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De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet is one of the treatises included in Plutarch’s Moralia. While it has attracted the attention of a wide range of scholars throughout history, both its text and content have not yet been satisfactorily established and interpreted as a whole. Two different but complementary aspects have contributed to this state of affairs: the first aspect concerns the interventions in the text to solve textual difficulties; the second concerns the scholarly interpretation of the structure and contents of the treatise. The main objective of the present project is to offer a consistent, comprehensive analysis of De facie as a whole. This objective can be divided in three sub-objectives: to offer 1) a study of the Greek text; 2) a study of the treatise as a literary creation that necessarily reflects and conveys a coherent worldview; and 3) a study of the philosophical contents that casts light on the meaning of the treatise and the goals of Plutarch. In order to reach these sub-objectives, I provide a new critical edition of the text furnished with both a critical apparatus and a text critical commentary in order to assess all the textual difficulties and problems posed by De facie; I also provide two other studies, literary and philosophical, which in turn intend to give an overview of previous approaches and to overcome the inconsistencies and partialities, with an aim to offer a solid and overarching understanding of the treatise.

Several 16th century scholars wrote in their copies of the Moralia’s first edition, known as “Aldine”, a number of annotations that corrected, completed and reinterpreted its text. Despite their value, modern editions not always include them, and when they do, they often make mistakes. This is due, no doubt, to the lack of a thorough study that evaluates these annotations and determines their mutual relations. This paper aims to bridge that gap: dealing with the text of De facie in orbe lunae, it offers an up-to-date catalogue of the preserved Aldines with annotations that establishes both the value of their correction remarks and that of their interrelations. Numerosos eruditos del s. XVI introdujeron en sus ejemplares de la editio princeps de Moralia, conocida como «Aldina» (1509), anotaciones que corregían, completaban y reinterpretaban el texto. A pesar de su gran interés, las ediciones modernas no siempre las incluyen, y si lo hacen, a menudo las mencionan de forma incorrecta. Esto se debe, sin duda, a la falta un estudio sistemático de las mismas que las evalúe y determine sus relaciones mutuas. Este trabajo pretende suplir esta carencia: tomando como punto de partida el texto de De facie in orbe lunae, ofrece un catálogo actualizado de las Aldinas anotadas conservadas que establece tanto el valor de sus correcciones, como el de sus interrelaciones.

The eschatological myth of Plutarch’s De facie in orbe lunae still has textualand content wise issues that need to be solved. Taking as starting point textual and stylistic criticism, I try to clarify a specific passage that deals with the unrighteous souls’ destiny., El mito escatológico que aparece al final del tratado de Plutarco De facie in orbe lunae todavía a día de hoy presenta problemas textuales y de interpretación que deben ser estudiados. Con este análisis del texto, que parte de estudios de crítica textual y crítica literaria y estilística, intento arrojar algo de luz sobre un pasaje que versa sobre el destino de las almas licenciosas.