Aristotle (384-322 BC).

Chancery folio (287 x 210mm.), 196 leaves (of 198, without blanks d8 and m10), 32 lines, Gothic letter, [e]1r with variant "[D]E iusticia et iniusticia considerandum est &/ c'ca quas res... mediocritas", [a]1 with 10-line initial supplied in red and blue with marginal tracery, 2- to 3-line initials supplied in red or blue (German or North European work), 6-line initials supplied in blue with red tracery, red initial-strokes, Greek words supplied in manuscript, manuscript title added to head of [k]1, early manuscript quiring (occasionally cropped), nineteenth-century red morocco gilt, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, red morocco joints, quire [e] misbound at end, small inkstains on A3v-4r, small defect on [m]3 with a few letters replaced in manuscript, lower blank portion of [t]9 excised and replaced, extremities slightly rubbed

Possibly sold by Payne and Foss (slip cut out from what could well be a Payne & Foss catalogue, pasted to inside front cover); Sir John Hayford Thorold (1773-1831) of Syston Park, with his armorial bookplate, sale in these rooms, 12 December 1884, lot 169, £6-10s., William Ridler; J.W. Pease, bookplate

H 1762; GW 2367; BMC i 53; Bodleian XVc. A-397; Goff A983; E. Franceschini, "Leonardo Bruni e il 'Vetus Interpres' dell'Etica a Nicomaco" in Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, 1955), pp. 29-319

first edition of Bruni's Latin translation, and a fine copy, bearing some traces of contemporary reading and study. This translation dates from the reign of Pope Martin V (1417-1431), to whom a dedicatory letter is to be found (on [i]10 in this edition). The last item in the volume, dated 28 December 1438, is a letter from the Signori of Siena to Bruni thanking him for his translation of the Politica.

The Nicomachean Ethics, so-called either because Aristotle addressed them to his son Nicomachus or because the latter edited them, constitute one of the basic philosophical texts, still as influential today as in antiquity or at any time since the invention of printing. Together with the Eudemian Ethics (so-called because they were once attributed to Eudemus, Aristotle's pupil), they form the basic ethical texts of Aristotle in which are discussed the way the individual may attain to virtue and lead an ethical life.  As Aristotle believed that an individual could only achieve such a life within the context of society, the Politics, with the famous beginning 'man is a political animal' (zoon politikon), naturally follow on, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica are also given. 

Bruni (1369-1444), from Arezzo, is one of the great figures of the Italian Renaissance. Translator, historian, writer of elegant letters, his work is found everywhere in both manuscript and printed form; a manuscript of this translation dating from the first quarter of the fifteenth century and written in Milan is in the Huntington Library (HM 1033).

There were three different version of the Nicomachean Ethics in Latin printed in the fifteenth century, the old medieval version made by the Franciscan scholar and scientist, Robert Grosseteste, in the thirteenth century, printed more than once (whether as part of the Works or by itself), and two more modern versions, that by Joannes Argyropoulos, printed first in Florence in about 1480 (GW 2361; Goff A981), and this by Bruni. This last proved popular and was frequently reprinted in Italy, at Oxford in 1479 (GW 2373; STC 752) and in Spain, where it was the first book printed at Barcelona (GW 2371; Goff A984). Occasionally they were combined, for example in the edition by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published in Paris in 1496/7 (GW 2359; Goff A991).