How Many Recensions of Avicenna’s Kitab al-Šifa'?

The article discusses the possibility that Avicenna’s magnum opus in philosophy might have had multiple recensions, either by the author himself, or in a very early phase of its manuscript transmission, possibly as a result of scholarly discussions within Avicenna’s school. As test case, the fifth treatise of the metaphysical section (Ilāhiyyāt) of the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ is chosen: in some very ancient testimonia, this treatise presents an arrangement of chapters that is coherent and straightforward, but sensibly different – both in the number and the disposition of chapters – from the mainstream version transmitted by the current printed editions of the work. Some hypotheses on the origin of these variations – which cannot be classified as simple accidents of transmission, on account of their rational and macroscopic character – are finally advanced. Appendix B fixes to six the number of codices employed in the standard edition of the Ilāhiyyāt published in Cairo in 1960.