Aristotle Theologized: the Importance of Giles of Rome’s Sententia de bona fortuna to Late Medieval and Renaissance Peripatetism

This paper highlights the decisive role played in the longer course of Aristotelian tradition by Giles’ Sententia de bona fortuna, a work that constitutes a telling example of the radical transformations imposed by Latin thinkers on the Aristotelian philosophical system. The impact of this commentary was decisive for the subsequent discussions on fortune, contingency and “divine government” - that is, the issue of how God, as the First Principle of all beings, leads them all to their ends or their ultimate “good”. In so doing, the article shows that Giles’ reading of the Aristotelian treatise called Liber de bona fortuna marked the birth of a coherent ‘natural theology’ in the Latin West.