Ricerc@Sapienza

The Sermo de substantia orbis, or Discourse on the Substance of the Celestial Sphere, is a collection of cosmological and metaphysical questions by the Islamic philosopher Averroes (1126-1198), no longer extant in Arabic, but preserved in Latin and Hebrew translations (the latter with the title Ma’amar be-‘Eṣem ha-Galgal). After dealing with the complex history of the text, I will point out that the Renaissance editions of the Latin translation are not reliable and in particular that the Giuntine edition, although considered authoritative, is in fact marred with errors and innovations, being the last chapter of a long history of transmission, which needs to be thoroughly investigated.