Reformulation

A different movement is seen in a collection ofanonymous commentaries on the Parva naturalia (De Leemans 2000). They were written throughout the fifteenth century and are preserved for the most part in libraries in Germanspeaking countries and in Central Europe. (Among these is also the commentary in manuscript Erfurt, Ampl. F. 334, which was ascribed - on feeble grounds - to Marsilius of Inghen; see also infra.) Exploratory research for Mot.

An. has shown that they all have significant internal similarity. This might be a reason to assume the existence of a ‘‘proto-commentary,’’ used and adapted by the respective magistri for their courses.

Most remarkably, they are based on abbreviations of the Aristotelian texts by Joannes Kronsbein. Nothing is known about this author, except that he was a German Dominican who wrote compendia both on Aristotle’s moral and natural philosophy and must have been active at the latest in the very beginning of the fifteenth century. It is from this compendium that the commentaries have taken over a very peculiar division of luv., Resp., and Vit. These are no longer considered as one, or two, or three, but as four texts whose order could vary. Apart from luv. and Resp., Vit. is split into two independent treatises: De morte et vita (= 478b22-479b16), and De motu cordis (= 479b17-480b30). (Note that the titles cause confusion: it has been shown that De morte et vita is also used to denote Long. as well as the ensemble of luv., Resp., and Vit., whereas De motu cordis is also the title ofworks by Thomas Aquinas and Alfred of Sareshel.) Another characteristic is the fact that the content is not limited to the standard Parv. nat., but also includes Mot. an. and, much more surprisingly, the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo, which had also been paraphrased by Kronsbein.

Perhaps related to Kronsbein’s compendium are two commentaries per modum quaestionis by Nicolaus Tempelfeld de Brega and Paulus de Worczyn respectively. Both authors were active in Krakow in the first half of the fifteenth century. Their Quaestiones on the Parva naturalia are characterized by the division of Vit. into two independent parts. On the contrary, they do not discuss Mot. an. or De mundo, but add the Physiognomonica (which was absent in Kronsbein’s compendium) to the collection.