The First Latin Translation of Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (II)

This article is the second part of a study on an anonymous Latin translation of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Πυρρώνειοι ὑποτυπώσεις = PH) by the Skeptic philosopher Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - c. 210). The first part, published in Scripta (10, 2017, pp. 57-67), showed that the translation is to be dated to the thirteenth century on the basis of the literal style, similar to that of Bartholomew of Messina (fl. 1260), but with the typical feature of translating μὲν γάρ as quidem igitur, like μὲν οὖν, instead of quidem enim. Moreover, it provided an analysis of one of the three manuscripts transmitting the translation, Paris, BNF, lat. 14700, written by a single textual hand of Northern French origin in c. 1300, and containing a large collection of Toletan translations of pseudo- Aristotle and Arabic philosophers, together with translations from Greek by Burgundio of Pisa (1110-1193) and Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253). The other two manuscripts are studied in the present article, Madrid, BNE, lat. 10112, and Venice, BNM, lat. x 267 (3460), both written by Transalpine hands datable to c. 1300. The Venice manuscript has only Sextus’ works, PH and some books of Against Professors; the Madrid manuscript contains important scientific texts, in particular those by Roger Bacon (1214-1292?) of Oxford, with well-known connections to Pope Clement iv, and Campanus of Novara (1220-1296), who served as chaplain to different popes from Urban iv to Boniface viii, and died in Viterbo, not far from where the Venice volume is known to have been in 1323. Finally, the article discusses the contribution of the Latin translation to the reconstruction of the Greek text in PH iii 101-167 (145, 1-160, 20).