ABSTRACT
The sixteenth-century return to Aristotle the anatomist was of a piece with a particular, larger programme of return to Aristotle the whole philosopher, a programme which produced major novelties in the understanding of what Aristotle was saying and what philosophy was about. Aristotle had of course been the mainstay of the curriculum since the thirteenth century when universities began, with pretty much the same selection of his books being read and commented on over the intervening centuries. Modern studies are revealing that the sixteenth century saw perhaps the greatest flourishing of the study of Aristotle - whereas historians had hitherto assumed that Aristotle's texts were dropped in the sixteenth century in favour of anti-or non-Aristotelian approaches.1 Every educated man knew his Aristotle.
