Aristoteles - Priora Analytica seu Resolutori - 1545

Aristotle
Aristotelis Priora Analytica seu Resolutoria a Io. Francisco Burana Veronensi in Latinum sermonem versa, et commentariis doctissimis illustrata. Cum indice eorum quae observatione digna visa sunt. His accesserunt Hieronymi Bagolini Veronensis in eosdem libros perbreves ac dilucidae Annotationes.

Venice: at Hieronymus Scotus, 1545.
Format: 33 × 23 cm (folio).
Pages: (4), 136; 28 plates (336pp.) with numerous geometric wood engravings.

Complete copy.

Rarest on the market. The 1545 editions of this text are little common, especially complete with Bagolini’s annotations and with the intact woodcut iconographic apparatus. Copies on the market are virtually non-existent in recent decades.

Contemporary binding in limp parchment, title manuscript on the spine. Conditions as per photographs: binding loosened, last 5 leaves detached at the top, missing front free endpaper, traces of humidity (with paper crumbly at the top and especially the bottom corners up to p.9), old paper restoration to the title page, small tear at p.18 and 137, text losses in the lower part of the last 5 leaves (see photo), halos and diffuse stains. Visible defects but not impairing the overall legibility of the text (conditions visible in the attached images).

A fundamental work of Aristotelian logic: it contains the Latin translation of the Primi Analytici (or Analytica Priora) of Aristotle, edited by Giovanni Francesco Burana of Verona, one of the leading Veronese humanists of the 16th century, enriched by an ample learned commentary. It is accompanied by the Annotationes et dubitationes of Girolamo Bagolini, also from Verona, who deepen philosophical, syllogistic, and theory-of-demonstration aspects.

The volume is richly illustrated with geometric wood engravings depicting syllogistic figures, diagrams of terms, circles of opposition, and logical schemes, essential for the visual understanding of Aristotle’s theory of syllogism.

This is one of the early Italian sixteenth-century editions of the Primi Analitici with Renaissance commentary, printed by the celebrated Venetian printer Girolamo Scoto. The work holds great importance in the history of logic and Renaissance Aristotelian philosophy: Burana and Bagolini represent an attempt to renew the interpretation of Aristotelian texts in light of Italian humanism, making accessible and commented one of the foundations of Western logical thought.

A work of absolute prestige for collectors of incunabula and early sixteenthsphilosophical prints, of Renaissance logic and Italian Aristotelianism.