Aristippus, Enrico

ARISTIPPUS, ENRICO. - Archbishop of Catania, he lived in the 12th century; of his life, scarcely a few facts are historically certain. In all likelihood born between 1105 and 1110 in Greek-Norman Calabria, and precisely (according to the well-founded hypothesis of Valentin Rose) at Santa Severina, it is probable that he formed his culture in the milieu of the Greek abbey of S. Maria del Patire near Rossano. It is, on the other hand, historically certain that, in 1155, A. succeeded a certain Aschettino in the title and office of archdeacon of Catania, officially entering into Sicilian ecclesiastical and also political life. In 1160, following the conspiracy that did away with Maio of Bari, he was appointed prime minister of William I; but in 1162 he was thrown into prison and there met his death.

A scholar of vast culture and a profound connoisseur of Greek, his greatest fame rests on his Latin translation of the Platonic dialogues Meno (1154) and Phaedo (1156) and of various Aristotelian writings, among which certainly book IV of the Meteorology and the Posterior Analytics, as well as versions from Gregory of Nazianzus and from Diogenes Laertius and that, carried out together with the poet and translator Eugene the Emir, of Ptolemy's Almagest: all of this in the years between 1156 and 1160. As a Hellenist and scholar he therefore undoubtedly occupies an eminent place in the circle of Greek, Latin and Arab learned men of the 12th century.