114 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Vittore
Branca, Boccaccio: The Man and His Works (New York:
New York University Press, 1976); Teodolinda Barolini,
“Giovanni Boccaccio,” in European Writers: The Middle
Ages and the Renaissance,Vol. 1, Petrarch to Renaissance
Short Fiction,ed. William T. H. Jackson and George Stade
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983), 509–534; note
especially the list of translated works by Boccaccio up to
1983 on p. 533; Joseph P. Consoli, Giovanni Boccaccio: An
Annotated Bibliography(New York: Garland, 1992).
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus
(ca. 480–524/526)Roman logician, theologian, politician
Born about 480 in ROME of an ancient family but
orphaned young, Boethius probably received schooling in
ATHENS or possibly in ALEXANDRIA. In any case he
acquired a thorough knowledge of the Greek language
and the philosophies of PLATO,ARISTOTLE, and the Stoics.
He undertook to translate the works of Plato and Aristo-
tle into LATIN with the aim of reconciling the two
philosophies. This immense task was never completed,
but Boethius did translate Aristotle’s logical works and
wrote commentaries on two of them. They had great
influence on medieval thought.
ON CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY AND MUSICBoethius’s most important purely philosophical work was
his second and longer commentary on Porphyry’s Intro-
ductionto Aristotle’s Categories.Therein he discussed the
status of UNIVERSALSin a text that was extremely influen-
tial in the late Middle Ages. In his discussion Boethius
presented Aristotle’s solution on universals, as explained
by Alexander of Aphrodisias, in about 200 B.C.E. This
solution stated that species and genera were actual
realities as well as mental conceptions. As realities, they
were incorporeal and existed only in union with sensible
things. Accordingly, individual human beings existed
with substantial likenesses to one another, but what they
had in common did not exist in any reality outside
individuals. On the basis of these substantial likenesses,
the mind conceived of the human species. An abstract
conception was a true one, and it applied to individual
human beings. No species existed apart from individuals.
Plato’s thesis that universals were realities that were
incorporeal and existed apart from sensible things was
mentioned by Boethius as an alternative but not neces-
sarily as a preferable one. Boethius’s neutrality was odd
since his views were very Platonic in The Consolation of
Philosophy.
Boethius’s On the Institution of Music,written in the
early sixth century, was for medieval authors from around
the ninth century the authoritative document on Greek
music-theoretical thought and systems. The focus on
counterpoint and the ecclesiastical modes in treatises after
1400 marginalized Boethius’s volume to some extent, but
the work regained significance with the discovery and
translation into Latin of ancient Greek works that Boethius
had used as the basis for On the Institution of Music.CONSOLATIONAND DEATH
In 510 THEODORIC, the Ostrogothic king of ITA LY, raised
Boethius to the rank of consul. By 523 Theodoric sus-
pected him of conspiring with Roman aristocrats and the
emperor in CONSTANTINOPLEto overthrow him. Exactly
what caused Boethius to fall out of favor with Theodoric
has been a matter of speculation. There were Roman
aristocrats interested in reuniting the Eastern and West-
ern empires at the expense of Ostrogothic rule and
Boethius had made a suspicious contribution to bridging
the schism of East and West by writing tracts on divisive
theological issues between 512 and 522. Whatever the
precise details, Theodoric had Boethius put to death for
treason in 524 or 525.
The Consolation of Philosophy was composed by
Boethius during the last year of his life while he was
imprisoned in Pavia. This work was a dialogue in prose
and verse between the author and Lady Philosophy, a
personification of PHILOSOPHY. In it Boethius maintained
that happiness can be found even in the most dreadful of
conditions. The basis for such optimism was his contrastBoethius (left) with the Muse of Arithmetic (Courtesy Library
of Congress)