Athanasii alexandrini opuscola ominibono Leoniceno interprete

The humanistic fortune of St. Atanasius (4th century C.E.), one of the most widely read and appreciated of the Greek Fathers in the 15th century, was determined both by conciliar rulings, which encouraged the rediscovery, research, and analysis of texts, and by interest aroused by the life and writings of this great representative of the struggle against Arian in some of the prominent intellectuals of the period who then prepared biographies and translations of his life and work. Translated into Latin by Ognibene de' Bonisoli of Lonigo around mid-century and dedicated to Paul II, the nine pamphlets undoubtedly constitute the most significant expression of the consensus awakened by the Alexandrian patriarch. These translations, which make up the first sizable corpus of Atanasius' work to be circulated in the West thanks to the editio princeps of 1482, were explicitly used in the context of anti-Turkish propaganda. Given the range and difficulty of the texts, they are of considerable philological importance because they permit a complete evaluation of the technique and interpretive abilities of Bonisoli and, consequently, provide an invaluable tool for understanding the methods of the school of Vittorino da Feltre, of whom Ognibene de' Bonisoli, called "il Leoniceno," was one of the most devoted proselytes.