The Book Epsilon of the Arabic-Latin Metaphysica Nova in the apud Junctas Edition (1562)

The Giuntine edition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1552; 1562), centred on the Arabic-to-Latin translation of Aristotle’s text together with Averroes’ Commentarium Magnum, became the most widely consulted printed version of this work during the Renaissance. The present article examines Book Epsilon as a specimen of the Metaphysica Nova, comparing the 1562 Giuntine text with the earliest manuscript, Paris, BnF, lat. 15453 (13th century), the authoritative Vatican manuscript, Vat. lat. 2080 (14th century), and the editio princeps printed by Laurentius Canozius (Padua, 1473). The Latin tradition is further compared with the principal Greek manuscripts – Vindobonensis Phil. gr. 100 (J, 9th century), Parisinus gr. 1853 (E, 10th century), and Laur. Plut. 87.12 (Ab, 12th century) – as well as with selected Arabic readings. The comparison shows that the Giuntine preserves a textual profile closely aligned with the earliest Latin tradition. No separative error within the Greek tradition has emerged that would require the Arabic-Latin tradition to stem from a different archetype. The evidence collected here so far supports the hypothetical reconstruction of a common archetype underlying both the Greek and the Arabic-Latin traditions.