In 1492, Angelo Poliziano published his Lamia, a praelectio, or opening oration to a course he would teach that academic year on Aristotles Prior Analytics at the Florentine university. Having heard murmurings that he was not philosopher enough to teach the Aristotelian text, Poliziano strikes back, offering in effect a fable-tinted history of philosophy even as he strikes back at his presumed detractors. More than a repudiation of local gossip, the text, framed by fables, represents a rethinking of the mission of philosophy. This volume offers the first English translation, an edition of the Latin text, and four studies that set this rich example of humanist Latin writing in context.Brill's Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, vol. 7.

Christopher S. Celenza, Dr.Phil. (2001), Classics, University of Hamburg and Ph.D. (1995), History, Duke University, is a professor of post-classical Latin in the Department of German and Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Lost Italian Renaissance (The John Hopkins University Press, 2004) and Piety and Pythagoras in Renaissance Florence (Brill, 2001).