Brill's Companion to the Reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Irene Caiazzo, Ph.D. (1999), Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris), is Senior Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She specializes in the history of medieval philosophy and science, and is editor-in-chief of the annual journal Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age. Her major publications include Lectures médiévales de Macrobe: Les Glosae Colonienses super Macrobium (Paris, 2002) and Thierry of Chartres: The Commentary on the De arithmetica of Boethius (Toronto, 2015).Constantinos Macris, Ph.D. (2004), Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris), is Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) specialising in ancient Greek philosophy and religion, with a focus on Pythagoreanism and its Neoplatonic reception. He is the author of a book-length entry on Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans, and their Nachleben (Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. VII, Paris 2018), and editor of Pythagoras redivivus. Studies on the Texts Attributed to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans (Baden Baden, 2021).Aurélien Robert, Ph.D. (2005), is Senior Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). His works focus on the reception of Ancient Greek philosophy in the Middle Ages, and more particularly atomism, philosophical medicine and Aristotelian metaphysics, physics and ethics. He is the author of Epicure aux enfers. Hérésie, athéisme et hédonisme au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2021) and Atomism in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology (Leiden-Boston, 2009).Contributors are: Constantinos Macris, Cecilia Panti, Andrew Hicks, Sonja Brentjes, Gad Freudenthal, Tzvi Langermann, Anna Izdebska, Aurélien Robert, Daniel De Smet, Carmela Baffioni, Irene Caiazzo, Marta Borgo, Iacopo Costa, David Albertson, Denis Robichaud, Jean-Pierre Brach.

"This is a very erudite, coherent, and carefully edited volume. I noticed no typographical mistakes. Moreover, what I found particularly successful was the organization of the content in thematic divisions corresponding to the focal aspects of Pythagorean philosophy. These divisions enabled the contributions focusing on different traditions (Christian Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic) to supplement each other, and thus to demonstrate as fully as possible the historical and philosophical interactions between East and West, which were also vital for the reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism during the Middle Ages. It is only unfortunate that, given the volume’s title, the Byzantine component has been left out (a decision the editors explain in the introduction, p. 3). That said, the companion under review, with its broad scope and wealth of detail, definitely constitutes a welcome contribution to the field and an indispensable reference source for all students of the transmission of ancient Pythagoreanism (and to some extent also of Platonism), as well as of Presocratic philosophy."Theofanis Tsiampokalos in BMCR 2022.09.14

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresNotes on the ContributorsIntroduction: Pythagoras, from Late Antiquity to Early ModernityA Multicultural ApproachIrene Caiazzo, Constantinos Macris and Aurélien Robertpart 1: Pythagorean Number Theory and the Quadrivium1 Pythagoras and the Quadrivium from Late Antiquity to the Middle AgesCecilia Panti2 Music and the Pythagorean Tradition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle AgesAndrew Hicks3 Nicomachean Number Theory in Arabic and Persian Scholarly LiteratureSonja Brentjes4 The Tribulations of the Introduction to Arithmetic from Greek to Hebrew Via Syriac and ArabicNicomachus of Gerasa, Ḥabib Ibn Bahrīz, al-Kindī, and Qalonymos ben QalonymosGad Freudenthal5 Medieval Jewish PythagoreanismRemarks on Maimonides and on Sefer MelakhimTzvi Langermannpart 2: Pythagorean Way(s) of Life, East and West6 Popular Pythagoreanism in the Arabic TraditionBetween Biography and GnomologyAnna Izdebska7 Pythagoras’ Ethics and the Pythagorean Way of Life in the Middle AgesAurélien RobertPart 3: Theology, Metaphysics and the Soul8 Pythagoras’ Philosophy of Unity as a Precursor of Islamic MonotheismPseudo-Ammonius and Related SourcesDaniel De Smet9 The “Brethren of Purity” and the Pythagorean TraditionCarmela Baffioni10 “Pythagoras’ Mistake”The Transmigration of Souls in the Latin Middle Ages and BeyondIrene Caiazzo11 Pythagoras LatinusAquinas’ Interpretation of Pythagoreanism in His Aristotelian CommentariesMarta Borgo and Iacopo Costa12 Latin Christian Neopythagorean TheologyA Speculative SummaDavid AlbertsonPart 4: New Trends in Early Modern Pythagoreanism13 Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the RenaissancePhilosophical and Religious Itineraries from Pico to BruckerDenis J.-J. Robichaud14 Pythagorean Number Mysticism in the RenaissanceAn OverviewJean-Pierre BrachIndex