly effective for teaching. The 1498 edition also includes the treatise De compositione mundi, accompanied by illustrative figures and cosmological diagrams intended for teaching. The specimen described here concretely documents the transmission of Aristotelian knowledge in premodern Europe and preserves, through its binding, the physical memory of the academic and monastic environment that used it.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Paolo Veneto (ca. 1369–1429), known as Paulus Venetus or Paolo Nicoletti, was one of the major scholastic philosophers of the late Middle Ages. An Augustinian monk, he taught in Padua and other important Italian university centers. His works on logic and natural philosophy were adopted as reference texts at numerous European universities and continued to be printed throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. He is regarded as one of the last great systematizers of the medieval Aristotelian tradition.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The 1498 edition was produced by Boneto Locatello, one of the most important Venetian printers active for Octavian Scotus, among the leading European publishers of the late Quattrocento. Venice was then the main center of university and scholastic printing on the continent. The volume was printed on 21 May 1498 in a edition mainly destined for students, teachers and religious communities. The bibliographic collation of the edition is A-L8, M6, N-P8 for a total of 118 leaves. Most surviving copies show signs of intensive use; therefore the preservation of the original binding constitutes a highly rare and bibliographically interesting element.

BIOGRAPHY OF ARISTOTLE
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, is one of the most influential figures in the history of Western thought. His works on logic, physics, metaphysics and natural philosophy formed the foundation of European university teaching for over a thousand years. The De generatione et corruptione holds a central position in his theory of nature, as it addresses the problem of the transformation of matter and the change of natural beings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
GW M29911.
ISTC ip00209000.
Goff P-209.
IGI 827-A.
BMC V, 450.
Hain-Copinger 12518.
ICCU / OPAC SBN, copies cataloged of the Venetian edition of 1498.
Paulus Venetus, Expositio super libros De generatione et corruptione Aristotelis, Venezia, Bonetus Locatellus per Ottaviano Scoto, 1498.
Lohr, Latin Aristotle Commentaries, II, Renaissance Authors.
Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. IV.
Kretzmann, Kenny & Pinborg, The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy.
Conti, Esistenza e verità. Forme e strutture del reale in Paolo Veneto.
Perreiah, Paul of Venice: A Bibliographical Guide.
WorldCat, international census of surviving copies.