Duns Scotus, Johannes. Thomas Penketh, ed.

Quaestiones in quattor libros Sententiarum.Part 2. [bound with]Quodlibeta.

      Johannes de Colonia & Johann Manthen, Venice: 1478, 7 January & 1477, 7 October. Folio. 2 works in 1volume. a10,b-e8, f-g6, h-l8.10,m-mm10,n-p8,q10,r8,s6. Complete with blank.a10, b-e8, f6, ff6, g-k8, l-m10. [lacking b5, text leaf -- with blank inserted incorrectly before b4 & m10 blank.] 19th century vellum-backed paper-boards,fore-edge rubbed; title in old hand; contemporary ownership inscription of ÒBrother Antonius dÕAsralo OMÓ on blank before first t.p. and on last leaf of second work, also ownership inscription of Franciscan library at foot of first text leaf; some contemp. marginalia; a very fine crisp copy with ample margins. First initial letter in contemp. manuscript and decorated in red ink, a few leaves rubricated. Duns Scotus, John (c.1265Ð1308), Franciscan friar and theologian.tThe great commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard contains most of ScotusÕ important contributions to Medieval scholastic philosophy. These volumes are based on his Oxford Lectures and are sometimes referred to as the Opus Oxoniense. Each of the volumes stands alone.ÒIt was part of the duty of a regent master to conduct quodlibetal disputations, so called because Ôthey could be about any topib whatever (de quodlibet) and could be initiated by any member of the audience (a quodlibet). ScotusÕs quodlibetal Questiones were disputed in either Advent 1306 or Lent 1307. Scotus then revised the questions, completing the revision up through the last question, q12.Ó [Cambridge Companion To Duns Scotus]ÒThough less extensive in scope (than the commentary on the Sentences), ScotusÕ Quaestiones Quodlibetales are almost as important; they express his most mature thinking as regent master at Paris.Ó [Ency. of Philosophy]Penketh, Thomas (d. 1487), Augustinian friar and theologian, describes himself in his theological notebook as of the Warrington convent in Lancashire, and evidently studied theology at Oxford before (probably immediately before) 1466; on the basis of his Oxford study he was granted leave to incept at Cambridge in the academic year 1466Ð7, and took the degree of DTh on 31 May 1468. He must have already had some repute within his order, since he was confirmed as prior provincial of England on 22 October 1469; but he evidently returned to Oxford, where he was permitted by his order to study and teach, until in 1474 he vacated the provincialship to study at Padua. He was appointed lector in metaphysics in the university there, almost certainly being the Master Thomas Anglicus confirmed in that post on 22 September 1475, and very probably holding it already in 1474, when he published in Venice his edition of the quodlibetal questions of John Duns Scotus. By 1477, when he brought out an edition of Scotus's commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, he was holding the post of lector in theology, which he still held in 1479 according to his confr�re, Brother Iacopo Filippo da Bergamo. He was re-elected prior provincial in 1480 (confirmed 15 March 1481) and again on 1 April 1485, presumably until death. At Easter 1484 he preached a sermon in praise of Richard III, which, according to Sir Thomas More, was afterwards excoriated, but which brought him an annual pension of £10 from the king. He died in London on 20 May 1487.Penketh's principal achievement was to be the first to publish scholarly but usable printed editions of the chief works of Duns Scotus and the Scotist theologian Antonius Andreae. His editorial work was crowded into the five or six years he spent at Padua, where he could be in touch with experienced printers; but it originated in the Scotist teaching of the Oxford and Cambridge theological faculties, as a surviving notebook in his hand shows (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 126). It contains questions on universals by Brother William Russell, probably the Augustinian friar who incepted at Oxford in 1430, some unattributed questions on God and creatures, possibly Penketh's own, and a text of the commentary of Antonius Andreae on Aristotle's Metaphysics which he edited at Padua. All these texts are ex