Of all the great minds of antiquity, Aristotle’s is the one which most clearly celebrated curiosity for its own sake and has most profoundly affected how we all do literature, philosophy and science. There was no constituent of the universe in which he was not interested, whether it was empirically discernible to the senses (plants, animals, planets), or lying beneath and beyond the perceptible surface of things (ethical impulses, principles of logic, time, chance). This illustrated lecture first traces some key moments in the history of the reception, perception, representation and influence of the man whom Dante called simply ‘master of those who know’, il Maestro di color che sanno.