Untitled - Monoskop

PHILOSOPHY
philosopher, a learned attempt to reconcile faith and reason which had been
known and studied through the Middle Ages, appeared with a privilege in
1520. It had been edited by Agostino Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio, who was
in Paris 1518-22 (PR 1520, 4A).
The contemporary philosopher for whose works privileges were most
eagerly sought by publishers was John Mair or Major. Mair's reputation was
already established, and his first works were already in print, before the
privilege system was taken up by the academic publishers, but they made up
for lost time once the system and its advantages were understood. Mair's
Quartus sententiarum, brought out by Poncet le Preux and Jean Granjon, was the
earliest book of this nature to receive a privilege in France (PA 1509, 3).
Granjon followed it up with the Summule (PA 1514, 9 (2)), and an enlarged
edition of the Summule two years later (PA 1516, 9), adding the Insolubilia
(CP 1516, 3), a second edition of the commentary on the Sentences, Book II
(CP 1519, 7), and the Summaria in dyalecticen introductiones (CP 1520, 13). Jean
Petit and Gilles Gourmont had a privilege for a revised edition of Mair's Octo
libri physicorum (PA 1526, 3). Jean Gourmont got a privilege for a book on
dialectic by Mair's former student William Manderston (PA 1517, 7 (2)), and
Prigent Calvarin for a revised edition of the book five years later (CH 1522,
7). Two works by Johannes Dullaert of Ghent, a famous logician of the
College de Montaigu, another former pupil of Mair, came out under privilege
(PR 1521, 4 and PR 1523, 5). Other well-known Paris scholars of the time for
whose philosophical writings at least one privilege was granted were: Jerome
de Hangest (CH 1515, 5), Jacques Almain (PA 1516, 8), Antonio Coronel
(PA 1514, 2), Ferdinand Enzinas (CH 1521, 6), Andreas de Novo Castro
(PA 1514, 9 (2)), Gervase Waim (CH 1519, i (2)) and Juan de Celaya
(PR 1516, 3 and 4; PR 1517, 3; PA 1517, 9; CP 1521, 4; CH 1523, 3).
It was in philosophical - or, for that matter, in juridical works at first sight
of no interest even in the sixteenth century except to specialists that writers
sometimes expressed most freely their boldest speculations on matters of
public interest. The first item of scholastic philosophy to gain a privilege, for
instance, was the Quartus sententiarum of John Mair (PA 1509, 3). This was
ostensibly a commentary on the Fourth Book of the Sentences. But Mair
included in his work a discussion of the morality of usury the practice of
lending money at interest - and questioned the traditional teaching which
condemned it as wrong in all circumstances, though this was the principle
maintained officially by the Faculty of Theology. 1
Ancient philosophy, on the other hand, called forth few books eligible for
privileges. Modern Latin versions of Aristotle's Physics, some of them specially
made by Francois Vatablus (PA 1518, 7), printed in parallel columns with
the 'Antique tralatio', obtained a privilege. The Latin translation and
1 R. de Roover, 'La pensee economique de Jean Mair', Journal des Savants (1970), fasc. 2,
pp. 6581, quoted by Farge, Biographical Register, p. 307.
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