The Latin Translation and the Original Version of the Ilāhiyyāt (Science of Divine Things) of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ

The present article analyzes the evidence available in Arabic sources (preliminary lists of contents in manuscripts; texts of manuscripts; later quotations) that supports the hypothesis according to which the Medieval Latin translation of the metaphysics of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ is rooted in a firm Arabic background when it conveys an account of treatise V of the work (called “Versio Latina”) alternative to the one that can be found in the majority of codices and in current printings (“Versio Vulgata”). It is argued (i) that the Versio Latina is more original than the Versio Vulgata, for doctrinal and philological reasons; (ii) that the Versio Vulgata responds to a deliberate intention to make the content of treatise V more compliant with the account of universals provided by Avicenna himself in the logic of the Šifāʾ and, in general, with the traditional pre-Avicennian ways of expounding the doctrine of universals; (iii) and that the Versio Vulgata was probably the product of Avicenna’s school, rather than of Avicenna, as the result of shared concerns and theoretical debates that prompted the decision of modifying Avicenna’s original text through the intervention, in all likelihood, of al-Ǧūzǧānī. Two further issues are conclusively discussed: (iv) how precisely the Latin translation relates to the Arabic background of the Versio Latina, (v) and whether the Versio Latina can be taken as the outlook of treatise V intended and licensed by Avicenna, or it also conveys elements of later, non authorial modifications.