Wilhelm von Moerbeke

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The beginning of Aristotle's De anima in the Latin translation of Wilhelm von Moerbeke. Manuscript Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticanus Palatinus lat. 1033, fol. 113r (early 14th century)
A page of a late medieval copy of Proclus' commentary on Plato's Dialogue Parmenides in the Latin translation of Wilhelm von Moerbeke with personal marginal notes by Nikolaus von Kues , mid-15th century, Bernkastel-Kues , Library of the Sankt-Nikolaus-Hospital, Codex 186, fol . 125r

Wilhelm von Moerbeke ( Willem van Moerbeke ; * around 1215 in Moerbeke / Geraardsbergen , Brabant ; † 1286 in Corinth ) was a Flemish clergyman and translator of ancient writings from Greek into Latin.

Wilhelm first entered the Dominican order and worked between 1267 and 1277 as a missionary in the Byzantine region. From 1268 he lived in Viterbo , in 1274 he was present at the Council of Lyon . From April 9, 1278 until his death, he was Archbishop of Corinth, an outpost of the Latin Church in Argolida in Orthodox Greece.

Wilhelm was the conversation partner and correspondent for many scholars of his time, including his friar, the philosopher Thomas Aquinas , the natural scientist Witelo and the astronomer Heinrich von Mecheln . The latter dedicated his treatise on the astrolabe to him , just as Witelo dedicated his work on optics to him. Wilhelm was an exceptionally prolific translator of philosophical, medical, and astronomical texts. The quality of his translations is considered good.

On behalf of Thomas Aquinas, Wilhelm translated Aristotle's writings entirely from Greek or revised existing translations. In doing so, he made them accessible to Latin-speaking scholars of Western and Central Europe, which benefited the subsequent Aristotle reception there. He also translated commentaries (for example by Ammonios Hermeiou , Alexander von Aphrodisias and Johannes Philoponos ) on Aristotle into Latin. The reason for Wilhelm's work as a translator was the dubious quality and the incompleteness of the Aristotle texts available at the time. In Central and Western Europe, only a few people spoke ancient Greek, and most Latin translations were based on Arabic editions, which were sometimes conveyed via Syriac and were therefore less faithful to the original. This changed fundamentally with the translations of Wilhelm, who could fall back on the original Greek texts.

Medical texts that he translated are Galen's De alimentiis and the Hippocratic work De prognosticationibus aegritudinum secundum motum lunae .

He also translated mathematical treatises by Archimedes , Heron of Alexandria and the Institutio theologica of Proclus into Latin. The latter developed into one of the most important sources for the revival of Neoplatonic ideas in the late Middle Ages. Later a humanist complained that Wilhelm's translations were not "elegant", but praised their reliability. Some of Wilhelm's Greek sources were later lost; without his work these writings would no longer be accessible today. In older research, it was assumed that the translation work was initiated by Thomas Aquinas, but this cannot be proven.

expenditure

  • Aristotle: Opera (in Wilhelm's Latin translation). Contains: De caelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologica, De sensu et sensato, De memoria et reminiscentia, De somno et vigilia, De longitudine et brevitate vitae . Cologne 1497 ( digitized version )
  • Helmut Boese (Ed.): Procli diadochi tria opuscula (De providentia, libertate, malo) Latine Guilelmo de Moerbeka vertente . De Gruyter, Berlin 1960
  • Hendrik Joan Drossaart Lulofs (Ed.): De generatione animalium. Translatio Guillelmi de Moerbeka (= Aristoteles Latinus 17, 2, 5). Desclée de Brouwer, Bruges 1966
  • Helmut Boese (Ed.): Proclus: Elementatio theologica translata a Guillelmo de Morbecca . University Press, Louvain 1987, ISBN 90-6186-244-2
  • Carlos Steel (Ed.): Proclus: Commentaire sur le Parménide de Platon. Traduction de Guillaume de Moerbeke. 2 volumes. University Press, Leuven 1982-1985

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 147.
  2. ^ Klaus Bergdolt : Scholastic medicine and natural science at the papal curia in the late 13th century. In: Würzburger medical history reports 7, 1989, pp. 155–168; here: p. 157 f.
  3. ↑ Klaus Bergdolt (1989), p. 158
personal data
SURNAME Wilhelm von Moerbeke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willem von Moerbeke; Willem van Moerbeke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Flemish religious priest and translator of ancient writings
DATE OF BIRTH around 1215
PLACE OF BIRTH Moerbeke / Geraardsbergen
DATE OF DEATH 1286
Place of death Corint