 During the Western Middle Ages, direct knowledge of Theophrastus’ writings was very limited, and it was not until the fifteenth century that some of his more important works were recovered and translated into Latin, even though not all of them also appeared in print (see Schmitt 1971). Two Theophrastean treatises were translated by Bartolommeo da Messina for King Manfred of Sicily during the years 1278–1266, namely De principiis and De signis; at first they were thought to be Aristotle’s and their influence was scant, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they were finally attributed to Theophrastus and attained some importance. During the Renaissance, though, the fortuna of Theophrastus’ writings changed considerably: The Latin translations by Theodore of Gaza of the two major botanical works, Enquiry into Plants and Plant Explanations, were printed in 1483, even before the edition of the Greek text from the press of Aldus Manutius in 1495–1498. In 1644 Johannes Bodaeus published in Amsterdam a frequently cited folio edition of these works with commentaries and woodcut illustrations. The Latin version of the Metaphysics by Cardinal Bessarion was published in 1515, while the classical scholar Adrianus Turnebus began publishing Latin translations of Theophrastus’ opuscula in 1553. Finally, the Latin translation of the Characters by Lapo da Castiglionchio was produced around 1430 and appeared in print in 1517. It is worth adding that the Characters became the inspiration for the literary genre of the character study, and found many imitators in the seventeenth century, notably Bishop Joseph Hall, Sir Thomas Overbury, Bishop John Earle and the French satirist Jean de La Bruyère; finally, George Eliot was also inspired by this Theophrastean work, and wrote her own book of caricatures, Impressions of Theophrastus Such, which was first published in 1879.