Interpreting Plato’s Geometrical Elements in Renaissance Aristotle Commentaries

Sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione, De caelo, and Meteorologica written by Agostino Nifo, Pietro Pomponazzi, Francesco Vimercato, Francisco Vallés, Lucilio Filalteo, and Lodovico Boccadiferro considered Plato’s views on the nature of matter and the geometrical formation of the elements, subjects for which Aristotle vehemently criticised Plato. Medieval commentators showed little interest in the historical Plato and largely accepted what they considered to be Aristotle’s interpretation. Renaissance commentators, however, had access to the entirety of the Timaeus and more writings of Platonists and Aristotelians from late antiquity. Consequently, Renaissance scholars discussed the Platonic solids and considered the criticisms of Aristotle found in Simplicius and Philoponus. The reading of Plato in universities dominated by Aristotelianism was tempered by the long tradition of textual reconciliation promoted by Neoplatonists and by their commitment to Galenic medicine, which also consolidated Aristotle’s and Plato’s views on nature, matter, and the elements