Chapter 4 studies the variety of reading practices that characterised the vernacular reception of Aristotle amidst the controversies between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘humanists’ in fifteenth-century Florence. The chapter examines the role played by vernacular translation as a facilitator for the interaction of the two different perspectives. Along with discussions of figures such as Domenico Da Prato and Leonardo Bruni, I explore the proactive role played by readers in shaping the boundaries of philosophical culture in the vernacular. To this purpose, special attention is given to the compositional strategies deployed by cultivated merchants in zibaldoni (notebooks) such as Giovanni Rucellai’s, where conflicts of cultures were resolved under the aegis of the layman’s curiosity. Similar preoccupations inform the manuscript transmission of Bernardo Nuti’s Italian translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (c. 1460). Extant manuscript copies of Nuti’s version (which was based on Leonardo Bruni’s ‘humanist’ rendering of the Ethics) have much to tell us about the social, ideological and political patterns that characterized the reception of Aristotle’s moral philosophy in the period.

The introduction discusses the interrelated notions of translation and reception and introduces the main topic of the book: namely, the ways in which vernacular readers appropriated the legacy of Aristotle in Italy between 1250 and 1500. Given the deep-rooted and widespread presence of Aristotle in medieval and Renaissance culture, the vernacular reception of the philosopher’s works offers a productive lens through which to reconsider the proactive role of translation in the construction and refinement of communicative tools able to disseminate the philosophical tradition among wider communities of readers. As such, the introduction reflects on the cultural implications of the theory and practice of vernacular translation in the period, arguing that its function is better understood when considered as part of a wide-ranging reception process involving not only the translators, but also their readers, who, in various ways, contribute actively to the process itself.

Chapter 3 concentrates on translations commissioned by members of the Giustiniani family in Venice. The chapter first analyses the earliest Italian translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, authored around 1430 by the Augustinian theologian Antonio Colombella at the behest of Pancrazio Giustiniani. Based on the medieval Latin version of the Ethics, Colombella’s translation can be read as an attempt to adapt the academic study of Aristotle to the needs of vernacular readers. Of particular interest are the insights into coeval translation practice and theory offered by the prologue. The chapter looks then at the annotated translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise On Virtues and Vices by the Dominican Lazzaro Gallineta, who dedicated it to Giustiniani’s son-in-law, Bernardo, in the 1460s. The work testifies to the permeability between scholastic traditions and new humanist trends; it also gives us some indication as to how a challenging text like the Ethics could be adapted to a lay readership. The chapter includes a discussion of Benedetto Cotrugli’s Libro de l’arte della mercatura (1458) and the mercantile milieu into which forms of patronage such as the Giustiniani’s belonged.

As shown in chapter 5, reception reveals its powerful translative attitude when considered as a transformative act. This is evident in the case of loose translations such as abridgments, which, through their own reception, are continuously transformed into new texts. The chapter thus offers a different insight into the ways in which Aristotle was read and adapted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly when his legacy is combined with the reception of other authors. Here I explore the vernacular afterlife of Luca Mannelli’s Latin Compendium moralis philosophiae (circa 1350) and the multifaceted transmission of Jacopo Campora’s vernacular dialogue De immortalitate anime (circa 1430). Both compendia were written by members of the Dominican order with typically scholastic backgrounds and were not particularly innovative in their philosophical content. However, their interest lies in the various ways in which they were disseminated, reshaped, repackaged and marketed. By tracing the transformation of the two works, the chapter documents the broad implications entailed by the proactive nature of vernacular reading practices in late medieval and Renaissance Italy.