ARISTOTELES.

Problemata.

      Translated by Theodorus Gaza. [96] leaves (the 6th leaf a blank). 39 lines, Roman type. Capital strokes & paragraph marks in table supplied in red & blue. Folio (288 x 205 mm.), modern boards covered with 15th-century manuscript leaves, the front including the Commemorations on the Feast of the Holy Family Malachias 3:1 opening with illuminated initial E, the back cover with text from Mark 14 (several unimportant marginal wormholes). Mantua: J. Vurster and J. Baumeister, [ca. 1473]. First edition of Aristotle's Problemata; this is one of the earliest of any of the texts by Aristotle to be published. The Problemata are a collection of scientific dissertations in the form of questions and answers ascribed to Aristotle in twenty chapters. Subjects include mathematics, meteorology, medicine, wine, botany, oceanography, vision, and color. The text was translated by Theodorus Gaza (ca. 1400-1475), who fled from his native city of Thessalonica before its capture by the Turks in 1430. He was one of the leaders of the revival of learning in the 15th century. In 1447 he became professor of Greek in the new university of Ferrara, to which his fame soon attracted students from all parts of Italy. In 1450, at the invitation of Pope Nicholas V, he went to Rome, where he was for some years employed in making Latin translations from Aristotle and other Greek authors. With the signature and notes of Tobias Faber, very probably the Lutheran minister who flourished ca. 1580 and was the author of Theses Medicae (Basel: 1580). A fine copy and very rare; ISTC locates only three copies in the U.S. (Harvard, LC, and PML). Goff A-1030. Klebs 95.1. Stillwell 583.