Aristotle's Ethics in the Italian Renaissance (Ca. 1300-1650): The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education (Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 13)

A study of the teaching of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (the standard textbook for moral philosophy) in the universities of Renaissance Italy. Special attention is given to how university commentaries on the "Ethics" reflect developments in educational theory and practice and in humanist Aristotelianism. The first part of the text (on the "Nachleben" of the "Ethics" in the Latin West to 1650 and the work's place in the universities) is followed by a discussion of Italian interpretations of the "Ethics" up to 1500 (Part Two) and then from 1500 to 1650 (Part Three), specifically in Florence, Padua, Bologna and Rome (including the Collegio Romano). Largely based on archival and unpublished sources, this study aims to provide striking evidence for the continuing vitality of Renaissance Aristotelianism and its interaction with humanism.