From Greek to Latin Europe and back: recovering and interpreting Theophrastus’ <i>De odoribus</i> in the early modern age

The article traces the reception history of Theophrastus' <i>De odoribus</i> in the early modern period. It first examines the recovery and circulation of the earliest manuscript witnesses of the work in fifteenth-century Italy and the publication in print of the Greek text (Venice, 1497). As a work devoted to the preparation and usages of unguents and powders, the <i>De odoribus</i> provided a useful repertoire of recipes for botanists and other practitioners of the life sciences. The work, however, was transmitted very poorly, so that early modern scholars had to engage in meticulous philological analyses in order to restore the text's readability. The second part of the article focuses on the Latin translations of and philological commentaries on the work produced between the mid-sixteenth and the early seventeenth century. These were made by Adrian Turnèbe (1556), Jacques Daléchamps (ca. 1575), and Daniel Fourlanos (printed in 1605, but completed before), the last being a Greek scholar who, after years of activity spent in Padua, eventually returned to his native Crete to bring his work on Theophrastus to completion. The article shows that, while Turnèbe remained the standard authority for the interpretation of Theophrastus' <i>De odoribus</i>, both Daléchamps and Fourlanos contributed to the further improvement of the text and paid special attention to the medical framework of the work.