The six books of the Organon were first organized by Andronicus of Rhodes around 40 BCE.
Categories (Categoriae): Classification of terms.
On Interpretation (De Interpretatione): Logic of propositions.
Prior Analytics (Analytica Priora): The theory of the syllogism.
Posterior Analytics (Analytica Posteriora): Scientific demonstration and epistemology.
Topics (Topica): Dialectical reasoning.
Sophistical Refutations (De Sophisticis Elenchis): Analysis of fallacies.
The Boethian Latin Transmission (Medieval Era)
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus. Anicii Manlii Severini Boetii Commentarii in Librum Aristotelis Peri Hermeneias. Edited by Karl Meiser. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1877.
Between 510 and 522 CE, Boethius translated the Categories and De Interpretatione into Latin. Known as the Logica Vetus (Old Logic), these were the primary logical texts available to the West for centuries and formed the bedrock of the Scholastic education Hobbes later critiqued.
The Logic Hobbes Read (The Early Modern Context) Sanderson, Robert. Logicae Artis Compendium. Oxford: I. Lichfield and I. Short, 1615.
While not a direct translation of the full Organon, this was the standard logic textbook at Oxford during Hobbes’s time. It summarizes Aristotle’s works in the specific order Hobbes refers to in De Corpore and Leviathan.
The Proemium: Definitions of Logic.
Part I: Simple Terms (Derived from Categories).
Part II: Propositions (Derived from De Interpretatione).
Part III: Argumentation/Syllogisms (Derived from Prior Analytics).
Aristotle. The Organon, or Logical Treatises of Aristotle. Translated by Octavius Freire Owen. 2 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853.
This was the first significant attempt to bring the entire Organon into the English language, following the standard Bekker structure but providing the Victorian-era scholarly apparatus that defined 19th-century Aristotelian studies.
The British Library (Aristotle Manuscripts): Explore Archives
The Bodleian Libraries (Oxford University): Scholastic Logic Holdings
Provenance: Most early printed versions of the Organon in England originated from the Venetian presses (Aldine Press) before being adapted by Oxford and Cambridge University presses in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Robbia, Andrea della. Prudence. Ca. 1475. Glazed terracotta. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), New York.
Accession Number: 21.116
Gallery: Currently on view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 500 (European Sculpture and Decorative Arts).
Official Museum Link: Andrea della Robbia: Prudence
Original Commission: Likely created for a ceiling or wall decoration in a Florentine palace or chapel, inspired by the earlier ceiling by Andrea’s uncle, Luca della Robbia, in the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal at San Miniato al Monte.
Series: This tondo belongs to a set of four Cardinal Virtues. Its “siblings” are:
Temperance and Justice (now in the Musée de Cluny, Paris).
Faith (now in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon).
Acquisition: The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the piece in 1921 through the Joseph Pulitzer Bequest.
Walker, Catherine, and Mariët Westermann. “Workshop Practice Revealed by Two Architectural Reliefs by Andrea Della Robbia.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 54 (2019): 12–31.
This article provides a deep dive into the recent conservation of the “Prudence” tondo, detailing how the 46 separate pieces were originally fired and how the garland was reconfigured to its original 15th-century sequence.
Cambareri, Marietta. Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2016.
Published for the major US exhibition, this work situates Andrea’s “Prudence” within the family’s technical evolution from Luca’s early blue-and-white experiments to the polychrome naturalism of the late 15th century.
Marquand, Allan. Andrea della Robbia and His Atelier. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922.
A foundational text by the preeminent della Robbia scholar of the early 20th century, classifying this specific work within Andrea’s middle
period.
