ARISTIPPO, ENRICO. - Archdeacon of Catania, he lived in the 12th century; of his life, only a few facts are historically certain. Probably born between 1105 and 1110 in Greek-Norman Calabria, and specifically (according to Valentin Rose’s well-founded hypothesis) at Santa Severina, he probably received his education in the milieu of the Greek abbey of S. Maria del Patire near Rossano. It is historically certain, however, that in 1155 A. succeeded a certain Aschettino in the title and office of archdeacon of Catania, thereby officially entering Sicilian ecclesiastical and political life as well. In 1160, following the conspiracy that removed Majone di Bari, he was appointed prime minister of Guglielmo I; but in 1162 he was imprisoned and died there.
A scholar of broad learning and a profound connoisseur of Greek, his chief fame rests upon his Latin translation of the Platonic dialogues Meno (1154) and Phaedo (1156), and of various Aristotelian writings, including certainly Book IV of the Meteorology and the Posterior Analytics, as well as translations from Gregorio Nazianzeno and Diogene Laerzio, and, together with the poet and translator Eugenio l'Emiro, of Ptolemy’s Almagest: all this in the years between 1156 and 1160. As a Hellenist and erudite scholar, he therefore unquestionably occupies an eminent place in the circle of Greek, Latin, and Arab scholars of the 12th century.