Reference edition:

U. Schindel, Zur spatantiken Wissenschaftsgeschichte: eine anonyme Schrift uber Philosophie und ihre Teile (Paris BN 7530), Göttingen 2006 (Nachrichten del Akademie der Wissensschaften in Göttingen. 1. Philologisch-historische Klasse).

The text does not bear the name of the author. It is a short school manual on the liberal arts. It is contained in the Parisinus latinus 7530 codex (Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Département des Mauscrits), written in Beneventan minuscule, and is found on ff. 62v - 65v. The manuscript preserves texts of grammarians and rhetoricians, and it was undoubtedly written at Montecassino during the years when Abbot Teodemaro was in office, between 777-78 and 796; certainty is provided by the fact that it is the work of the same hand, with the exception of a few external interventions, and that it contains a Calendarium (ff. 277v - 280r) with chronological elements referring to those years. Probably the manuscript was taken away from Montecassino during the 9th century and kept in a library without an internal school, as it presents a very small number of glosses. In 1447, it was in the library of the cathedral of Benevento, where it probably remained until the 15th century; it was later taken by the Archbishop of Reims, Charles-Maurice Le Tellier (1671-1710); in 1700, the latter donated his collection to the Royal Library, whose heritage passed to the Bibliothèque Nationale. The editio princeps was edited by Ulrich Schindel in an article published in a miscellaneous volume in 2004, followed by a study with edition in 2006. The text, which presents elements taken from Cassiodorus' Institutiones and Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, contains some basic notions about the liberal disciplines; its original nucleus, based on testimonies of Jerome and Augustine and considering the lexicon used, can be assigned to the late 4th century and bears, as Schindel has shown, traces of Book IV of Varro's Disciplinae, particularly in the section De geometria.

The work is divided into 17 sections of different lengths. The first part contains the explanation of the terms philosophus and philosophia; of the latter, the trimoda divisio into phisica, ethica, and logica is illustrated; the paragraph Divisio phisice then represents the conjunction with the second part, which contains an exposition of the liberal arts starting from those considered derived from physics. According to the anonymous author, they are arithmetica, geometria, musica, astronomia, astrologia, mechanica, medicina. Arithmetica is the foundation of the others disciplines , as it possesses the concept of the ordered progression of numbers, essential in the epistemological definition of the subsequent ones. Geometria is called disciplina magnitudinis: in this paragraph, according to Schindel, it is possible to recognize the derivation by the author of this brief treatise - together with Cassiodorus and Ps. Boethius (de geometria, VIIIth century) - from the Varronian definitions. Of musica, defined as ars spectabilis, is reconstructed the relationship with cosmic harmony, and its effects on the human soul. Astronomia (astrorum lex) and astrologia differ in that the former describes with scientific rigor the trajectories, movements, and appearance of celestial bodies, while the latter is partim naturalis partim superstitiosa, as it does not limit itself to description but draws auguria and tries to define human mores based on the correspondence between the position of celestial bodies on the one hand, and the body and soul of man on the other. A brief definition of mechanica is followed by the description of medicina, scientia curationis; its etymology derives a modo, id est temperamento; followed by a brief history of medicine, which from Apollo (methodica) evolves with Asclepius (inpirica) until culminating in Hippocrates (rationalis).

Following the description of the arts connected to physics is a synthetic exposition of ethica, which is presented as the mistress of living well and is divided into four main virtutes (prudentia, iustitia, fortitudo, temperantia); its invention is attributed to Socrates. Finally, logic, attributed to Plato, is explored through the division into rhetoric, ratio dicendi (with its subdivision into tria genera), and dialectic, ratio sive regula disputandi; logic reaches its peak with the Aristotelian method. [D. Di Rienzo]