If the arrival of the translated corpus of Aristotle’s natural philosophy sent a shockwave through the intellectual circles of late-medieval Europe, access to the Latin versions of his De anima caused a conceptual tsunami. In the first millennium of our era, thinking about the soul had proceeded along the lines of Neoplatonic ideas as transmitted by Augustine and other late-antique pagan and Christian authors. Yet the Latin translations of De anima, from Greek by James of Venice in the middle of the twelfth century, and from Arabic together with Averroes’s commentary by Michael Scot around 1230, opened up completely new topics and questions in the scholarly debates. [1]
In this short and well-written book, Bernardini provides a clear and succinct survey of the earliest reception of the Aristotelian treatise in academic circles of medieval Europe. The issues and controversies that it caused thoroughly influenced the intellectual life and on occasion are considered the sources of riots and persecutions. Bernardini approaches the subject in a broadly chronological order. The first chapter sets the historical framework for the medieval introduction of the translations of Aristotle’s treatise, and demonstrates how scholars and commentators fell back on their theological and medical background knowledge to make the work understandable. In her second chapter, the author discusses how particular questions raised by De anima became part and parcel of philosophical debates from the mid-thirteenth century onward, like the body-soul relation and the soul’s role in sense perception and its connection to the intellect.
Understandably, considerable attention is given to the so-called Averroist movements and their correlation with the censure of numerous philosophical propositions by the bishops of Paris and Oxford in 1270 and 1277 respectively. Traditionally, those events are linked with the discussion of the unicity of the soul, with the supposed main defender of that thesis, Siger of Brabant, and with the vehement reactions to it in the works of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and other philosophers of the period. Bernardini manages to paint a nuanced picture of what happened, taking into account the latest research on the topic. The fourth and final chapter of the book deals with the “plurality of trajectories” that followed as solutions to bridge the conflict in the first half of the fourteenth century.
Bernardini shows an impressive mastery of the relevant scholarly publications ranging from the nineteenth century to today, and often turns to information from manuscripts that are not yet or just partially published. Her treatment covers the period from the first appearance of the Latin translation in the mid-twelfth century through the fourteenth century, while also hinting at the impact that the medieval debate had on Renaissance and early-modern philosophers like Pomponazzi and Descartes. In doing so, she judiciously compares and assesses the available evidence and opinions of her predecessors.
Thus, Bernardini’s work magnificently accomplishes the series’ purpose “to make the Faculty of Arts known to a broader public, outside the circle of specialists.” [2] Indeed, her book provides interesting and even essential background reading for many medievalists, not just for historians of theology or philosophy. Bernardini succeeds in both brushing the broad lines and sketching the finer details of a conceptual change that affected numerous aspects of medieval thinking. She does so with a thorough knowledge of the original texts and the scholarly literature, while she admirably keeps the narrative accessible to students and generally interested readers. Specialists will appreciate the bibliography of primary and secondary sources that contains a wealth of useful references. The book is easy to handle for its small size, and its reasonable price should allow access for a wide readership. In view of the great qualities of Bernardini’s book, it is regrettable that the press did not copy-edit it more thoroughly to weed out the all too frequent typographical mistakes. [3]
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Notes:
1. A critical edition of the twelfth-century Greek-Latin translation by James of Venice is being prepared by Tilke Nelis as part of the project “Fluidity in the Medieval Aristotle” (FitMA), led by the author of this review and funded by the European Research Council (see note 3). Michael Scot’s Latin translation of the Arabic text with the so-called “long” commentary by Averroes was published by F. Stuart Crawford, Averrois Cordubensis Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis de anima libros, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1953.
2. Quoted from the publisher’s website: https://www.brepols.net/series/SFAHI (Accessed 19 October 2025).
3. The work to prepare this review was funded by the European Union (ERC, FitMA, Grant agreement ID 101164582). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.