JANDUNO, Joannes de

A good, crisp, well-margined copy of these uncommon editions of two most influential C14 commentaries to Aristotle s De anima and De caelo et mundo (FIRST EDITION) edited by the monk and translator Girolamo Suriano (d. 1522). Joannes de Janduno (or Jean de Jandun or Johannes de Gandavo) (c.1285-1323) was a French philosopher and theologian. Professor at Paris, he was influenced by Averroism, a radical form of Aristotelianism. Averroists thought that philosophy was separate from theology and the natural (philosophical) order from the supernatural; they were accused of teaching the existence of two potentially contradictory truths. De Janduno was excommunicated for heresy by Pope John XXII, having been charged with co-authoring a treatise on the separation of temporal and secular authority. Aristotle s De anima is a study of the soul as the essence of life. Beside biological issues like nutrition and reproduction, De anima discusses the nature and meaning of sensing , intellect, and the characteristics which define an organism as living . A treatise on cosmology, De celo et mundo illustrates how the celestial spheres are immutable and governed by different rules to the bodies (made of water, fire, air and earth) which inhabit the sublunary sphere. De Janduno s commentaries are subdivided into quaestiones concerned with specific issues. In the commentary to De anima he analyses sensing as an active faculty ( sensus agens ) and the nature of intellectus , in which the early annotator of this copy was most interested. In the commentary to De celo et mundo he focuses on the movement of celestial spheres, what is mobile or immovable, finite and infinite, corruptible and incorruptible. De Janduno s commentaries were fundamental to the diffusion of Averroism in C14 Europe.
Octavianus Scotus collaborated with Boneto Locatelli on the publication of numerous Italian and Latin texts, including editions of the works of Aristotle and Averroës.