Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Developments in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 615
particularly in the 1520s and 1530s. New Latin translations followed, 30 and this
material had a great impact on the contents and style of new commentaries on
Aristotle. This is particularly evident in the works of Agostino Nifo. He used
material from medieval commentators, including the thirteenth-century Robert
Kilwardby and the fourteenth-century Marsilius of Inghen, 31 but he gave pride of
place to the ancient Greek commentators, and at the end of his Topics commentary
he spoke harshly of those who tried to explain Aristotle while ignorant both of the
Greek language and of the Greek expositors. 32 The Jesuits of Coimbra too were
to make full use of the Greek commentators.
The most interesting developments in purely Aristotelian logic took place in
Italy and concerned the logic of scientific method. Italian universities had always
been distinguished from Northern European universities by their strong emphasis
on law and medicine, combined with a relatively slight emphasis on theology. The
faculties of arts at such places as Padua provided studies leading to a degree “in
arts and medicine” and as a result, the main emphasis was placed on logic and
natural philosophy, as propaedeutic to medicine. 33 In the fifteenth century works
stemming from Oxford and Paris on such topics as the intension and remission
of forms were particularly important, but after about 1520 these works fell into
sudden oblivion. 34 By the mid-sixteenth century the focus of attention was on the
Greek commentators, on Averroes, especially his Physics commentary, 35 and on
the new Greek Aristotle. The main Aristotelian logic text studied was the Posterior
Analytics. This work was lectured on every year at Padua, 36 and the Pisa
statutes of 1543 prescribed just Porphyry’s Isagoge and the Posterior Analytics
for logic. 37 From Gaetano da Thiene (1387–1465) in the fifteenth century through
Nifo and Balduino in the sixteenth century we find a gradual refinement of writings
on demonstration and scientific method, and this movement culminated in the
logical work of Jacopo Zabarella, whose entire academic career was at the University
of Padua. 38 Zabarella wrote a long commentary on the Posterior Analytics,
30Schmitt, “Alberto Pio”, p. 56.
31E.g., Augustinus Niphus, Super libros Priorum Aristotelis (Venice, 1553), f. 14 va. Kilwardby
is called ‘Culverbinus’ and Marsilius is called ‘Ingueneus’.
32For text and translation, see Jardine, “Humanistic Logic”, p. 196.
33See C. B. Schmitt, “Aristotelianism in the Veneto and the Origins of Modern Science: Some
Considerations on the Problem of Continuity,” Study I in The Aristotelian Tradition, p. 113;
and C. B. Schmitt, “Thomas Linacre and Italy,” Study XII in The Aristotelian Tradition, p. 49.
34C. B. Schmitt, “Hieronymus Picus, Renaissance Platonism and the Calculator,” Study V
in The Aristotelian Tradition, pp. 64–65; “Philosophy and Science in Sixteenth-Century Italian
Universities,” Study XV in The Aristotelian Tradition, p. 316.
35N. W. Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method (New York: Columbia University Press,
1960), p. 166.
36Schmitt, “Thomas Linacre and Italy,” p. 50.
37C. B. Schmitt, “Philosophy and Science in Sixteenth-Century Universities: Some Preliminary
Comments,” Study V in Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science (London: Variorum
Reprints, 1981), p. 493.
38C. B. Schmitt, “Aristotelianism in the Veneto and the Origins of Modern Science,” p. 113.
This paper contains some useful corrections of Randall’s important work: J. H. Randall, Jr.,
The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1961).