Introduction
Averroes's Commentary on Plato's
“Republic” was translated twice into
Latin; both translations were made from the Hebrew
version of Samuel ben Judah of Marseille. The first
translation was done by Elijah Del Medigo (ca.
1455–93), a Crete-born Jew, who spent most of his
life in northern Italy, Crete being at that time
under Venetian rule. Although a devout Jew, Del
Medigo's immediate intellectual milieu was
Christian, mostly made up of figures related in some
way to the university of Padua and to powerful
circles in Venice. Most of Del Medigo's literary
output was in Latin—including his Hebrew-into-Latin
translation of Averroes's Commentary on Plato's “Republic”—and he
himself translated some of his own original Latin
works into Hebrew. Thematically, Del Medigo focused
almost solely on the works of Averroes. His
translation of Averroes's Commentary on Plato's “Republic” was
part of his general endeavour of translating and
commenting on the works of Averroes, while working
at the service of his Christian patrons—namely,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Domenico Grimani.
On his return to Crete, toward the end of his life,
Del Medigo composed his Hebrew work Beḥinat haDat, which became
his most celebrated work. In that work Del Medigo
examines the relation between Judaism and rational
thought, determining the rational nature of Judaism
as opposed to the irrational character of Christian
dogmas.
The second translation was by the Jewish physician and
translator Jacob Mantino (d. 1549). Mantino, a
Jewish physician who lived most of his life in
Italy, had close relationships with bishops and
cardinals to whom he dedicated several of his
translations and he was the personal physician to
Pope Paul III. Mantino translated many of Averroes's
commentaries, and was, according to Dag Hasse, “the
most prolific and most acclaimed among all
Renaissance translators of Averroes.”
Del Medigo's translation was never printed during the
Renaissance; it was discovered by Paul Oscar
Kristeller in a Siena manuscript and published as a
critical edition in 1992. Mantino's translation,
first published in 1539, was printed four times
during the Renaissance, yet has never received a
modern edition. This chapter begins with a general
overview of the two translations, discussing their
different nature in light of the different
circumstances surrounding their production.
