Misinterpreting Ibn Gabirol? Questions, Doubts, and Remarks on a Problematic Latin Translation

The present contribution aims to cast some light on the questions about whether and how Gundissalinus and John of Spain have Aristotelised the Fons vitae. I want to provide scholarship with contextual data and some further doubts about the making of the Latin translation of Ibn Gabirol’s work. In the first section, I expound the main historical coordinates of Dominicus Gundissalinus’s activity as translator and philosopher. Next, the second section examines Gundissalinus’s interpretation of Ibn Gabirol and his gradual detachment from some of Ibn Gabirol’s doctrines he previously held. Gundissalinus’s disingenuousness in his first reception of the Fons vitae is then contrasted with Ibn Daud’s harsh criticism of Ibn Gabirol. My analysis shows that Ibn Daud interprets the Fons vitae in a noticeably Aristotelian way, consistent with the Latin rendering of the text. Finally, in the last section, I explore different possibilities (and raise some doubts) about the Latin translation of the Fons vitae.