"Odor suus me confortat et aliquantulum prolongat vitam meam”: il fragrante frutto e la morte di Aristotele

The Liber De pomo sive de morte Aristotelis belongs to the medieval pseudo-Aristotelian tradition. It was written in an Arabic milieu and had a large circulation among the Latin philosophers and physicians. It was translated from Hebrew by Federic II’s son, Manfred, around 1260. Along the lines of the Plato’s dialogue the Phaedo, the narrator recounts a sort of philosophical testament which Aristotle passes on to his disciples, who around his deathbed surprisingly see a man in good health and not distressed as they might have expected. Aristotle explains to them that it is the smell of the fruit (the pomum) he is holding in his hand that gives him strength, and keeps his body alive. The essay retraces the tradition of De pomo, which shows an unusually ‘Platonic’ Aristotle, and its fate among Latin Medieval scholars through the analysis of classical and recent studies.