ABSTRACT
One of the little studied texts for the teaching of rhetoric in the late Renaissance is the Latin translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric published by Antonio Riccobono in 1579, with an accompanying commentary, also in Latin.1 In this chapter, whose aim is to honor Professor James J. Murphy-himself an indefatigable teacher of rhetoric and translator of Latin rhetoric texts-I analyze Riccobono’s views on the nature of rhetoric. These Riccobono presents in the first treatise of his com mentary, a treatise he entitles De natura rhetoricae, where he is concerned not only with explicating Aristotle’s views on the subject but also with treating rhetoric’s relation to other disciplines in the curriculum of his day. Although
'The full title reads Aristotelis ars rhetorica ab Antonio Riccobono Rhodigino i. c. humanitatem in Patavino gymnasio profitente latine conversa. Eiusque Riccoboni explicationum liber, quo Aristotelis loca obscuriora declarantur, et Rhetorica praxis explicatur in orationibus Ciceronis pro Marcello, et pro Milone, ac oratione Demosthenis ad epistolam Philippi ab eodem latina facta (Venice: Apud Paulum Beiettum, Bibliopolam Patavinum, 1579). Also included in this edition is Riccobono’s translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, entitled Aristotelis ars poetica ab eodem in latinam linquam versa. Cum eiusdem de re comica disputatione. The last-named item, the treatise on comedy, has been reprinted, with notes, in Bernard Weinberg, ed., Trattati di poetica e retorica del cinquecento, 4 vols., Scrittori d’ltalia n. 253 (Bari: Laterza, 1972) 3:255-276, 504-507.
