Johannes de Harderwijk, Commentary on Aristotle, De Physica, manuscript on paper [Germany (probably Cologne or perhaps Frankfurt), c.1480]

84 leaves (plus one modern and three original paper flyleaves at beginning and one modern at the end), 222mm. by 145mm., complete, catchwords and quire signatures, collation: i-vii¹², c.42 lines in a small secretarial hand, occasional ornamental cadels in lower margin, neat contemporary marginalia including several pointing finger marks, some initials with line-drawn angular acanthus-leaf sprays, watermark of an angular ‘P’ surmounted by a flower (close to Briquet, no.8594: Frankfurt, 1460), strips from a contemporary vellum document used as quire strengtheners, outer margins of pages with slight discolouration from thumbing, one of original flyleaves at front becoming loose and edges of leaves woolly in places, else good condition, early bevelled wooden boards with modern vellum over spine and leather clasp, “Glosa …libro phys” in black ink in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century hand on front cover

Aristotle’s works form the bedrock of scholastic theology and much of our modern ideas of science and logic, but were virtually unknown in the West before the turn of the thirteenth century, and were infamously banned from the University of Paris in 1210. The crucial Latin translation was made by William of Moerbeke (1215-68), and the commentary of Albertus Magnus (d.1280) opened up the works to intellectual debate throughout Europe. By the time of the Renaissance, Aristotle’s works had been set among the leading scientific and philosophical lights of educated Europe, producing a number of further commentaries. While the present text does not name its author, it is the commentary of Johannes (or variously Gerardus) de Harderwijk (east of Amsterdam), who is listed among the clergy of St. Mary Lyskirchen in Cologne, taught philosophy in the university there from 1487 and was rector there from 1500 until his death in 1503. It continues the work of Albertus Magnus, his predecessor in the University of Cologne, and while well known in print (published Cologne, 1497) it is evidently rare in manuscript. Another is recorded, also anonymously, in the Universitätsbibliothek Eichstätt, MS.684 (Die mittelalterlichen Handschriften, III, 2004, p.394; Hoenen, Die Handschriftensammlung des Dominikaners Georg Schwartz († nach 1484), 1994, p.143). There are significant variants between this and the printed edition, and the various redactions of the text merit scholarly attention. 

The Physics itself is a lengthy lecture in 8 books, which seeks to establish the general philosophical principles of natural or moving things, both living entities and non-living wholes such as the cosmos. As Heidegger noted, “This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of Western thinking, … Without Aristotle's Physics there would have been no Galileo”.