Title: Aristotle Up-Front: A Student’s Notes on the Title Page of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaple’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics
Abstract: Among the practices of note-taking common in early modern Europe was the annotation of books. Margins and flyleaves provided space for notes, and text pages allowed for interlinear notes. This chapter focuses on a specific case study: the title page of Jacques Levèfre d'Étaples' In Aristotelis Ethicen Introductio, printed in Vienna in 1501 by Johann Winterburger. As will be argued, the notes on this title page, dictated in class, circumscribe the text and help students with their intellectual orientation. They show that texts such as the Nicomachean Ethics were not isolated entities, but part of the intertextual structure of early modern literary culture. This approach shaped students' reading experiences and their encounters with texts in the Renaissance and the early modern period.