Classical Quarterly 63.

1 183–198 (2013) Printed in Great Britain 183

doi:10.1017/S0009838812000845

THE TEXT OF THE ARISTOTELIAN MECHANICS

The present article examines the textual transmission of the Aristotelian Mechanics, a
treatise on mechanical questions now generally ascribed to the Peripatetic School.
The treatise was edited three times in the nineteenth century, namely by Johannes
van Cappelle (1812), Immanuel Bekker (1831) and Otto Apelt (1888); most recently,
an edition was produced in the twentieth century by Maria Elisabetta Bottecchia
(1982). Bottecchia’s edition is a clear improvement over the previous editions in the
extent of its research. Whereas the other editors of the Mechanics altogether consulted
a total of nine manuscripts, Bottecchia considered nearly the complete manuscript
material for her critical edition of the text. When I started my project I did not expect
to find significant new results which would make a completely new critical edition of
the text necessary.
However, as I compared Bottecchia’s analysis of the manuscript tradition with my
own examination of the text and collations of the manuscripts, it became clear that
her edition contains numerous errors. It would go beyond the scope of this paper to pre-
sent a detailed examination of Bottecchia’s edition; let me mention here just two
examples. First, Bottecchia argues that the manuscript V2 depends on Wa.1 This is
incompatible with strong evidence concerning the chronology of the manuscripts:
there is reason to think that V2 was composed in the first half of the fourteenth century
and Wa more than a century later, in about 1465.2 Even more important is Bottecchia’s
failure to recognize the influence exerted on the textual tradition by Georgios
Pachymeres, parts of whose Byzantine paraphrase of the Mechanics were incorporated
into some manuscripts of the text. Bottecchia regarded Mut. 76 (Mu), which is an apo-
graph of Pachymeres’ paraphrase, as an authentic Aristotelian manuscript and included
readings of this paraphrase in her critical edition of the text.3
A new examination of the manuscripts of the Mechanics is therefore necessary, and
will yield a different perspective on the textual transmission of the treatise. The present
article offers a survey of my results from collating all 31 manuscripts in which the
Mechanics has been handed down to us.4 I shall first give an account of the different

1
See the list of manuscripts on pp. 185–6 for an explanation of the sigla.
2
I. Hadot, ‘La tradition manuscrite du commentaire de Simplicius sur le Manuel d’ Épictète’, RHT
8 (1978), 1–108, at 89, dates V2 between 1317 and 1338; see D. Harlfinger, Die Textgeschichte der
pseudo-aristotelischen Schrift ΠΕΡΙ ΑΤΟΜΩΝ ΓΡΑΜΜΩΝ: Ein kodikologisch-kulturgeschichtlicher
Beitrag zur Klärung der Überlieferungsverhältnisse im Corpus Aristotelicum (Amsterdam, 1971),
266, on the date of Wa.
3
This has already been noticed by R. Hilgers, ‘Eine neue Aristoteles-Handschrift in Berlin’,
Codices Manuscripti 10 (1992), 62–4, at 63.
4
I have collated all these manuscripts with the use of microfilms stored in the Aristoteles-Archiv at
the Freie Universität Berlin. I would like to thank Professor Dieter Harlfinger for providing the
material of the Archive, including the partly unpublished descriptions of Aristoteles Graecus.
184 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

editions of the text, and then present my own analysis of the manuscript families, result-
ing in a stemma codicum which illustrates the affiliations of the manuscripts.

I. EDITIONS OF THE MECHANICS

The editio princeps of the Mechanics is the complete edition of Aristotle, printed by
Aldus Manutius in Venice (1495–8). We do not possess the printer’s copy of the
Mechanics, but the edition appears to be based solely upon the manuscript Be, together
with influences from the Byzantine paraphrase by Pachymeres.
The nineteenth-century editions of the treatise by van Cappelle (1812), Bekker
(1831) and Apelt (1888) are all likewise unsatisfactory, in that they too consider only
a small part of the textual tradition and are too much affected by Pachymeres’ para-
phrase. Van Cappelle’s edition contains the Greek text together with comments and a
Latin translation.5 In his introduction, van Cappelle mentions three manuscripts of the
Mechanics collated by him, namely Lv, Par and Pt. The Parisian manuscripts, Par and
Pt, both include readings from different textual traditions. Moreover, they appear in
places to depart from the authentic Aristotelian text, as a result of influence from the
paraphrase of Pachymeres.
In his complete edition of Aristotle, Bekker cites the manuscripts P and Wa as his
main sources for the Mechanics. These manuscripts, which represent different branches
of the textual tradition, contain valuable readings and, when analysed together with L
and Ha, cover the most important textual variants. However, apart from numerous errors
in collation, many of Bekker’s readings are printed without any justification, not being
contained in any of the manuscripts cited by him.6 In the course of collation I discovered
many agreements between Bekker’s edition and variants included in Be, a manuscript
written by the Italian humanist and professor of Aristotelian philosophy in Padua,
Niccolò Leonico Tomeo. In 1525, Leonico published a Latin translation of the
Mechanics with commentary. Probably Bekker consulted this commentary during the
process of making his edition of the treatise, and tacitly included some of Leonico’s
emendations in his text.7
Apelt’s edition contains the Greek text of the Mechanics and of five further smaller
works by Aristotle. Apelt did not examine any new manuscripts, but relies on the manu-
scripts consulted by Bekker, P and Wa, and also on Par, previously analysed by van
Cappelle. In his foreword, Apelt praises the edition by van Cappelle and the ‘excellent’
codex Par. He holds that Par offers many good readings of corrupt passages and fills the
lacunae of other manuscripts. Although this is true to some extent, we should be careful
in accepting the variants from Par, since many of them were borrowed from the para-
phrase by Pachymeres and do not contain the authentic text. Given that Apelt did not

5
J.P. van Cappelle, Aristotelis Quaestiones Mechanicae (Amsterdam, 1812).
6
I. Bekker, Aristotelis Opera II (Berlin, repr. 1960), e.g. at 855a38 ἡ δὲ τοῦ ἐλάττονος ἐλάττων
Bekker / emendation in Be: om. codd.; 856a29 μικρὸς Bekker / emendation in Be: μέγας codd.; 857a5
ἀπ’ ἄκρου Bekker: ἀπὸ μακροῦ codd.; 857a18 ἔστω μέσον Bekker: τὸ μέσον emendation in Be: om.
codd.; 858b29 δὲ Bekker / emendation in Be: om. codd.
7
O. Apelt, Aristotelis quae feruntur De Plantis, De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, Mechanica, De
Lineis Insecabilibus, Ventorum Situs et Nomina, De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia (Leipzig, 1888), VI,
assumes that Bekker included some of Leonico’s emendations in his edition; this has now been con-
firmed by my collations.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 185

add any new manuscripts to the ones collated by his predecessors, his edition does not
make a significant contribution to our understanding of the textual tradition.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of W.S. Hett (1936) relies upon the Bekker text,
except in a few cases where the edition of Apelt has been employed.8 Hett himself has
also made some smaller emendations.
The most recent edition of the Mechanics is due to Bottecchia (1982). Bottecchia
examined nearly all the manuscripts of the text, which she divided into four manuscript
families, namely a, b, c and d. Her text relies primarily upon manuscripts in her families
a and b. Ha, L and Oa, all in family a, together with P and V3, both belonging to family
b, are the main sources for her edition of the text. However, the last manuscript, V3, is
not valuable for the reconstruction of the Mechanics, since it is a copy of the first printed
edition of the text by Manutius, and therewith contains many elements from the para-
phrase by Pachymeres. Because she neglected to consult the families c and d for her
edition, Bottecchia excluded some important variants offered by these manuscripts.

II. THE MANUSCRIPT FAMILIES

Altogether 31 manuscripts of the Mechanics have been handed down to us. The follow-
ing manuscripts contain the complete text or excerpts from it:

Ba Vat.Pal.gr. 162, fifteenth century, 1442–59.

Be Bern. 402, fifteenth century, before 1497.
Bu Burney 67, seventeenth century.
D1 Berol.Phill. 1507, fifteenth century, c. 1455.
F1 Laur.Acq. 65, fifteenth century, 1450–75.
F2 Laur.Plut. 28.45, fifteenth century, 1445.
Ha Marc.gr. 214, thirteenth–fourteenth century, 1290–1303.
Hd Ambr. 174 Sup. (67), fifteenth century, c. 1470.
L Vat.gr. 253, fourteenth century, beginning.
Lv Voss.gr. Q.25, fifteenth century, 1450–1500.
M1 Matr. 4563, fifteenth century, 1470.
Mv Mosq. 453, fifteenth century, c. 1450.
Na Marc.gr. 215, fifteenth century, c. 1470.
Nb Nap. IIIAA14bis, fifteenth century, 1450–1500.
Nc Nap. IIIC8 (266), sixteenth century, beginning.
Nh New Haven Phill. 7488, fifteenth century, middle.
Oa Marc.gr. 216, fifteenth century, 1445.
P Vat.gr. 1339, fourteenth century, 1350–1400.
P4 Par.Suppl.gr. 333, sixteenth century.
Par Par.gr. 2115, fifteenth–sixteenth century.
Ps Par.Suppl.gr. 541, fifteenth century.
Pt Par.gr. 2507, fourteenth century, 1370–80.
Q Urb.gr. 76, fifteenth century, 1400–50.
Q Marc.gr. 200, fifteenth century, 1457.

8
W.S. Hett, Aristotle: Minor Works (Cambridge, MA, 1936).
186 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

U Reg.gr. 124, c. 1500.

Um Marc.gr. IV.57, fifteenth century, before 1446.
V1 Vat.gr. 905, fifteenth century, c. 1430.
V2 Vat.gr. 2231, fourteenth century, 1317–38.
V3 Barb.gr. 22, sixteenth century, beginning.
Vph Vind.Phil.gr. 231, fifteenth century, 1458.
Wa Urb.gr. 44, fifteenth century, c. 1465.

I have collated three new manuscripts, Hd, Nb and Nc, of which the first two are of
special interest.
The textual transmission starts fairly late; the oldest manuscripts date from the begin-
ning of the fourteenth century. The dating of the oldest preserved manuscript, Ha, has
been a subject of much controversy over the past decades. Some years ago, however,
Rashed convincingly argued for a date around 1300.9 A transmission that starts that
late brings with it many difficulties, since it is hard to assess the earlier phases of the
textual tradition with reasonable certainty. The situation is further complicated by the
presence of an independent branch in the tradition, that of the paraphrase by
Pachymeres, which in turn influenced some of the manuscripts and the previous editions
of the treatise. The paraphrase of the Mechanics contained in Pachymeres’ compendium
of Aristotle’s philosophy offers an almost literal quotation of the Aristotelian text.
Therefore, it can be considered as a witness of the textual tradition of the Mechanics.
Every now and then, Pachymeres makes some smaller emendations or adds an illustra-
tive remark in the text, giving his text an independent position among the other
manuscripts.
Different readings led me to divide the writings into three manuscript families,
namely a, b and c. The independent tradition of the paraphrase by Pachymeres derives
from the same hyparchetype as family a; it is, however, recorded in the stemma codicum
as a different branch, since, through Pachymeres’ emendations and additions, paraphras-
tic elements were incorporated into the text. Pachymeres’ paraphrase of the Mechanics is
important in constituting the text, since it was written at the same time or even shortly
before the authentic Aristotelian manuscripts were copied. Finally, there is a group of
contaminated manuscripts, which include aspects of different manuscript families.
These writings do not all contain the complete text, but only excerpts from it.

Family a
The two manuscripts in this family are among the oldest preserved manuscripts of the
Mechanics, and derive independently of each other from the hyparchetype α. They share
readings which separate them from the other families, for example at 847b25
διɛστήκατον a: διέστηκɛν cett.; 848b24 πλɛυρῶν a: πλɛιόνων cett.; 850a32 κινɛῖν a:
κινῆσαι cett.; 851b18 ὁ τῆς ἁμάξης τροχὸς a: ὁ τροχὸς ὁ τῆς ἁμάξης cett.; 853a25
ὄντι τῷ μόχλῷ a; ὄντι cett.; 853a27 ἐφ’ ᾧ ΔΕΖΗ a: ΔΕΗΖ cett.; 853b32 πρόσκɛιται
a: ἔγκɛιται cett.; 854b20 τὴν ἐλάττω διάμɛτρον a: τὴν διάμɛτρον τὴν ἐλάττω
cett.; 854b27 πλɛυράν a: πλɛίω cett.; 855a13 ὀξɛίας ὥσπɛρ συμβαίνɛι a: ὀξɛίας

9
See M. Rashed, Die Überlieferungsgeschichte der aristotelischen Schrift De generatione et cor-
ruptione (Wiesbaden, 2001), 250.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 187

συμβαίνɛι cett.; 856a24 κωλύɛι a: κυλίɛι cett.; 856b28 ΒΓ a: ΑΓ cett.; 857b12 οὕτως a:
ἐλάττων cett.; 857b38 ἀνίστηται ἀναστῆναι a: ἀναστῆναι cett.; 858b11 καὶ τότɛ μένɛι
a: καὶ τιθέαμɛν ɛἰ cett.. Further variants of family a can be found at 848a6, 848a11,
848b16, 849b20, 850a1, 850a24, 850a27, 850a31, 851a7, 851a13, 851a28, 852a6,
853a30, 854a11, 854a14, 854b5, 854b11, 854b20, 855a3, 855a4, 855b3, 855b24,
856a34, 857a2, 857b5 and 858b24.
Now let us have a closer look at the two manuscripts in this family:
Ha Marc.gr. 214, thirteenth–fourteenth century, c. 1290–1303. Parchment, 330 x
230 mm, 238f. Eth. Nic., Metaph., Ph., Gen. corr., De an., excerpt from Rh.,
Cleomedes, Caelestia; Sens., Mem., Somn. vig., Insomn., Div. somn., MA, Long.,
Juv., Resp., Col., Lin. ins., Mech. (f.203–10), Spir., Cael.
Whereas earlier scholars dated Ha anywhere from the eleventh to the fifteenth cen-
tury, Harlfinger was able to determine the date more precisely between 1270 and
1370.10 Rashed settled the controversy about Ha definitively, fixing the date between
1290 and 1303.11 He identified one of the scribes who worked on Ha as the copyist
of another manuscript, Ambr. G51 sup., and argued convincingly that parts of Ha
were likely copied from Ambr. The terminus ante quem of Ambr. is 1303, the year
in which Conradus Beginus acquired this manuscript and took it along to Kaffa.
Therewith, Ha can be dated more precisely, namely after the making of Ambr. and
before Conradus’ acquisition; these facts speak for a date in the final years of the thir-
teenth century, possibly in about 1300.
Ha has influenced a group of manuscripts that derives from Oa. Since Oa is copied
from a manuscript in family b and contains the variants of family a only after emenda-
tion, this group of manuscripts will be presented in a separate section. The second manu-
script of family a, L, of which no direct descendants are known for the Mechanics, was
copied at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
L Vat.gr. 253, fourteenth century, beginning. Paper, 241 x 164 mm, 269f. Cael.,
Gen. corr., Mete., De an. Book 3, Sens., Mem., Somn. vig., Insomn., Div. somn., MA,
Long., Juv., Resp., Col., Lin. ins., Mech. (f.246v–262v), Spir.
On account of a number of separative errors, a dependence in either direction
between Ha and L can be ruled out: for example at 847b25, 848b23, 849b20,
850a25, 851a13, 852b1, 852b22, 852b39, 853a7, 853a12, 853a13, 853a34, 853b9,
853b14, 854a3, 854a13, 854a22, 854b3, 854b10, 854b27, 855b34, 855b38, 856a26,
856b3, 856b14, 857a20, 858a12 and 858b26. Since Ha and L can independently of
each other be traced back to the hyparchetype α, the readings of both manuscripts are
important in constituting the text. Bottecchia was the first editor to fully consider this
fact, and consulted both manuscripts for her critical edition of the Mechanics.

Family b
Family b consists of the following manuscripts: P, Ba, Be, Lv, Mv and D1. P is the oldest
and best-known manuscript of this family.
P Vat.gr. 1339, fourteenth century, second half. Parchment, 280 x 210 mm, 460f.
Part. an., Gen. an., IA, De an., Sens., Mem., Somn. vig., Insomn., Div. somn., MA,
Long., Juv., Resp., Col., Lin. ins., Mech. (f.281v– 294), Spir., Mu., Hist. an.

10
See Harlfinger (n. 2), 168.
11
See Rashed (n. 9), 250.
188 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

The value of codex P as a textual witness has been questioned for various treatises
from the Corpus Aristotelicum.12 Although P shows many traces of contamination,
scholars generally agree that this manuscript contains readings which constitute inde-
pendent textual evidence. For the Mechanics there are agreements between P and family
c,13 but on account of some relevant textual variants P can be traced back to its own
hyparchetype β. Some characteristic readings of P, which are also present in the manu-
scripts Ba, Be and Lv,14 can be found at 847b19 σὺν ἀλλήλοις b: μɛτ’ ἀλλήλων
cett.; 848a23 ὑπɛναντίους b: ὑπɛναντίως cett.; 848b33 προɛιρημένα πρότɛρον b:
προɛιρημένα cett.; 849b2 om. τῷ μɛίζονι b; 849b18 κατὰ φορὰν b: κατὰ φύσιν a:
τὸ κατὰ φύσιν c; 852a9 αὐτῶν b: αὐτὸν cett.; 852a17 χωρίω b: χρόνῳ cett.; 854a34
ἀϕɛρɛῖ b: ἀφαιρɛῖται cett.; 854b29 πɛπληρώσθω b: παραπɛπληρώσθω cett.; 855b26
μὴ b: μὲν cett.; 855b27 μɛίζω b: μɛίζονι cett.; 855b39 αὐτὴν b: αὑτοῦ cett.; 856b13
ἴσαι ɛἰσίν b: ɛἰσίν ἴσαι cett.; 857a38 καθιέναι b: καθɛικέναι cett.
The codex P can be attributed to a copyist by the name of Joasaph and was written at
some time in the second half of the fourteenth century.15 Most of the Mechanics editions
acknowledge the importance of P as a direct descendent of the hyparchetype β. Both
Bekker and Apelt adopted many readings of P, and Bottecchia too included various
readings from it in her edition of the treatise. Although P contains valuable variants,
the editor should in every case carefully consider if a peculiar reading is the result of
contamination, constitutes an independent variant, or is simply an error.
Two further manuscripts in family b, which share part of the readings of P, are Mv
and D1. Both of these manuscripts were copied in Constantinople in the middle of the
fifteenth century.16 D1 was composed as a cooperation between different copyists. The
final pages of the Mechanics were written by Matthaios Kamariotes, by whose hand Mv
was also copied.
Although Mv and D1 have many similarities with P, it is not possible that these
manuscripts are dependent on P, since P contains many peculiar readings, for example
at 848a3, 850b13, 850b17, 852a4, 852a23, 853b7, 854b27, 855a27, 856b20, 857a23,
857b6 and 857b11. Besides, Mv and D1 contain further readings that coincide with
variants from family c,17 as for example at 850a35 ἀντὶ σπαρτίου γίνɛται c: ἐστι τὸ
σπαρτίον a: ἐστι τί σπαρτίου/-τίον γίνɛται b; 854a20 μαλακὴ c: μαλθακὴ cett.;

12
See e.g. Harlfinger (n. 2), 247–61 on De lineis insecabilibus; M.C. Nussbaum, ‘The text of
Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium’, HSPh 80 (1976), 111–59, at 128–31, on De motu animalium;
and D. Bloch, ‘The text of Aristotle’s De Sensu and De Memoria’, RHT 3 (2008), 1–58, at 51–6,
on De sensu and De memoria.
13
See e.g. at 848a6, 850a24, 850a31, 851a13, 852b26, 854b27, 855a3, 856a24, 856a34, 857b12
and 858b11.
14
The manuscripts Mv and D1, which contain only part of the readings of family b, will be dis-
cussed below.
15
See M. Vogel and V. Gardthausen, Die griechischen Schreiber des Mittelalters und der
Renaissance (Hildesheim, repr. 1966), 221. Vogel was the first to decipher the name Ἰωσήφ as the
copyist of P, although the name was hardly recognizable. Harlfinger (n. 2), 253 was able to confirm
this assumption by finding another manuscript Vind. hist. gr. 16 by the hand of the same scribe.
Thereby he could dissolve the controversy about the date of P and proposed a date in the second
half of the fourteenth century.
16
See Harlfinger (n. 2), 250.
17
Cf. M.E. Bottecchia, Aristotele: ΜΗΧΑΝΙΚΑ. Tradizione manoscritta, testo critico, scolii
(Padua, 1982), 80–2. Bottecchia mentions the contaminated character of D1, but did not notice its
close connection with Mv. She lists Mv among the manuscripts collated by her, but apart from a
description in the first chapter, this manuscript does not appear in her classification and it is therefore
not clear to which family it belongs in her view.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 189

857a2 τῇ c: τῷ cett.; 858b9 ἐλαττονα c: ἐλάττω cett.; 858b25 τοῖς c: τοίνυν cett. The
readings from family c show a proximity to the manuscript Wa: for example at 852b22,
855a5, 855b26 and 855b37. Both manuscripts finally agree in numerous significant
errors which are not shared by P, as for example at 850a3, 850a19, 850a28, 851b4,
853a5, 853b7, 853b14, 854b11, 855a11, 855a19, 855b17, 855b34, 856a22, 856b1,
856b2, 856b21, 857a3, 857a29 and 858b15.
Certain text passages show that the copyists of P, Mv and D1 had similar difficulties
in reading their source: 856b2 [lac.] om. τὸ P: [lac.] om. ἢ τὸ μὲν μέγɛθος Mv/D1; 856b4
οὔτ [lac.] om. ω διπλασι όπλɛυροι P: οὕτως [lac.] om. διπλασιό πλɛυροι Mv/D1. At the
end of D1 Kamariotes even mentions the corruption of his source at f.353v: σημɛιωτέον
ὅτι πάνυ διɛφθορὸς ἦν τὸ ἀντίγραφον. The exemplar of Mv and D1 must be a corrected
or contaminated codex, since many readings from family c are incorporated in these
manuscripts. Because of the similar problems the scribes of all three manuscripts had
with their corrupt source, Mv and D1 were probably copied from the same hyparchetype
as P was, except that it underwent some emendations in the century between the com-
position of P on the one hand and of Mv and D1 on the other. Since D1 cannot be the
exemplar of Mv and vice versa,18 both manuscripts are direct copies of the hyparchetype
β, although not completely independent of each other. The fact that the hyparchetype
was in such a bad condition, makes it reasonable to assume that Kamariotes and the
copyists working for him constantly referred to Mv while they were copying D1. This
would also explain the high degree of shared errors in both manuscripts.
A highly interesting and influential manuscript from family b, which can be traced
back to P, is Be:
Be Bern. 402, fifteenth century, before 1497. Paper, 235 x 155 mm, 144f. Theophr.
Ign., Metaph., Lap., Sud., Vert., Lass., Pisc., Vent., Od.; Arist. Xen., Mir., Spir., Mech.
(f.99–114), Mu.; Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Fat.
The copyist of this manuscript is Niccolò Leonico Tomeo.19 Leonico owned this
manuscript and used it for his Latin translation of the Mechanics from the year 1525.
My collations of Be confirm the statement of Sicherl that this manuscript, together
with some influences from the paraphrase by Pachymeres, provided the basis for the
first printed edition of the Mechanics by Manutius in Venice.20
Be contains many emendations which are inserted by the same hand both in the mar-
gins and within the text.21 Some of these emendations agree with variant readings con-
tained in the paraphrase by Pachymeres, for example at 850a13 add. ἔσται, 851a27 add.

18
A dependence of Mv on D1 can be ruled out by reason of omissions in D1, e.g. at 847a27,
848a16, 849b5, 851b38, 853a22 and 854a19; by reason of more complete readings in Mv at
849b17, 853b10 and 854a24; and of individual errors in D1 at 851a25, 851b8, 851b30, 852b1,
854b13 and 856b14. A reversed dependence of D1 on Mv seems unlikely since Kamariotes had in
D1 some other difficulties different from those in Mv in reading his source: at 849a8 [lac.] om.
ɛὔλογον D1: ɛὔλογον Mv; 849b17 ἔσται [lac.] om. ἤν D1: ἔσται δὲ α om. ἤν Mv; 857a4 αἱ [lac.]
πλɛυραὶ D1: αἱ πλɛυραὶ Mv.
19
See e.g. W. Burnikel, Textgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu neun Opuscula Theophrasts
(Wiesbaden, 1974), 156 n. 2; F. Vendruscolo, ‘Manoscritti greci copiati dall’ umanista e filosofo
Niccolò Leonico Tomeo’, in M.S. Funghi (ed.), ΟΔΟΙ ΔΙΖΗΣΙΟΣ. Le vie della ricerca. Studi in
onori di Francesco Adorno (Florence, 1996), 543–55, at 549–50; P. Andrist, Les manuscrits grecs
conservés à la Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie de Berne – Burgerbibliothek Bern: Catalogue et his-
toire de la collection (Zurich, 2007), 188–96.
20
See M. Sicherl, Griechische Erstausgaben des Aldus Manutius: Druckvorlagen, Stellenwert, kul-
tureller Hintergrund (Paderborn, 1997), 96.
21
The codex Lv is a copy of Be before the emendations were added.
190 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

δὲ, 852a17 add. χρόνῳ, 853a25 add. τῷ μόχλῷ, 855b36 add. καθ’ αὑτὸ, and 856a9 add.
μικρὸς. Others, however, have no connection with any extant manuscript and are prob-
ably based on Leonico’s own interpretation of the text. Interestingly, some of the emen-
dations in Be were adopted in the first printed edition by Manutius, and have found their
way through the Aldina even into the modern editions of the treatise. Further, Bekker
included many other variants offered by Leonico, which are not contained in the
Aldina, in his edition of the treatise: for example at 850b25 ᾗ Be: ɛἰ cett.; 851b9
ἀντισπᾶν Be: ἀντισπᾶ cett.; 855a38 ἡ δὲ τοῦ ἐλάττονος ἐλάττων Be: om. cett.;
856a29 μικρὸς Be: μέγας cett.; 857a18 τὸ μέσον Be: om. cett.: ἔστω μέσον Bekker;
858b29 δὲ Be: om. cett.; 858b30 ɛἰς Be: om. cett. As I mentioned above, Bekker, as
he made his edition of the Mechanics, probably had access to Leonico’s translation
and commentary on the treatise, and thereby included Leonico’s emendations in his edi-
tion.22 An important task for a new critical edition of the Mechanics is to distinguish
Leonico’s activities on the treatise from the authentic Aristotelian manuscript readings.

Oa and its descendants

This group of manuscripts combines readings from two manuscript families. The pri-
mary readings in these manuscripts come from family b, whereas variants from family
a are only contained in secondary instances. The central member of this group, Oa,
stems from the manuscript P and was emended after completion with the help of
codex Ha.
Oa Marc.gr. 216, middle of the fifteenth century, 1445. Paper, 220 × 135 mm, 348f.
Phgn., Vent., Mir., Mu., Xen., Mech. (f.90–110v), Spir., Plant., Pr.
Oa was copied in the year 1445 by Johannes Scutariotes on behalf of Cardinal
Bessarion. Shortly after the emendations from family a were added, Oa provided the
main source for the other manuscripts in this group, namely Q (which was also copied
on behalf of Cardinal Bessarion, by Johannes Rhosos in 1457), Hd and Vph.
Many variants in Oa have been changed from P’s reading of the text into the version
as contained in Ha, as can be seen at 850a35 ἐστι τὸ σπαρτίον γίνɛται; 850b7–8 τὸ δὲ
ἐϕ΄ᾦ τὸ Δ; 850b17 add. τὸ πλɛῖστον; 852b26 ἔνθα μὲν γὰρ; 853a25 ὄντι add. τῷ
μόχλῳ; 857b6 add. τὸν κάδον; 858a1 ἴσας ɛὐθɛίας; and 858b11 καὶ τιθέαμɛν ɛἰ
add. τότɛ μένɛι. In some cases variants of both P and Ha are extant next to each
other: at 852a5 ἔχοντɛς/ἔχοντα; 853b32 ἔγκɛιται/πρόσκɛιται; 854a34 ἀφɛρɛῖ/
ἀφαιρɛῖται; 854b27 πλɛίω/πλɛυράν; 855a3 πλɛυρὰ/πολλαπλασία; 855b3 γίνονται/
γίνɛται; 855b27 μɛίζω/μɛίζονι; and 857b18 ὑποκɛιμένου/ἐπικɛιμένου. In
Bottecchia’s arrangement of the manuscript families, Oa takes a much more important
position than it actually has. Bottecchia recognizes that Oa is dependent on P and con-
tains corrections from Ha, but at the same time she traces Oa back to the hyparchetype.
As my collations have proved, Oa does not stem from the hyparchetype, since all pri-
mary readings in this manuscript coincide with P and all secondary readings can be
explained by means of Ha.23

22
It is also possible that Bekker did not consult Leonico’s commentary himself, but borrowed
Leonico’s emendations from the edition by van Cappelle. Van Cappelle included many emendations
by Leonico in his critical apparatus.
23
Cf. Bottecchia (n. 17), 54. Bottecchia argues for this double derivation from P and the hyparch-
etype by means of the following example, where she claims that the scribe was uncertain how to
choose from the readings in his sources and in the end combined both: Bottecchia reads at 849b12
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 191

Oa with emendations provided the basis for the other manuscripts in this group: Q,
H and Vph. The manuscript Hd, which I have collated for the first time, shares nearly all
d

of its peculiar readings with Vph. However, a dependence of one of these manuscripts
upon the other can be eliminated: Vph cannot be a copy of Hd on the basis of chronol-
ogy, and Hd cannot have been copied from Vph, because there are some passages that are
omitted only in Vph, for example lines 850b14–15, 853a15, 854b27 and 856a23. It is
also not possible that these manuscripts are independent copies of Oa, since they
share many peculiar errors that are absent from Oa, and furthermore in every case
where Oa provides two different readings, Hd and Vph share one and the same reading:
852a5 ἔχοντα; 853b32 πρόσκɛιται; 854a34 ἀφαιρɛῖ; 854b27 πλɛίω; 855b3 γίνɛται;
855b27 μɛίζονι; 857b18 ἐπικɛιμένου. It is very unlikely that two copyists working inde-
pendently of each other made the same decision every time when they were confronted
with two different readings. Therefore, it is natural to conclude that Hd and Vph are
dependent on the same lost manuscript, which in turn stems from the manuscript Oa.

Family c
Family c, which can be traced back to its own hyparchetype γ, has the following mem-
bers: Wa, Um, V1, M1, F2, Nb, q, Nh, F1, Par and V2.24 This family is distinguished,
amongst other things, by the presence of scholia, both contained within the text and
inserted in the margins.25 The manuscripts in family c are also characterized by the
omission of various longer passages and have characteristic readings which are not pre-
served in the other manuscript families, for example at 848a5 καὶ ɛἰς τὸν ὄπισθɛν c: καὶ
τὸν ὄπισθɛν cett.; 848b10 λίγῳ/ὀλίγῳ c: λόγῳ cett.; 850a35 ἀντὶ σπαρτίου γίνɛται
c: ἐστι τὸ σπαρτίον a: ἐστι τί σπαρτίου/-τίον γίνɛται b; 850b18 ἀμφοτέροις
c: ἀμφότɛρα/ἀμφότɛρον cett.; 852b17 θᾶττον c: μɛῖζον cett.; 854a20 μαλακὴ c:
μαλθακὴ cett.; 854b9 ἐστιν μὲν οὖν τὸ c: ἐστιν οὖν τὸ μὲν cett.; 854b14 ɛὕρɛσις
c: ἄρσις cett.; 855b16 om. πɛριφέρɛια c: πɛριφέρɛια cett.; 856a1 ἡ Α c: ὁ Α cett.;
857a12 ἐπɛιδὴ διότι c: αἴτιον δὲ διότι a: αἴτιον δὲ ὅτι b; 857b13 τῶν ξύλων c: τὸ
ξύλον cett.; 858b9 ἐλάττονα c: ἐλάττω cett.; 858b25 τοῖς c: τοίνυν cett.
V1 and Wa derive independently of each other from the hyparchetype γ. The manu-
script V1, written by the physician Demetrios Branas about 1430, is the older of the
two:26
V1 Vat.gr. 905, fifteenth century, c. 1430. Paper, 218 × 146 mm, 160f. Joannes
Tzetzes, Εἰς τὴν Ὁμήρου Ἰλιάδα ἐξήγησις; Arist. Lin. ins., Mech. (f.35v–51), Mu.,
Hist. an.

ἐν τ[lac.] ἐφ’ οὗ χ σημɛῖον Oa: ἐν ἐφ’ οὗ χ σημɛῖον Ha: ἐν τῶ ἐφ’ οὗ χ σημɛῖον P. As my collations
have proved, the readings in Oa and P are not deviant at all, since both read: ἐν τ[lac.] ἐφ’ οὗ χ
σημɛῖον. Therefore it is not necessary to assume a further dependence apart from P on the
hyparchetype.
24
The codex V2 contains abstracts from the Mechanics and is on the basis of its many modifi-
cations and strong paraphrastic character presented in the section on contaminated and incomplete
manuscripts below.
25
Bottecchia (n. 17), 145–65 was the first to include the scholia to the Mechanics in her edition.
However, it is important to notice that not only the scholia from family c are contained in this edition,
but also the glosses added by Pachymeres (from the codex Mu), which should be separated from the
‘real’ scholia.
26
See Harlfinger (n. 2), 266 on the date of V1. The full name of the copyist remained unknown
until recently. As Harlfinger informed me in October 2009 he was able to decipher the name of
the copyist from another manuscript, Berol.Phill. 1582, by the same hand.
192 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

V1 does not contain all the scholia from family c, but only those at 848a32 and
852a23. In the tradition of the Mechanics, it has one direct descendant, M1, which is
an almost perfect copy of its original.
Wa was written some thirty-five years after V1 was composed. It was copied by
Georgios Tzangaropulos in an accurate hand:
Wa Urb.gr. 44, fifteenth century, c. 1465. Paper, 293 × 220 mm, 85f. Eth. Nic., Lin.
ins., Mech. (f.69–78), excerpt from Iambl. VP.
All the scholia of family c were added in the margins of the text by a different hand,
probably in the sixteenth century.27 Both V1 and Wa have several longer omissions,
although of different passages. Since all manuscripts in family c are characterized by
such omissions, it is reasonable to assume that the hyparchetype γ was already corrupted
at least to some degree, and may have contained different stages of emendation.
Of the other manuscripts in family c, nearly all contain the whole range of scholia,
and all share a great number of longer omissions, as for example at 851a20–2,
855a30–2, 855b6–10, 856a27–9, 857a30–2 and 857b30–2. On the basis of further omis-
sions and peculiar errors, these manuscripts can be split up into two groups. Um, q, Nb
and F2 form the first group and are closely connected with each other. Um and q are the
oldest of these manuscripts and it is possible that they are the exemplars of the remain-
ing manuscripts in this group. Um was copied in Crete by Giovanni Simeonachis on
behalf of Marco Lippomano. The terminus ante quem for this manuscript is 1446,
the year in which Lippomano died.28 The manuscript q can, on the basis of water
marks, be dated with certainty in the first half of the fifteenth century, and some
parts of the codex can even be ascribed to the first quarter of this century, about
1420.29 Whereas the catalogues agree on a date for Nb in the fourteenth century,30
Harlfinger has established that the codex is of a later date in the second half of the fif-
teenth century, possibly even the beginning of the sixteenth century.31 Hence Nb can be
discarded as a possible original of the other manuscripts in this group. On the basis of
peculiar omissions, especially the omission in Um of lines 847a18 and 855a12, and in q
of 848a4–5, 855a35–36 and 856a16, it is impossible to ascertain a dependence of one of
these manuscripts upon the other. Therefore, it is likely that Um, Nb and q stem indepen-
dently of each other from the same lost manuscript. F2 contains all the peculiar omis-
sions and errors of Um, and is thus a copy of this manuscript.
The second group, consisting of Nh, F1 and Par, shares four further omissions,
namely of lines 852b23–4, 854b20, 854b26, and 856b25–6. There is a close connection
between Nh and Par, which can be seen in the corresponding errors at for example
851a5, 851a9, 851a24, 851b33, 852a2 and 852a9. There are, however, further peculiar
errors in Nh that are not contained in Par, by reason of which a dependence of this manu-
script on Nh can be eliminated. The codex Par received an elaborate emendation after

27
See C. Stornajolo, Codices Urbinates Graeci Bibliothecae Vaticanae (Rome, 1895), 49.
28
See E. Mioni, Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum codices graeci manuscripti (Rome, 1972),
246–7 and M. Zorzi, Collezioni veneziane di codici greci dalle raccolte della Biblioteca Nazionale
Marciana (Venice, 1993), 40.
29
See M. Tziatzi-Papagianni, Die Sprüche der sieben Weisen (Stuttgart, 1994), 346.
30
See H. Diels, Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte I (Berlin, 1906), 38; F. Napolitano, M.L.
Nardelli and L. Tartaglia, Manoscritti greci non compresi in cataloghi a stampa (Naples, 1977),
26–7; M.R. Formentin, ‘Codici greci di medicina nella Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III
di Napoli: le vie di acquisizione’, in S. Sconocchia (ed.), Lingue tecniche del greco e del latino II
(Bologna, 1997), 207–16, at 213–14.
31
As Harlfinger informed me in a conversation in May 2010.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 193

completion: all omissions were completed and many variants were added or overwritten
after erasing the first reading. Par was emended with a manuscript containing the para-
phrase of Pachymeres, as is shown by the remarks added at 847b26 and 848a37, and by
the variants at 850a35, 850b37, 851a20, 851b33, 852a5, 852a12, 852a18, 853a10,
853a25, 853a27, 853b6, 853b32, 854b1, 854b20, 855a13, 855b39–856a1, 856a35,
856b21, 856b32, 857a24, 857b2, 857b6, 857b38, 858b9, 858b24 and 858b25. The
manuscript F1, finally, is a copy of Nh.
Family c offers some valuable textual variants which are not contained in the other
manuscript families, as for example at 849a36 ὀρθὰς c: ὀρθὴ/ὀρ[lac.] cett.; 849b18 τὸ
κατὰ φύσιν c: κατὰ φύσιν a: κατὰ φορὰν b; 850a35 ἀντὶ σπαρτίου γίνɛται c: ἐστι τὸ
σπαρτίον a: ἐστι τί σπαρτίου/-τίον γίνɛται b; 852b17 θᾶττον c: μɛῖζον cett.; 857a28
ἀπὸ τῆς c: τῆς a: [lac.] ἀπὸ τῆς b. Even more important for a new critical edition of the
Mechanics is the position of family c, where readings from this family agree with family
a against family b. As I mentioned above, the hyparchetype of family b was a corrupted
and contaminated manuscript, and the editor should be very careful in adopting readings
from this family. On the basis of agreement between families c and a he might reconsider
the following variants: 851b1 δɛῖ κινɛῖν b: κινɛῖν δɛῖ cett.; 853b2 ἕλξɛι b: om. cett.;
854a17 τῇ χɛιρὶ μόνῃ ψιλῇ b: ψιλῇ τῇ χɛιρὶ μόνῃ cett.; 856b13 ἴσαι ɛἰσίν b: ɛἰσὶν ἴσαι cett.
Whereas the editors of the treatise from the nineteenth century consulted the manu-
scripts Wa and Par, family c was neglected in the edition of Bottecchia. In her division
of the families, these manuscripts all depend on Ha and cannot be traced back to a separate
hyparchetype. Wa and V1 are of especial importance, inasmuch as they stem directly from
the hyparchetype γ. Par, on the other hand, which was examined by van Cappelle and
Apelt, should be considered with great care, since it contains many emendations by
Pachymeres that do not contribute to the textual transmission of the treatise.

III. INDEPENDENT TRADITION OF PACHYMERES

The next group of manuscripts, which directly descends from the hyparchetype α, does
not contain authentic Aristotelian writings, but the Byzantine paraphrase of Aristotle’s
works by Georgios Pachymeres. This paraphrase influenced the first printed edition of
the treatise by Manutius and thereby also the manuscripts V3, Nc and u, which are copies
of Manutius’ edition.
Pachymeres was a Byzantine historian and philosopher who wrote, around 1300, a com-
pendium of Aristotle’s philosophy in twelve books. The Mechanics are in the final book,
and are less a paraphrase than an almost literal quotation of the Aristotelian text. Because of
this, it is complicated to distinguish Pachymeres’ writings from the authentic Aristotelian
text, with the result that manuscripts containing Pachymeres’ paraphrase have often been
considered as Aristotelian writings. In Wartelle’s Inventaire many apographs of
Pachymeres are still listed among the Aristotelian manuscripts32 and, as mentioned
above, Bottecchia did not recognize Mu as a manuscript by Pachymeres and included
many paraphrastic elements in her edition. The paraphrase, however, is of great importance
for the transmission of the Mechanics, since it was written at the same time or even shortly
before the authentic manuscripts were copied. We even possess two autographs of

32
A. Wartelle, Inventaire des manuscrits grecs d’Aristote et de ses commentateurs: contribution à
l’histoire du texte d’Aristote (Paris, 1963).
194 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

Pachymeres’ Φιλοσοφία, Berol.Ham. 512 (Pachb) and Par.gr. 1930 (Pachp), which contain
the Mechanics.33 Pachp is posterior to Pachb and is a copy of this manuscript.
Pachb Berol.Ham. 512, fourteenth century, beginning. Paper, 308 × 220 mm, 234f.
Prooimion; Book I: Org.; Book II: Ph.; Book III: Cael.; Book IV: Gen. corr.; Book V:
Mete.; Book VI: Part. an., IA; Book VII: De an.; Book VIII: Parv. nat., De motu an.;
Book IX: Gen. an.; Book X: Metaph.; Book XI: Eth. Nic.; Book XII: Col., Lin. ins.,
Mech. (f.224–34).
The pages near the beginning and end of a manuscript had to endure the most and these
are the ones that are often mutilated. This is also the case in Pachb, where the text of
Pachymeres breaks off at 857b14 with φɛρόντων and is continued with a supplement by
a later hand. The copyist of these supplementary pages was identified as Bartolomeo
Zanetti,34 who was working in Venice when he replaced the damaged pages of the manu-
script in about 1530. Zanetti did not have another Pachymeres manuscript at his disposal to
use in restoring the last pages of the Mechanics. My collations have proved that the variants
in Pachb from 857b14 up to the end of the text perfectly agree with readings from the
Aldina: for example at 857b15 om. γὰρ/ἀπέχῃ, 857b16 τὸ, 857b29 ὀρθὸν, 857b33
κνῆμαι, 857b38 ἅμα ἀνίστηται ἀναστῆναι, 858a19 τοῦτο, 858a24 ῥιπτόμɛνα, 858a29
ἀντɛρɛίδɛι, 858a31 μηθὲν, 858b5 φέρɛται, 858b9 αὐτὸν, 858b14 δινομένου, 858b21
ὅσω, 858b24 ὑπολɛίπɛσθαι τὸ πᾶν, 858b29 om. δὲ and 858b30 om. ɛἰς.35 Printed a couple
of years earlier in Venice, the Aldina should have been easily accessible for Zanetti.
The other autograph of Pachymeres, Pachp, which is the work of different copyists,
contains for the whole Mechanics the text of the paraphrase. The first pages of the
Mechanics are by the hand of Pachymeres himself; at 849a31, however, a change of
copyist takes place and the text is completed by an assistant of Pachymeres.
The manuscripts that contain the writings of Pachymeres share many of the readings
characteristic of family a, as for example at 847b25, 850a32, 850b7–8, 851b18, 853a25,
853a27, 854b20, 855a13, 856a24, 856b28 and 857b38. Further, there are many peculiar read-
ings not contained in any of the other manuscript families: at 849a4 ἡ ΒΔ πρὸς τὴν ΔΓ Pach.: ἡ
βɛ ɛγ cett.; 850a39 βάρη δὲ δύο Pach.: δύο δὲ βάρη cett.; 850b4 μɛίζον Pach.: μɛίζονα cett.;
851a27 δὲ οὗ τὸ Δ Pach.: οὗ τὸ Δ cett.; 851b36 ἐλάττους Pach.: ἐλάττονας cett.; 852b32
ῥᾷον Pach.: θᾶττον cett.; 854a30 μᾶλλον Pach.: ῥᾷον cett.; 854b20 φορᾶς Pach.:
πλɛυρᾶς cett.; 857a10 φέρɛται Pach.: αἴρɛται cett.; 857a29 τὸ ξύλον μακρότɛρον Pach.:
μακρότɛρον τὸ ξύλον cett.; 858b14 δυναμένου Pach.: δινουμένου cett. Pachymeres repeat-
edly adds illustrative remarks and phrases within the text as, for example, in the introduction of
the Mechanics where the properties of the circle are explained. It is said by Aristotle that a
point along the radius of a rotating circle moves faster the further away it is from the centre.
At 848a17 Pachymeres explains: ὡς πολλάκις καὶ ἡμῖν ἐλέχθη, ἐν τῷ πɛρὶ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἐν
ἄλλοις· ὅτι θάττονα ɛἰς κίνησιν τὰ πορρώτɛρα τοῦ μέσου.
Since it is often difficult to distinguish Pachymeres’ paraphrase of the Mechanics from the
authentic Aristotelian manuscripts, it has happened that the first printed edition by Manutius,
and through the Aldina all modern editions, contain variants from his paraphrase: for example

33
These autographs were identified by Harlfinger (n. 2), 357–8.
34
Harlfinger (n. 2), 358 n. 1.
35
For this reason Pachb is a not a new Aristotelian manuscript as Hilgers (n. 3) assumes. Hilgers noticed
for the text passage 857b14–858b31 a proximity to the manuscripts L and Q. Apart from some small simi-
larities between these manuscripts, there are too many peculiar readings in both L and Q, and this makes such
an affiliation impossible. Peculiar errors in L can be found at 857b18, 857b33, 858a1, 858a12, 858a15,
858a16 and 858b25; and in Q at 857b18, 858a1, 858a15, 858a16, 858a23, 858b11, 858b25 and 858b26.
Further L and Q do not share the variants of Pachb at 857b15, 857b33, 858b5 and 858b11.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 195

at 849a4 ἡ ΒΔ πρὸς τὴν ΔΓ Pach./Aldina: ἡ βɛɛγ codd.; 853a10 ὁ ἡ χɛὶρ αἴρɛι Pach./Aldina:
om. codd.; 855b39–856a1 ἀλλὰ τὴν τοῦ κινοῦντος Pach./Aldina: om. codd.; 856a4 ὑπὸ τοῦ
ἐλάττονος Pach./Aldina: om. codd. One of the fundamental tasks for a new edition of the trea-
tise will be to remove all these traces of Pachymeres from the text of the Mechanics.
Whereas the manuscript Be provided the basis for Manutius’ edition, Pachymeres’
paraphrase also exerted influence on the Aldina. Some of the variants offered by
Pachymeres found their way into the Aldina through the manuscript Be; other variants
were included directly from Pachymeres in the first printed edition of the Mechanics.
Bottecchia, however, believes that she has located the exemplar of the Aldina in the
codex V3.36 As Sicherl pointed out, the relation between these manuscripts is exactly
the contrary, and V3 is a copy of the Aldina.37 My collations of both manuscripts
have confirmed this assumption. The copyist of V3 is Demetrios Damilas, an important
and prolific copyist, who is identical with Harlfinger’s ‘librarius Florentinus’.38 Damilas
worked at the end of the fifteenth century in Florence together with the Byzantine huma-
nist Demetrios Chalkondyles, but he was still active at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. From 1490 until 1504 his name appears eight times in the register of borrowing
of the Vatican Library. Besides, in February 1506 Pope Julius II sent a Motu proprio in
favour of Damilas.39 Damilas was assigned to copy a certain number of diverse texts for
the pontifical library. Thus, a dating of V3 at the beginning of the sixteenth century is
very possible,40 and allows a dependence of V3 on the Aldina.
Of the two remaining manuscripts in this group, the codex u is a copy of the Aldina,
whereas Nc derives from V3.41 Although the Aldina and V3 are to a large extent iden-
tical, there are some minor errors where V3 and Nc agree against the Aldina: for example
at 850a29, 851b31, 852a1, 852a9, 852b2, 852b12 and 857a29.

IV. CONTAMINATED AND INCOMPLETE MANUSCRIPTS

Finally, we must mention a group of manuscripts which are of no great value for ascer-
taining Aristotle’s text. Some of these manuscripts contain a mixture of readings from
different manuscript families, as for example Na; others contain only extracts of the
Mechanics, for example V2 and Bu.

36
Cf. M.E. Bottecchia, ‘Fonte dell’ Aldina per i ΜΗΧΑΝΙΚΑ di Aristotele’, Atti dell’Istituto
Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 134 (1976), 383–94, at 389–92. Bottecchia here lists the text pas-
sages where V3 and the Aldina agree against the other manuscripts. In most cases the manuscript Be
shares the reading of V3/Aldina, and where it has a different reading, the paraphrase by Pachymeres
provides the variant of V3/Aldina; see e.g. 854b20, 856a4, 857a24, 857b12, 857b32 and 857b38.
Since Bottecchia did not recognize the paraphrase of Pachymeres, she does not give a satisfying expla-
nation for those ‘peculiar’ readings in V3, where V3 has a reading different from all manuscripts. They
are definitely not a result of a derivation from the manuscripts L and P as presented in her stemma at
p. 392. Probably Bottecchia supposes a different hyparchetype for V3, as she does in her edition of the
Mechanics. As my collations, however, have proved, these ‘peculiar’ readings in V3 do not stem from
a new hyparchetype, but are variants by Pachymeres.
37
See Sicherl (n. 20), 95–6.
38
See P. Canart, ‘Démétrius Damilas, alias le „librarius Florentinus“’, RSBN NS 14–16 (1977–9),
281–347, at 282.
39
Canart (n. 38), 281.
40
V. Capocci, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Codices Barberiniani Graeci I (Vatican City,
1958), 24 also gives a date in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
41
A reversed dependence of V3 on Nc can be eliminated on the basis of omissions in Nc, as e.g. at
847b23–4 and 849b5. The arrangement of the title page of Nc is already a perfect copy of V3.
196 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

From the fourteenth century originates the codex V2:

V2 Vat.gr. 2231, fourteenth century, 1317–38. Paper, 206 x 140 mm, 281f. Inter
alia Hierocles, in CA; Epictetus, Ench.; Simpl. in Epict.; Theophr. Sign.; Arist. excerpt
from Mech. (f. 275–81).
This manuscript contains excerpts from the Mechanics, in which even whole problems
have been left out. Thus there are many lacunae: at 848b9–850a29, 851b6–851b14,
851b40–852a8, 852a23–37, 852b11–21, 853a5–b13, 853b22–857a4, 857a22–b20,
857b26–38 and 858a1–12. Still, it is possible to determine with which family V2 is affiliated.
The first scholium from family c, at 848a32, is present in this manuscript, and there are further
variants that show a proximity to family c: at 850a35, 850b30, 857a12, 858a14, 858b9 and
858b25. This codex also includes modifications and expressions that cannot be found in
any other manuscript and are probably inventions by the scribe: for example at 850b4 ἔχɛι
V2: γράϕɛι cett.; 850b25 μέρος αὐτῆς V2: μέρος cett.; 852b3 λίθον V2: τὸ βέλος cett.;
852b9 θᾶττον καθὼς προɛίρηται V2: θᾶττον cett.; 857b23 διότι V2: πότɛρον ὅτι cett.;
858a19 καὶ τοῦθ’ πάλιν ἕτɛρον V2: καὶ τοῦθ’ ἕτɛρον cett.; 858b10 ϕɛρόμɛνον ὥστɛ ἐν
δυσὶ κύκλοις ɛἶναι V2: φɛρόμɛνον cett. V2 does not derive from any of the extant manuscripts
in family c, since it is considerably older than the other manuscripts contained in this family. It
might be a direct copy of the hyparchetype γ, which is possible if we assume that this hyparch-
etype was composed in the first quarter of the fourteenth century.42 Nevertheless, V2 is not a
very valuable witness of the textual transmission since, based on its individual character, it is
remote from the authentic Aristotelian text.
The codex Na, which was copied in about 1470, is a highly contaminated manuscript
containing aspects of family a (for example at 848b24, 856a34, 856b28 and 857a12),
family b (at 855b26, 857a38) and family c (at 850a35, 855b16). In addition it has many
variants of its own: for example at 851a33 μέσον τι τοῦ κινουμένου Na: τι τοῦ
κινουμένου μέσον cett.; 851b9 μὲν οὖν Na: μὲν cett.; 852a16 ὡσαύτως Na: ὁμοίως
cett.; 853b32 ἐπίκɛιται Na: πρόσκɛιται a: ἔγκɛιται cett.; 857a5 μικρὰ/ἀπὸ μίκρου Na:
μακρὰ/ἀπὸ μακροῦ cett. These readings from different manuscript families and own var-
iants were not added or produced by emendation at a later stage, but are perfectly integrated
in Na; therefore this manuscript must stem from a source that was already contaminated.
The manuscript Pt, which was consulted by van Cappelle for his edition of the
Mechanics, belongs to a different tradition and is transmitted together with astrological
works. It can be dated somewhere between 1370 and 1380, and was possibly copied by
the Byzantine astrologer Johannes Ambramios. Pt contains a revised version of the trea-
tise. This is already evident from the title, which is rather paraphrastic: αἰτιολογία τῆς
τῶν μηχανικῶν ἐνɛργίας ὥς τινɛς λέγουσιν Ἀριστοτέλους. The peculiar readings, lacu-
nae (at 849b7–852a14 and 855a27–858b31) and paraphrastic character of Pt make it
impossible to ascertain its dependence, although there are some similarities with family
a: for example at 848b24, 853a27, 853b32, 855a3 and 855a13.
Manuscripts P4 and Ps both contain important variants from family c, but cannot
definitely be attributed to this family. P4 contains the greater part of the readings
from family c (at 850a35, 852b17, 854a20, 854a36, 854b9, 854b14, 855b16, 856a1,
857a12, 857b13 and 858b9) but none of the scholia or omissions that are particular
to this family. The fact that there are no emendations or additions in P4 itself implies
that it is based on some earlier manuscript, not preserved, which was already corrected
by means of a manuscript from another family.

42
Harlfinger (n. 2), 265, gives a terminus post quem for this manuscript between 1300 and 1325.
 T H E T E X T O F T H E A R I S TO T E L I A N M E C H A N I C S 197

The other Parisian manuscript, Ps, contains not only the majority of the readings
from family c (at 848b10, 850a35, 850b18, 852b17, 854a20, 854b9, 855b16, 856a1,
857a12, 858b9 and 858b25), but also the scholia from this family and its main omis-
sions, which were filled in in the margins. But Ps fits not unproblematically into this
family, since some readings from family a are present too. These readings are for one
part added in a later stage and suggest an emendation with the manuscript L. For
example, at 847b25 a scholium contained exclusively in L has been added in the mar-
gins; at 848a11 μαθημάτων has been added; lines 850b7–8 are still absent after complet-
ing 850b6–9; at 853a27 ἐφ’ ῷ ΔΕΗΖ has been added in the margin; at 858b11 τότɛ
μένɛι was probably written over an erased τιθέαμɛν ɛἰ. For another part these variants
from family a do not appear to be later additions: for example 848b24 πλɛυρῶν and
850a1 μέρɛι. The exemplar of Ps might have been an already contaminated manuscript.
Further Ps contains many peculiar errors and paraphrastic passages, and is therefore not
of special interest for the reconstruction of the text of the Mechanics.

V. STEMMA CODICUM

The results presented above can be illustrated as follows:

Contaminated manuscripts: Bu, Na, Pt, P4 and Ps.

In a new critical edition of the Mechanics, the manuscripts of all three families
should be analysed, with special interest in those manuscripts that can be traced back
198 J OY C E VA N L E E U W E N

to a hyparchetype, namely Ha, L, P, Mv, Wa and V1. Family b, however, does not have
the same status as the other manuscript families. Since the manuscripts in this family
have a deteriorated and contaminated ancestor, the editor is not always in a favourable
position to recover the authentic reading, when two families agree against the third. It is
quite possible that families b and c agree, whereas family a contains the correct variant,
e.g. at 848b24 πλɛυρῶν a: πλɛιόνων cett.; 854b27 πλɛυράν a: πλɛίω cett.; 855b24
μένɛιν a: μὲν cett. Although family b is contaminated, it looks back to a different tra-
dition and certainly contains some valuable readings. The editor should, however, care-
fully consider if a peculiar variant in P or Mv contains an authentic reading or an error.
An analysis of all three families would be a clear improvement upon the previous
editions of the treatise, of which Bekker’s edition is still the most complete; manuscripts
from families b and c provided the main sources for his text, while manuscripts from the
oldest family, family a, are accorded only secondary importance. Although Bottecchia
studied almost all the manuscript material, she neglected to consult family c for her edi-
tion, and thereby overlooked some important readings. She did not consider for example
the variant from family c at 850a35 ἀντὶ σπαρτίου γίνɛται. Nevertheless, she included
some other readings from family c in her edition, as for example at 849a36 ὀρθὰς;
849b18 τὸ κατὰ; 852b17 θᾶττον; but she did not recognize these variants as belonging
to family c and ascribed them to Bekker or the manuscript Na.
The editor might further reconsider the importance of family a. Bottecchia mostly
favoured the readings from the manuscript V3, and included the variants from family
a in her apparatus. There are, however, still certain passages in the Mechanics where
this family alone might contain the correct reading, e.g. at 858a1 ɛὐθɛίας a: ἴσας cett.
A new examination of all three families will most likely favour certain variants
different from the ones favoured in previous editions of the treatise, but a far more
important task for a new edition is to remove all foreign influences from the text of
the Mechanics. The Byzantine paraphrase by Georgios Pachymeres, and to some extent
the variants offered by the humanist Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, have influenced all pre-
vious editions of the treatise, including the latest edition by Bottecchia. These paraphras-
tic traces should be individually evaluated, but have to be separated from the authentic
Aristotelian text.43

Excellence Cluster TOPOI

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin JOYCE VAN LEEUWEN
joyce.van.leeuwen@topoi.org

43
I am grateful to Professor Markus Asper, Professor Dieter Harlfinger, Dr. Marko Malink, Dr.
Jacob Rosen and the anonymous reader of CQ for their valuable comments and suggestions for
improvement.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.