Aristotle: ’l maestro di color che sanno
As in the case of many intellectuals between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Aristotle was Dante’s most important source for science and philosophy: his name is synonymous with philosophy, and his teaching openly acknowledged by Dante, who frequently refers to him as mio maestro (Conv., I 9 9), maestro dei filosofi (Conv., IV 8 15), maestro e duca de la ragione umana (Conv., IV 6 8), preceptor morum (Mon., III 1 3), etc. Aristotle’s philosophical excellence, ’l maestro di color che sanno (Inf., IV 131), is figuratively translated by the filosofica famiglia in Limbo, in which Aristotle, revered by his fellow philosophers, occupies a position of pre-eminence. Dante’s acknowledgement stems from an awareness of his enormous debt: his works rely on a vast body of scientific and philosophical opinions derived from Aristotle, from single terms and the use of similes based on key concepts in Aristotelian physics, gnosiology, metaphysics, logic, ethics and psychology, up to the great doctrinal discourses of the Convivio, the Monarchia, and several cantos of the Commedia which are at least partly based on Aristotelian ethics (Inf., XI), embryology (Purg., XXV) and cosmology (Par., II). Dante read Aristotle in Latin translation, alongside the rich tradition of medieval commentary, which encouraged additions and innovations to the original text. Through the commentaries by Averroes, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, Dante acquired a knowledge of Aristotelian thought that could be described as polyvocal, containing elements of various traditions, Neoplatonic, Biblical and mystical, which at times denounces the limits of a merely rationalistic perspective, but without necessarily implying an overturning or radical critique of Aristotelianism, as has insightfully, but not entirely convincingly, been suggested[1].
[1] Z. Barański, Dante e i segni. Saggi per una storia intellettuale di Dante Alighieri, Napoli, Liguori, 2000.
