Aristote dans l'Europe des XVI^e et XVII^e siècles, edited by Mary-Nelly Fouligny and Marie Roig Miranda, is the proceedings of the international study days organized by the research group XVI^e et XVII^e siècles en Europe of the Université de Lorraine on 5–7 November 2015 at Nancy. Focused on the reception of Aristotle's oeuvre among French, Spanish, Italian, and German literati from the Cinquecento to the end of the seventeenth century, this essay collection is the latest interdisciplinary publication of the group, which has produced twenty-seven works since 1995.

Part 1, “De l'Aristote antique à l'Aristote des XVI^e–XVII^e siècles: Contintuité et continuation de l'aristotélisme,” divided in four different thematic sections, examines how the rediscovery of the Corpus Aristotelicum influenced sixteenth- and seventeenth-century grammatical and encyclopedic texts, political and ethical thought, and literary and dramaturgical production, pointing out that the fundamental aim of early modern scholars was not the colorless diffusion of Aristotle's texts, but the foundation of independent thought on the basis of an ancient authority. Hence, the thirteen essays of part 1 provide readers with the instruments to understand the evolution of the reception of the Aristotelian tradition from a static or Scholastic usage to a dynamic revival of it. For instance, in section 1, Mary-Nelly Fouligny, who also wrote the foreword, studies the role of the Corpus Aristotelicum in Erasmus of Rotterdam's Adagia, while section 2 contains observations on the usage of Aristotle's Politics and Nicomachean Ethics in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century politics. In this section, Richard Crescenzo's and Jean-François Gicquel's case studies are significant examples of the readaptation of Aristotle's political philosophy. Section 3 discusses Aristotle's Poetics and the Italian reintroduction, translation, and modernization—for epic and theatrical purposes—of the text. Worth mentioning is Pascale Mougeolle's analysis of Torquato Tasso's ability both as theorist and as poet to reform Aristotelian poetic theory. Finally, section 4 focuses on the diffusion and reinterpretations of a pseudo-Aristotelian text, the Problems.

In contrast, the eleven essays of part 2, “Aristote dans la tourmente: Des écarts à la mise à l’écart,” divided into three main sections, stress the rupture, in the same years, with the Aristotelian tradition: first, in the natural philosophy and in the ethical-religious debates; second, in the universities; and third, in relation to the seventeenth-century philosophical disputes. However, the fracture with the Aristotelian tradition does not appear absolute in many cases. Indeed, similar to the proceedings of part 1, what actually comes to the fore is the humanistic propensity to revise and subdue Aristotelianism—which thus weathered the storm—to Christian theology or to new philosophical systems. For instance, the first two essays of section 1 provide an in-depth analysis of the rejection of Aristotelian naturalism and its survival in early modern natural philosophy when amended to follow the Christian doctrine, while the last two tackle relevant questions related to the issue of Aristotle's paganism and that of the virtuous pagan. Section 2 is devoted to the place of Aristotelianism in universities and, more generally, among scholars. Actually, the essays authored by Heinrich Merkl and Francine Wild in section 2 do not directly explore the debate on Aristotelianism in schools but deal with two literary works that mock the Aristotelian academic tradition. Last, scholars of section 3 address the multilayered elaborations of Aristotelianism in relation to Descartes's philosophy and his opponents.

In conclusion, the strength of this collection is to contribute to an overview of the fortune of Aristotelianism in early modernity without claiming to be exhaustive, taking into account a varied range of subjects and issues and, more importantly, tracing a remarkable portrait of the humanists’ aptitude in consulting ancient sources—doubting and adapting them—in order to answer the questions of their time.