SCOT TRANSLATES AVERROES 125 



The second version bearing the name of Scot is 

 that which commences with the words : ' Intendit 

 per subtilitatem demonstrare ; ' being the com- 

 mentary of Averroes on the De Anima of Aristotle/ 

 In the Victorine manuscript tliis treatise offers a 

 curious title : ' Here beginneth the Commentary of 

 the Book of Aristotle the Philosopher concerning 

 the Soul, which Averroes commented on in Greek, 

 and Michael Scot translated into Latin.' 



In the same manuscript the version of Averroes's 

 Commentary on the various books which compose 

 the Parva Natiu^alia of Aristotle is ascribed to 

 Gerard of Cremona. Renan observes that this 

 ascription does not occur in any other copy, and 

 supposes it to have been a mistake. He seems 

 influenced in this conclusion bv the fact that 

 Gerard of Cremona died in 1187. It is curious to 

 find such an eminent scholar forgetful of the 

 existence of a younger Cremonese ; and he is not 

 alone in this error, for it has been repeated even 

 of late years. Yet in 1851 Prince Baldassare 

 Boncompagni had distinguished well between the 

 elder and younger Gerard of Cremona in an ex- 

 cellent monograph on the subject.^ Even had this 

 work not been published, the learned world had 

 already reason enough to suspect the truth. In a 

 well-known passage of his Coiivpendiimi Studii,^ 



1 Paris, Sorbonne, 932, 943 ; St. Victor, 171 ; Ancien Fonds, 6504 ; 

 Venice, St. Mark, vi. 54. 



2 Vita di Gherardo Cremonense, Eoma, 1851. The distinction 

 between the elder and younger Gerard had been noticed by Flavio 

 Biondo (1388-1463) ; by Zaccharia Lilio (obiit c. 1522) and by Giulio 

 Faroldo in the sixteenth century. I have found the same accuracy in the 

 Risorgimento d'ltalia of the Abate Saverio Bettinelli, which appeared 

 at Bassano in 1786 (vol. i. p. 81). Only foreigners, therefore, seem to 

 have overlooked it. 



2 Compendium Studii, p. 471. 



