The most systematic ethical treatise of Greek antiquity was Aristotles (detail, spatial) Nicomachean Ethics (detail), a work dealing with the relationship of virtue to personal fulfillment or happiness (eudaimonia), the various moral and intellectual virtues, impediments (including the passions) to moral development, and topics such as friendship and contemplation. The work was extremely influential from the twelfth century onward and was commonly paired with the Oeconomics (now no longer considered a genuine writing by Aristotle) and the Politics (also owned by Pope Julius II; see Vat. lat. 2107).

The present manuscript contains the Ethics in the second (?) redaction of the Latin translation of the Greek emigre Argyropoulos. (The textual history of the various redactions has not yet been fully untangled.) This version is dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici († 1 August 1464) and must therefore antedate his death. It was not issued in print. It is not known whether Julius II also owned (as seems likely) other versions of the Ethics or works of Aristotelian logic, natural philosophy, and other subjects. 
 
The manuscript, prepared in the scriptorium of Antonius Nicolai de Laurentiis after mid-century (Leonardi 1987, pp. 160–62), contains beautiful initials and a richly decorated title page (manuscript) (following the dedicatory letter), but no annotations. 

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Aristotle’s Ethics (detail, spatial) makes a sharp distinction between the sciences and the certainty connected to them (not least because the object of scientia is what is unchanging) and areas of investigation such as moral philosophy (which focuses on the realm of human actions and is therefore a less certain—but also more practical— branch of philosophy, in which experience of life plays a strong role). In particular, Aristotle argues that moral philosophy is not an exact science (cf. VI, 9) and that one should not expect the wrong things of a particular field of study (for instance, persuasion of mathematics or demonstrations of rhetoric). This understanding of moral philosophy stands in tension with the motto causarum cognitio in the tondo (detail, spatial) above the School of Athens, where the woman represented holds two books, the “Liber Naturalis” and the “Liber Moralis,” symbols of the two philosophical traditions personified by Aristotle and Plato.
This motto is strongly associated with Aristotle’s view of philosophy as an exploration of the causes of things (see especially the Physics and tends to undercut the fresco’s presentation of Plato and Aristotle (detail, spatial) on the same plane (see below). It may also be relevant that, as far as is known at present, the two books of Aristotle in Julius II’s library pertained to moral philosophy, while the presence of Plato is not attested. 

One important corollary of Aristotle’s view of moral philosophy is that it should not be taught to the young, since they lack the experience of life that would make such a study meaningful (see Lines, Aristotle’s Ethics in the Italian Renaissance). This point may lie behind Raphael’s representation of the people gathered around Aristotle as a mixed audience of youths and older men. It may also account for the fact that the figures gathered around the geometrician (Euclid?) (detail, spatial) in the foreground are all young and beardless (detail, spatial), though the observation that geometry and mathematics can be among the first subjects learned (since they depend only on the faculty of abstraction available to all; see I, 13) was also one made by Plato. 

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Both here and in other passages of the Ethics, Aristotle alludes or makes reference to other philosophers, including his teacher Plato (detail, spatial). Here the discussion centers on the inadequacy of the theory of Forms or Ideas, particularly with reference to what is morally good. At the end of this chapter (f. 5v), Aristotle claims that it is too much to look for a single, ideal, all-encompassing good: even medical doctors do not seek health in general, but that of the individual patient under their care. This position, in which individual entities and the concrete objects of everyday experience are given special emphasis, may support the interpretation of the fresco as presenting the rather different (but complementary?) outlooks of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, who gestures toward earth with his outstretched hand (detail, spatial), is in open counterpoint to Plato’s indication of the heavenly realm (detail, spatial) as he holds the Timaeus (his dialogue discussing the role of a divine Craftsman (detail) in creation. Yet the decision to use Aristotle as a representative of practical philosophy and Plato as one of natural philosophy is rather surprising and, indeed, reverses longstanding stereotypes. While Aristotle’s works were the standard textbooks for higher education in logic and natural and moral philosophy, Plato was especially known as a moral philosopher, albeit an unsystematic one and one whose theories were easier to reconcile with Christianity. Furthermore, in his Physics (251b14–16) Aristotle had rejected Plato’s account of creation in the Timaeus. Finally, humanists starting with Petrarch (detail, spatial) had critiqued Aristotle’s teachings in the Ethics as more theoretical than practical (though Leonardo Bruni’s translation in 1416/17 insisted on the beauty of Aristotle’s style and its capacity to move the soul). 

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While disagreeing with Plato, Aristotle claims to be disagreeing with a friend (“amici sunt qui formas ipsas introduxerunt”). Aristotle’s Ethics explores the theme of friendship at some length, particularly in Book VIII, distinguishing its main three forms and insisting that friendship is only really possible among equals. This theme of friendship and community resonated strongly with Renaissance writers (see Langer, Perfect Friendship) and is a central aspect of the School of Athens. The painting represents figures of philosophy, mathematics, and geometry gathered into various clusters in which onlookers learn from (or even copy) the actions and writings of someone else. Conversation is central to the development of philosophy and science. Even Aristotle and Plato look at each other and seem to interact (detail, spatial). Significantly, the two philosophers are represented as being on the same plane: this suggests not only that their outlooks may be laudable and complementary, but that they are still friends. This position was a common one among Renaissance philosophers and other interpreters: the influence that Plato gained especially after the full Latin translation of his works by Marsilio Ficino (1474?) was not an exclusive one. Rather, interpreters often followed the Neoplatonic example of trying to reconcile the philosophies of both men. 


Broader influence of the Ethics in the set of paintings:
The Ethics names or alludes to numerous other figures of Greek philosophy and science, including Socrates, Empedocles, Eudoxus, Heraclitus, and Thales. Of these, only Socrates seems to be securely identifiable in the School of Athens (detail, spatial), but then again most identifications of various figures are speculative, and several would have lived after Aristotle’s time (including possibly Epicurus (detail, spatial). The figure of Socrates is often criticized by him in the Ethics (e.g., III, 11, f. 000). 

Aristotle’s influence extends to other frescos of the Stanza della Segnatura, including the one on law, a volume of which one can see being presented to the pope. The tondo above this fresco has a representation of Justice (detail, spatial), discussed at length by Aristotle in book V of the Ethics, along with the motto “To Each His Due” [cf. Ethics, V], which strongly reflects Aristotle’s ideal of distributive justice. 

David Lines, University of Warwick

Further Reading

Langer, Ullrich. Perfect Friendship: Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccaccio to Corneille. Vol. 331. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1994.

Lines, David. Aristotle’s Ethics in the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1300-1650): The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002.

Schmitt, C.B., et al. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.