Brill's Companion to the Reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

513 Pages·2021·6.74 MB·English

by  Irene Caiazzo (editor), Constantinos Macris (editor), Aurélien Robert (editor)

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Brill’s Companions to
Classical Reception
Series Editor
Kyriakos N. Demetriou
volume 24
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccr
Brill’s Companion to the
Reception of Pythagoras and
Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance
Edited by
Irene Caiazzo
Constantinos Macris
Aurélien Robert
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Pythagoras musicus, from MS Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny (Geneva), Cod.
Bodmer 91, f. 141v.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Caiazzo, Irene, editor. | Macris, Constantinos, editor. | Robert,
Aurélien, editor.
Title: Brill’s companion to the reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance / edited by Irene Caiazzo,
Constantinos Macris, Aurélien Robert.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2022. | Series: Brill’s companions to
classical reception, 2213–1426 ; volume 24 | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021042346 (print) | LCCN 2021042347 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004373624 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004499461 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Pythagoras. | Pythagoras and Pythagorean school.
Classification: LCC B243 .B76 2022 (print) | LCC B243 (ebook) | DDC
182/.2—dc23/eng/20211022
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042346
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042347
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 2213-1426
ISBN 978-90-04-37362-4 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-49946-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be
addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Illustrations and Tables x
Notes on the Contributors xi
Introduction: Pythagoras, from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity:
A Multicultural Approach 1
Irene Caiazzo, Constantinos Macris and Aurélien Robert
part 1
Pythagorean Number Theory and the Quadrivium
1 Pythagoras and the Quadrivium from Late Antiquity to the
Middle Ages 47
Cecilia Panti
2 Music and the Pythagorean Tradition from Late Antiquity to the
Early Middle Ages 82
Andrew Hicks
3 Nicomachean Number Theory in Arabic and Persian
Scholarly Literature 111
Sonja Brentjes
4 The Tribulations of the Introduction to Arithmetic from Greek to Hebrew
Via Syriac and Arabic: Nicomachus of Gerasa, Ḥabib Ibn Bahrīz,
al-Kindī, and Qalonymos ben Qalonymos 141
Gad Freudenthal
5 Medieval Jewish Pythagoreanism: Remarks on Maimonides and on
Sefer Melakhim 171
Tzvi Langermann
vi Contents
part 2
Pythagorean Way(s) of Life, East and West
6 Popular Pythagoreanism in the Arabic Tradition: Between Biography
and Gnomology 193
Anna Izdebska
7 Pythagoras’ Ethics and the Pythagorean Way of Life in the
Middle Ages 229
Aurélien Robert
Part 3
Theology, Metaphysics and the Soul
8 Pythagoras’ Philosophy of Unity as a Precursor of Islamic Monotheism:
Pseudo-Ammonius and Related Sources 277
Daniel De Smet
9 The “Brethren of Purity” and the Pythagorean Tradition 296
Carmela Baffioni
10 “Pythagoras’ Mistake”: The Transmigration of Souls in the Latin
Middle Ages and Beyond 322
Irene Caiazzo
11 Pythagoras Latinus: Aquinas’ Interpretation of Pythagoreanism in His
Aristotelian Commentaries 350
Marta Borgo and Iacopo Costa
12 Latin Christian Neopythagorean Theology: A Speculative Summa 373
David Albertson
Contents vii
Part 4
New Trends in Early Modern Pythagoreanism
13 Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Renaissance:
Philosophical and Religious Itineraries from Pico to Brucker 417
Denis J.-J. Robichaud
14 Pythagorean Number Mysticism in the Renaissance: An Overview 457
Jean-Pierre Brach
Index of Names 489

Acknowledgements
At the end of this Companion’s journey, we would like to thank a number of
people for their valuable participation.
First of all we would like to express our gratitude to the editor of the series
“Brill’s Companions to the Classical Reception”, Kyriakos N. Demetriou, for
having warmly welcomed our volume proposal from the very beginning – ἀρχὴ
γὰρ ἥμισυ παντός! –, and for having supported and encouraged our endeavours
at every stage in an extremely positive spirit.
Of course the book would not have existed without the expert scholarship
and the fine work of our contributors. Now is the time to thank all of them for
their eagerness to honour our proposal, for their attentiveness, and for their
generosity. It was a real pleasure to collaborate with them!
Special thanks are due to Giulia Moriconi, the associate editor for Classical
studies at Brill, for her availability and efficiency at all stages of the book’s
production; to the anonymous readers, for their very substantial suggestions,
which helped us to improve the book as a whole both in form and content; to
Claire Raynal (LEM, EPHE, PSL University), for the care with which she helped
us in formatting the individual chapters at an initial stage; to the proofreader
and to the editorial team at Brill for their expert work while preparing this
volume for publication.
We would also like to thank the ‘Fondation Martin Bodmer’ (Geneva) for
granting us reproduction rights of the image used for the cover of the volume.
Last but not least, we are particularly thankful to our ‘research units’ for their
continuous support and to the French ‘National Centre for Scientific Research’
(CNRS) for the freedom of thought and expression it grants its fellows.
Irene Caiazzo
Constantinos Macris
Aurélien Robert
Paris, 4th August 2021