Beinecke MS 708
Italy, s. XVI med
Aristotle, Poetica, partial Latin translation

ff. 1r-5v	[title:] De poetica et eius formis, quam unaquaeque habeat vim et quomodo 
oporteat fabulas conficere, ut luculenter poesis contexatur. [f. 2r text, space for title blank:] De 
poetica et formis eius, quam vim unaquaeque habeat, et quomodo oporteat (1) fabulas conficere, 
ut luculenter (2) poesis contexatur; praeterea ex quot et quibus partibus [this word above the line] 
constat; quin etiam similiter de aliis quae eiusdem sunt methodi disputemus, incipientes 
secundum naturam (3) primum a primis. Itaque poesis (4) epica et poesis tragediae, praeterea 
comoedia et poesis (5) dithyrambica et magna pars (6) auleticae et (7) melicae, omnes ut in 
universum comprehendam, sunt imitatio. Differunt autem inter se tribus. Aut enim imitando 
diversis genere, aut diversa, aut dissimiliter, et non eodem modo ... Longitudinem autem 
terminus usque ad certamina et sensum, non artis est; si enim opus esset centum tragoedias 
[certari deleted] in certamen vocari, ad clepsydras certarentur, quemadmodum olim alias accidisse 
aiunt. Terminus autem secundum ipsam rei naturam semper maior est, dum conspicuum sit 
venustiorem esse quam fuerit secundum magnitudinem.		ff. 6-10 blank

Aristoteles, Poetica, anonymous Latin translation of chapters 1-7 (for the original text, see S. 
Halliwell, ed. [Loeb Classical Library, 1995], pp. 28-56). The numbers written above the various 
concepts (in our description between parentheses preceding the concept) stop after "17" in the 
middle of the first page. The text is not subdivided. On f. 2r the translator has replaced Homer 
and Empedocles, cited by Aristotle, by Virgil and Lucretius ("Nihil tamen commune est Virgilio 
et Lucretio nisi  carmen").


Paper, ff. 10, 195 x 145 mm. In-4ø folding. Watermark: coat of arms with a bend, surmounted by 
a star and with a roundel depending from it, not in Briquet.

I10.

Frame-ruled with lead for one column of script, 165/170 x 102/105 mm.

Copied by one scribe in small Humanistica Cursiva Libraria; words in Greek written by the same 
hand.

Undecorated.

Sewn on a gilded leather thong; no cover.

Purchased from Laurence Witten on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund, 1989.

Albert Derolez

R 16.02.09