Early Modern Aristotle: On the Making and Unmaking of Authority 9780812296822

Citation preview

Early Modern Aristotle

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EARLY MODERN

ARISTOTLE On the Making and Unmaking of Authority

Eva Del Soldato

u n i v e r si t y of pe n ns y lva n i a pr ess ph i l a de l ph i a

Publication of this volume was aided by a grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Publication Subsidy at I Tatti. Copyright 䉷 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress isbn 978-0-8122-5196-8

But finding the deception is not enough. Its reasons must also be unveiled. —Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft

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contents

Chronology

ix

Introduction

1

Chapter 1. Comparing Philosophers: How to Elevate or Undermine an Authority

11

Chapter 2. Comparationes and External Aids

36

Chapter 3. Learning, Protecting, Advertising: Comparationes in University Halls

54

Chapter 4. Customizing Authorities: Legends, Anecdotes, Fictions

83

Chapter 5. If Aristotle Were Alive, or the Paradoxes of Authority

109

Epilogue

150

Appendix A. Preface by Alfonso Pandolfi to His Comparatio Appendix B. Federico Pendasio’s Comparatio Appendix C. Skeptical Attitudes Toward Philosophical Concordiae Appendix D. Francesco Vimercato’s De Dogmatibus

156 162 178 180

Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

183 225 255 261

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chronology

1438 1439 1453 c. 1457 1469 1470

Council of Ferrara-Florence begins Gemistus Pletho composes De differentiis Fall of Constantinople George of Trebizond composes his Comparatio Bessarion publishes the In calumniatorem Platonis George of Trebizond’s edition of Eusebius’s Praeparatio evangelica is printed 1484 Marsilio Ficino publishes the complete translation of Plato’s works 1513 Bull Apostolici regiminis at the Fifth Lateran Council 1517 Martin Luther publishes the Ninety-Five Theses 1531 Juan Luis Vives’s De disciplinis 1540 Agostino Steuco publishes De perenni philosophia c. 1540 Francesco Vimercato composes De placitis 1544 First condemnation of Petrus Ramus 1545 Council of Trent begins 1573 Azariah de’Rossi’s Light of the Eyes 1576 Teaching of Plato in die festivo at Pisa, which ends, through an interruption, in 1635 1592 Clement VIII establishes a chair of Platonism in Rome; it will last until 1598 1596 Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia is inserted donec corrigatur in the Index of Prohibited Books 1598 Hofmann-Streit in Helmstedt 1605 Henri IV decides not to establish a chair of Platonism in Paris 1605 Piccart’s Oratio de ratione interpretandi 1606 James I invokes the Oath of Allegiance 1610 Bellarmino’s Responsio ad librum inscriptum triplici nodo triplex cuneus sive Apologia pro juramento fidelitatis

x

1612 1624 1632 1633 1645 1652 1688 1697 1773

Chronology

Galileo’s Letters on the Sunspots Teaching of Aristotle made mandatory in Paris Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Trial against Galileo Fortunio Liceti’s De pietate Aristotelis First booklet by Melchior Cornaues featuring Aristoteles redivivus Trial against the ateisti in Naples begins Giuseppe Valletta’s Discorso filosofico Herder’s On Shakespeare

Introduction

In his Nicomachean Ethics (1096a 11–15) Aristotle affirmed that despite his friendship with Plato, he was a better friend of the truth, and therefore rejected his teacher’s authority, implying that the pursuit of philosophy does not entail obedience to any authority. Yet over the centuries Aristotle himself became the authority par excellence in the Western world. And a wide variety of thinkers ostensibly preferred to keep him as a friend rather than contradict him. Even Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), the champion of the new science, opposed to the traditional doctrines rooted in Aristotelianism, eagerly described himself as a disciple of the ancient philosopher. Galileo had good reason to make this claim because for him, and for many other philosophers, scientists, and intellectuals of the early modern period, the approval of an authority like Aristotle was simply too advantageous to relinquish. Early modernity is often described and characterized as an era during which authority was challenged.1 But the argumentative strategies employed in this period must be reconsidered and reevaluated. In fact, recourse to the authority of Aristotle shaped philosophical and scientific debates throughout Europe until the dawn of the Enlightenment, not only among traditionalists interested in keeping Peripateticism alive, but also among novatores. It may seem counterintuitive that even men engaged in updating the curriculum and elaborating novel visions of the world should appeal to the authority of an ancient philosopher like Aristotle when defending their agendas, to the extent that the association of a “hotbed of Aristotelianism” like Padua with decisive developments of the Scientific Revolution has been regarded by some as a historical paradox.2 More generally, the very notion of authority is indeed something that “does not seem self-evidently desirable.”3 Authority can, in fact, encompass several meanings, which extend well beyond the purely intellectual sphere, and which have pernicious sociopolitical implications, thoroughly discussed in the last century.4 But even when they understood it as a deferential and obliging appeal to a universally

2

Introduction

respected auctor, thinkers who shaped the weltanschauung of the Western world, from Locke to Mill, passing through Kant’s “exit from self-incurred minority,” provided an essentially negative image of the principle of authority.5 After all, etymologically speaking, an auctor in ancient Rome was the person responsible for validating the actions of a minor or of an incapacitated person, and even later implied “an essential duality in which an insufficiency or incapacity is completed or made valid.”6 Yet the principle of authority has not only been an instrument for inculcating minds with an immutable body of knowledge and keeping them in a state of minority. While from an epistemic point of view it has been argued that the self-reflective person has to be committed to belief in authority,7 from the perspective of intellectual history the principle of authority has to be considered as an instrument adaptable to strategic uses,8 which could even include the subversion of the status quo. In this sense, the recourse to an authority was not necessarily incompatible with autonomy but could fuel the most disparate intellectual struggles. An authority—far from being a monolithic lodestar—is typically the product of shifting and negotiation, the result of the application of exegetical and rhetorical keys that are often in conflict with one another. As a fluid object, it could be called on to support diverse and opposing agendas, with its identity modified, manipulated, and reshaped according to what was at stake.9 As recent studies have highlighted, the attitude toward one or more of the ancient authorities was decisive in shaping the discursive strategies of early modern writers, philosophers, and scientists. Authors who were excluded from the “canon” of the great seventeenth-century philosophers, because of their reverence for ancient schools of thought, have recently been vindicated, for example in a collection of essays edited by G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorell, and Jill Kraye.10 Craig Martin has shown how demonstrating the impiety of Aristotle was crucial for many of those who sought to subvert the supremacy of the Peripatetic school in early modern Europe and to promote philosophies allegedly better suited to religion. In the same way, Martin has proved that saving Aristotle was essential for those who aimed to keep him on his proverbial throne.11 Dmitri Levitin, mainly focusing on the British context, has demonstrated how ancient wisdom, especially Platonism—as filtered through pioneering historiographical accounts—provided essential support for many protagonists of early modern science and philosophy, challenging the contradiction between “old” and “new.”12 More recently, Ada Palmer has argued that even apparently innocent antiquarian paratexts, like biographies of ancient thinkers introducing editions of their texts, could

Introduction

3

inspire libertinism and antireligious ideas.13 During the early modern era, ancient authorities were therefore pulled in a constant tug-of-war, at times portrayed more in terms of rhetoric than of their ideas, yet with full awareness of their vital centrality for intellectual debates. The case studies in this book investigate the use and abuse of Aristotle’s authority in the early modern period, from both a transnational and an interdisciplinary perspective. Indeed, for as long as he maintained an institutional presence in universities and academies, Aristotle was invoked in writings and treatises that made use of his authority, sometimes through manipulations of his philosophical doctrines, mental experiments, and fanciful narratives of his life. As is well known, particularly from the twelfth century onward, the Latin Christian world began to absorb pagan authorities into its institutions and cultural traditions. In a Christian context the elevation of a pagan thinker such as Aristotle to the status of an authority was not an obvious conclusion.14 Aristotle had argued against the creation of the world and was very ambiguous on the destiny of the soul, to mention only two upsetting aspects of his doctrines for a Christian readership. Nevertheless, he managed to become the backbone of Western university teaching and Scholastic theology for centuries to come. The acceptance of a pagan authority like Aristotle in a Christian framework therefore required negotiation and selection, cherry-picking, and justification: that is, relying on or justifying Aristotle when he was deemed useful, silencing him or acknowledging his limitations when his ideas were in clear conflict with faith. And the approach to Aristotle’s authority in the Western world became all the more complex when, in the second half of the fifteenth century, he was confronted by an adversary capable of eroding at least some aspects of his prestige, his teacher Plato. Until then, while Plato was a sort of underground presence in the Western world, where only a handful of his works were directly known, he was the authority of reference in Byzantium. Like Aristotle in the West, Plato owed this position to a number of convenient exegeses of many of his doctrines. Yet, unlike Aristotle, Plato offered teachings that were potentially more harmonious with religious dogma, in particular with regard to the soul and creation. Plato provoked a kind of quiet storm with his return to the Latin world, and he operated as a counter-authority to the almost undisputed supremacy of Aristotle. On one hand, he served as the inspiration for many authors interested in decreasing the role played by Aristotle in supporting

4

Introduction

Roman Catholic theology, thus forcing Peripatetic philosophers to reassess their priorities. The association between Plato and theology facilitated, in fact, the “radicalization” of many Aristotelians. These thinkers found the Philosopher’s proprium in the dimension of pure nature, favoring a divorce between metaphysics and natural philosophy.15 On the other hand, since Plato’s divine philosophy seemed to others to be a potential source of heresy, it was also possible to turn to Aristotle as a safe haven for theology. It was enough to insist that the worldly perspective of his thought, unlike that of Plato, would not lead to heresy. There were also individuals, however, eager to invent fictitious biographies of Aristotle, following patterns cultivated in the Platonic milieu. For instance, the association of Plato with Moses and Jewish wisdom—already promoted in late antiquity—inspired the production of similar biographical legends with Aristotle as their main protagonist. Either inventing a special gift of divine grace or converting him to Judaism, early modern authors ingeniously attempted to situate Aristotle within the history of salvation, so as to legitimate his support in matters of theology and other fields. If such biographical efforts were perceived as too far-fetched, there were other ways to save the Philosopher’s authority, via fictions or counterfactual imaginings, postulating his return to life, eager to serve Christianity and to recant his own philosophical mistakes. In most of these instances, Aristotle was merely playacted and ventriloquized, presented as debating matters alien to his philosophy and his mental framework, in order to gain favor for the agenda of a modern author.16 Present-oriented approaches to the ancient authors were a constant feature in European intellectual history starting from the Middle Ages. The early modern period offered remarkable examples of how pagan authorities like Aristotle and Plato were strategically molded by authors who were in reality employing them for their own immediate purposes, as the contextualist approach adopted in this book helps to clarify.17 This book is composed of five chapters that reconstruct several episodes in which the authority of Aristotle was employed during the early modern period. The stories they tell often develop along the same chronological lines and reveal consistent diachronic and synchronic patterns. Each of them focuses on strategies of negotiation, integration, and rejection of Aristotle, considering both macro-phenomena, such as the philosophical genre of the comparatio, and smaller-scale instances, such as the circulation of legends, anecdotes, fictions, and counterfactual imaginations.

Introduction

5

The fortune and dissemination of all these different ways of approaching Aristotle as an authority confirm what a relatively recent trend in studies of early modern philosophy has demonstrated: that between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Aristotelianism, despite its long-standing reputation as a rigid, even reactionary form of inquiry, was, in fact, a thriving philosophical school; that Aristotle remained in that period the philosophical fulcrum of the Western world; that the privileged association between Platonism and the Renaissance—which in earlier scholarly literature was understood to create a liberating rupture with the “Peripatetic” Middle Ages—was the result of a number of simplifications and oversights.18 Certainly, Plato played an important role in shaping philosophical and scientific development in the early modern period. Yet he was also frequently exploited as an anti-Aristotelian resource, as a battering ram to undermine Peripatetic supremacy. Petrarch, whose scanty knowledge of Greek prevented him from becoming familiar with Platonic philosophy, celebrated nonetheless the excellence of Plato over Aristotle, exemplifying the often merely instrumental recourse to Plato as an anti-Peripatetic weapon.19 Long excluded from university halls, and never entirely trusted by ecclesiastical elites, Plato did not enjoy the institutional importance granted to Aristotle. The idol either to protect or tear down was Aristotle, while referring to Plato could serve either to amplify or diminish Aristotle’s merits. The pairing with Plato undoubtedly informs many early modern uses of Aristotle as an authority, yet the Philosopher did not necessarily require an “antagonist” to define his significance, which had deep roots in Western culture. It was possible to associate his name and his reputation as a thinker with virtually any characterization: he was depicted as a papist, a Jew, an enemy of Moses, a Spaniard, a master enraged at his followers, or a wise man eager to be corrected both philosophically and theologically. This flexibility in the use of Aristotle as an authority, invoked to endorse the most diverse agendas, should come as no surprise. Just as today rhetoric has taken on an increasingly important role in scientific and empirical debates, a device like the principle of authority was likewise used, at times paradoxically, by early modern thinkers to support the doctrines they upheld.20 If the need to subvert Aristotle and his system was pivotal in the search for an efficacious rhetoric that motivated early modern philosophers and scientists, their efforts were also driven by the ambition to prevail in a cultural marketplace that had suddenly become pluralistic, first thanks to the return of Plato and then to the emergence of new visions of the world.21 For

6

Introduction

this reason, the endorsement of Aristotle would have been particularly useful for those who wanted to make their positions acceptable by giving the impression of respecting tradition, though they were instead demolishing it. At the same time, also defenders of the Peripatus were compelled to employ acrobatics to safeguard the prestige of Aristotelianism and find new ways to exploit Aristotle’s authority. In any case, the diffraction of Aristotle’s authority confirms and further substantiates Charles B. Schmitt’s conclusion that there were multiple early modern Aristotelianisms, rather than a single one.22 Yet, precisely because this diffraction was exploited in different, opposing directions, it ultimately contributed to the undermining of the Aristotelian tradition. The conviction underlying this book is that apparently marginal details—an expression, a recurring motif, a proverbial anecdote—can be useful clues for interpreting a cultural movement, both in its synchronic and in its diachronic articulations.23 In this perspective, the varied use of certain expressions aids in understanding the tenacity and the vulnerability of a philosophical tradition, at both an intellectual and an institutional level. By stressing the tension between morphology and history—a suggestion originally proposed by Aby Warburg with regard to the study of Pathosformel in art—the persistence of a motif, which does not necessarily bear the same meaning over the centuries, is isolated and tested in order to grasp the implications of those connotative shifts.24 The first three chapters of the book focus on comparationes between Plato and Aristotle, that is, comparisons between the two philosophers intended to demonstrate their relative merits, their harmony, or their opposition. One could argue that basically any theoretical text written in early modernity was in a certain way a comparison between philosophers: the commentaries on Aristotelian texts, in which the opinions of Aristotle are typically juxtaposed with the alternative solutions of his ancient and modern peers, could be cited as an example.25 Comparationes between Plato and Aristotle were a genre with a long history behind them, however, and when they began circulating in the Western world, they had already been used for centuries, both as pedagogical and as apologetic tools, in the Greek milieu. For this reason, when they had their Western revival, comparationes could already count on a well-rehearsed repertory of arguments and exegetical keys that made the genre recognizable. In The School of Athens (1509–1511), one of the most evocative frescoes of the Renaissance, Raphael juxtaposes Plato and Aristotle. The pairing seems

Introduction

7

obvious, because the two thinkers were for centuries symbols of philosophy and wisdom. Yet only the fifteenth-century return of Plato had allowed the Latin West to gain a better understanding of Platonic philosophy and therefore to compare Plato’s doctrines directly with those of Aristotle. If until the second half of the fifteenth century the limited knowledge of Platonic philosophy had left Aristotelianism unchallenged, the exchanges with Greeks who arrived in Italy in 1438 for the Council of Ferrara-Florence allowed Latins to learn more about Plato’s works and ideas, and about many of his interpreters. By virtue of the new perspectives provided by Platonism, antiAristotelian impulses, such as those expressed by Petrarch, could gain momentum. Aristotelians were eager, however, to defend the status quo, with respect both to theology and to the educational curriculum. For this reason, comparationes also became instruments of Peripatetic resistance, with the effect of revealing the limits of Plato not only in relation to religion but also as a philosopher tout court. The strength and resilience of the Aristotelian faction also brought about attempts to reconcile Plato and Aristotle. These pursuits were not necessarily driven by a desire to prove the agreement of the two philosophers. Rather, they often concerned the institutional legitimization of Plato’s status without creating conflict with the supporters of Aristotle, who typically held powerful positions within the academic system. Deploying the genres of invective and apology rhetorically, in a constant effort to promote one authority while condemning the other, comparationes were by no means an innocent academic game. While the possible outcomes of a comparatio were limited—either Plato or Aristotle was superior, unless the two were found to be in agreement—the agendas they could serve were numerous. When Cardinal Bessarion (d. 1472) and George of Trebizond (d. 1472/3) engaged in a dispute over who was superior, Plato or Aristotle, in reality they were fighting over the continuing value of Scholasticism; when the professors Francesco Vimercato (d. 1569), Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597), and Jacopo Mazzoni (1548–1598) offered their contribution to the debate, they were attempting to revise, strengthen, or even subvert the traditional university curriculum. In short, the decision either to support one of the philosophers or to defend their harmony was always made to meet precise ideological or personal ends. Plato and Aristotle were often exploited as stand-ins for modern allies or enemies, and the assessment of their reciprocal merits could imply the validation or the outright rejection of cultural institutions and schools of thought. Comparationes have never been studied as a whole, save for the first chapter of the regrettably unpublished Ph.D. dissertation by Frederick

8

Introduction

Purnell Jr.26 Purnell did important work by collecting material that until then had been scattered and disjointed, during a time when online resources were not yet available. And although the list of comparationes he offered is far from complete, it is nonetheless impressive. He traced the ancient roots of the genre and in studying the paratexts of early modern comparationes presented the genre’s recurring motifs. Yet his research centered specifically on one comparatio, Jacopo Mazzoni’s Praeludia, and his general discussion of the genre serves the purpose of introducing his main topic. This “teleological” approach is confirmed by the fact that Purnell concluded his general review of comparationes with Mazzoni, without taking into consideration seventeenthcentury examples of the genre.27 The first three chapters in this book investigate the strategies and agendas behind the proliferation of comparationes spanning the period from 1439 (the appearance of Gemistus Pletho’s De differentiis, in Greek) to 1700 (the composition of the vernacular treatise On Philosophy written in Naples by Giambattista Vico’s friend Giuseppe Valletta). Chapter 1 describes the Greek background of the genre and its introduction in the Latin world. The following two chapters focus on the main applications of comparationes: apologetic and didactic. The didactic context is particularly interesting, since my research in Italian and French libraries has brought to light a wealth of material that reveals how comparationes had already found a use inside university halls in the hands of Aristotelian professors, even before the laborious creation of short-lived Platonic chairs gave a different prominence to the genre. This Aristotelian appropriation of the genre shows the receptivity of the academic milieu to both the pedagogical and the self-promotional potential embedded in the comparatio, a genre revived and long practiced not only outside university circles but often in polemic with them. In the apologetic context, Plato was instead usually the preferred author, typically presented as an accomplished theologian. Chapter 4 considers various biographical legends, a proverbial anecdote, and a fictional account involving Aristotle. Among the examples considered are legends of Aristotle as a Spaniard and a Jew, a proverbial anecdote that placed Aristotle (and Plato) in conflict with Moses and the Bible, and a series of fictional dialogues written by a German Jesuit intended to convert Protestants, which featured a papist Aristotle as its protagonist. While crucial and more general theological issues, such as the salvation of pagans, are central to many of the works studied in this chapter, they were in reality mere pretexts for introducing the topics that were truly at stake. Behind the

Introduction

9

decision to vouch for the salvation or damnation of Aristotle was the need to exploit and protect him as an authority, or to condemn him for the support he provided to the opposite faction. The choice of resorting to a legend or a proverb could be conditioned by nationalistic interest or complex philosophical or political needs.28 And the intertwining of auctoritas and authorship was crucial in many of these instances: his status as a long-established authority resulted in Aristotle being credited with statements he never made. Chapter 5 deals with the history of a mental experiment, typically expressed in the form of “if Aristotle were alive, he would say/do this.” Past studies by Charles B. Schmitt and Luca Bianchi have demonstrated how following the transformations of an expression can offer unexpected and insightful perspectives on the history of ideas over the longue dure´e.29 In the early modern period the “if Aristotle” tactic was often deployed against his contemporary followers. In this way, Aristotle was opportunistically called back to life in order to rebuke those who claimed to profess his ideas, and to endorse new agendas in a paradoxical use of the principle of authority—for example, Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540), Petrus Ramus (1515–1572), and Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). The chapter pays particular attention to Galileo, who employed the strategy in many of his writings, combining its rhetorical effectiveness with a theoretical foundation taken directly from Aristotelian writings. The chapter also investigates other patterns in the use of the strategy, notably its application to the legitimacy of interpreting, editing, and translating ancient texts, presenting examples of fifteenth-century humanists like Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405–1464), of an archenemy of Aristotle like Martin Luther (1483–1546), and of other interpreters from Spain and France. The trajectory of “if Aristotle were alive” shows that it was used extensively in the most controversial fields, both philosophical and scientific, until the second half of the seventeenth century, when it became common in more “harmless” contexts, such as in the case of literary debates on the Poetics. More generally, the history of “if Aristotle were alive” can also be seen as a mirror of the parallel histories of early modern Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism. Resurrecting Aristotle in order to obtain his approval was useful as long as he was considered the reigning authority. When new philosophies, new visions of nature, and new paradigms began to prevail, there was no longer any need to invoke him. There are four appendixes. The first two contain transcriptions and translations of two unpublished texts discussed in Chapters 2 and 3: the preface to Alfonso Pandolfi’s comparatio of Plato and Aristotle to scripture

10

Introduction

(surviving in a single manuscript in the Vatican Library), and a short comparatio of Plato and Aristotle as natural philosophers by Federico Pendasio (surviving in a single manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan). The next two appendixes contain two notes: one on the views of some early modern Skeptics regarding the comparationes devoted to proving the harmony between Plato and Aristotle, and the other on the attribution to Francesco Vimercato of an anonymous comparatio now held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.

chapter 1

Comparing Philosophers How to Elevate or Undermine an Authority

A comparatio, generally speaking, is a discussion of the characteristics or merits of at least two elements, including both abstract entities (such as love and fortune, forms of arts, and types of political regimes) and people (living or dead). Different expressions of this literary form can be traced in classic literature, but the agonistic culture of early modern Europe favored this kind of composition, which was still very much alive in the eighteenth century.1 Yet, from the second half of the fifteenth century until the end of the seventeenth, the comparationes between Plato and Aristotle met with a special success and wide circulation, emerging as a distinct genre. Prominent and less prominent thinkers put considerable effort into demonstrating the harmony between Plato and Aristotle or in affirming the superiority of one of the two. Although most notable in Italy, this practice occurred elsewhere as well and was present in nearly all cultural spheres: courts, convents, academies, and universities.2 Consequently, as the products of different contexts, comparationes took many forms, such as dialogues, treatises, commentaries, and university lectures, covering the entire doctrines of Plato and Aristotle or focusing only on selected aspect of their writings.3 But why precisely did comparationes between Plato and Aristotle become so popular during that period? The practice of comparing Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies occasionally emerged in the Latin West during the Middle Ages. Boethius (475/ 7–526?), for instance, announced a far-reaching plan of translating into Latin, and commenting on, all of Plato and Aristotle’s works. This endeavor was

12

Chapter 1

made all the more ambitious by his goal of proving the substantial harmony (“in plerisque et his in philosophia maximis”) between their doctrines (“in unam quodammodo revocare concordiam”).4 Boethius most likely never composed his comparatio. A similar and equally unsuccessful project of Bernard of Chartres (twelfth century) and his students was mockingly dismissed by John of Salisbury, who believed it absurd to reconcile two long-dead philosophers who even while alive could never be brought into agreement.5 A very partial comparatio entitled Disputatio Platonis et Aristotelis, an apocryphal dialogue between the two philosophers on medical matters, including their opposing views on the localization of the soul, was produced in northern Europe around the ninth century.6 Comparisons between the two philosophers in nuce, although limited to a few lines, can be detected in Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Henri Bate (1246–after 1310), Petrarch (1304–1374), and Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444). Both Thomas and Bate borrowed arguments from Simplicius (c. 490–c. 560), the Greek commentator on Aristotle recently translated by William of Moerbecke. Yet Thomas claimed that Aristotle had only criticized his teacher’s doctrines to prevent people from being deceived by Plato’s symbolic language. Thomas labeled Plato’s teaching style as obscure and also quoted other interpreters, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200), another Greek commentator on Aristotle, to reject agreement between the philosophers.7 Petrarch, on the other hand, resolutely asserted the superiority of Plato, whose piety he praised in contrast to the philosophy of Aristotle, which he believed did not contribute to moral improvement.8 Finally, Leonardo Bruni—although claiming to accept the general agreement between the two philosophers because Aristotle was a student of Plato’s— endorsed Aristotelian doctrines, which, in his opinion, were better suited to human custom and allowed readers to gain a better knowledge of things, whereas many of Plato’s theories were “presented rather than demonstrated” (“prolata magis . . . quam probata”).9 Another common motif in late medieval texts deplored the preference granted to Aristotle in that period, in spite of the opinion of the ancients, who favored Plato. Yet, this was essentially a rhetorical topos.10 Thus, for about ten centuries, the Latin West knew comparationes of Plato and Aristotle only as failed initiatives or occasional digressions in larger works. And it could not have been otherwise. Platonism, as a tradition, did not disappear during the medieval period in the Latin world and particularly via the writings of St. Augustine exercised a notable influence, yet firsthand knowledge of Plato proved difficult given the scarcity of his translated

Comparing Philosophers

13

works.11 In the Middle Ages solely the Meno and the Phaedo were available in complete Latin translations. The Timaeus and the Parmenides were only partially known, through commentaries by Calcidius and Proclus (the latter of which was translated by William of Moerbecke). Those like Bruni, who in the first half of the fifteenth century translated other Platonic works, usually did not have adequate philosophical expertise to appreciate the theoretical and stylistic complexity of the texts, and for this reason their versions were defective and deceptive.12 Latinate readers were certainly more familiar and at ease with Aristotle—available in Latin since the twelfth century and whose complete encyclopedia of knowledge, expressed in a plain, dry writing style had resulted in the Philosopher’s becoming the central authority in the Schools’ curriculum (from which Plato has already disappeared in the early thirteenth century).13 By contrast, in antiquity, the teaching of philosophy was centered on Plato, and Aristotle’s works were generally less read and known.14 Antiochus of Ascalona (120–67 BC), for example, considered Plato’s philosophy a “disciplina perfectissima,” which could only be further developed by his students, such as Aristotle.15 Antiochus’s opinion, according to which Platonists and Aristotelians disagree in words but not in substance, was made famous by his pupil Cicero and would be repeatedly quoted in early modern comparationes.16 Nonetheless, even though his position was probably more nuanced, there is no evidence that Antiochus was directly familiar with Aristotle’s writings.17 A more systematic approach to Plato and Aristotle was attempted by Alcinous (second century) in his handbook entitled Didascalicos. This work was intended as an introduction to Plato’s original doctrines, which are described as the source of several Aristotelian tenets.18 By the time Alcinous had composed his work, it was seemingly a common opinion, among both Platonists and Aristotelians, that Aristotle’s writings could help one obtain a better understanding of Plato’s philosophy.19 As Antiochus had already suggested, Aristotle was believed to have preserved and perfected genuine Platonic teachings—mostly regarding logic—originally conceived by his teacher in an asystematic form.20 Once Aristotle’s essential agreement with Plato was accepted, the plain and organized order of the Philosopher’s writings could grant young practitioners of philosophy easier access to doctrines expressed by Plato in a convoluted style. For this reason, comparationes between the two philosophers were likely introduced as a sort of didactic tool. And although none of these ancient and late antique comparisons has survived (the earliest was probably composed by Calvenus Taurus in the second

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Chapter 1

century), they make it evident that, in gaining access to Plato’s views, a certain reliance upon Aristotle was common. Affirming Plato and Aristotle’s agreement did not, however, serve the purpose of flattening the respective philosophies of the two thinkers. Aside from highlighting cases in which Aristotle was believed to have misunderstood Plato, the conciliatory nature of these ancient works hinted at the complementarity of the two philosophers, by acknowledging the distinct realms in which they cultivated their doctrines.21 Plato, the theologian, and Aristotle, the natural philosopher, “divine” Plato and “demonic” Aristotle, appear to be in contrast only because Plato spoke of the superior realities and Aristotle of the physical world.22 This line of argument, proffered by Porphyry (234 to early fourth century) in his lost comparationes, implied a hierarchization of the two philosophers, and ultimately bolstered Plato’s superiority.23 For this reason, we find a similar distinction between a divine Plato and a natural Aristotle employed even already by Platonists who, like Atticus (second century), were opposed to their reconciliation and consequently hostile to the didactic use of Aristotle.24 This interpretation was most famously advocated in the sixth century by Simplicius, who was instead particularly interested in proving the harmony between Plato and Aristotle in reaction to the “Christian charges of contradictions in pagan philosophy.”25 The hierarchical-conciliatory tradition no doubt influenced the composition of The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle, the earliest surviving comparatio, attributed to the Arab philosopher Al-Farabi (d. 950), though its authorship continues to be debated.26 The Harmonization argued for the agreement of the two thinkers, in order to defend philosophy from the attacks of those who considered it impious. To achieve this goal, Al-Farabi also built on an apocryphal text, the Theologia, attributed to Aristotle that was in reality Plotinian (this kind of apocrypha was still presented as proof of agreement between the two philosophers in early modern comparationes). In the Christian Byzantine context of the following centuries, comparationes abandoned their primarily pedagogical-exegetical character in favor of an apologetic approach, which had been prefigured in Eusebius’s Praeparatio evangelica (fourth century). Eusebius was among those who highlighted the contradictions between pagan philosophers, made clear by their conflicting doctrines. Yet in Eusebius Plato is singled out among the other pagans, particularly Aristotle, for having defended the view of a God creator of the world, in accordance with Mosaic wisdom.27 The preference for Plato over Aristotle

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and the other pagans, stemming from theological reasons, was not lost in the following centuries. In their comparative readings of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies, Theodorus Metochites (1270–1332) and Nikephoros Gregoras (1291/2–1360) were primarily concerned with understanding which of the two thinkers was more in agreement with Christian teachings.28 Their accounts— informed by fideism and distrust of the epistemological possibilities of natural philosophy—were especially biased against the physicus Aristotle. Boethius, who was, as mentioned, the first Latin to conceive the idea of composing a comparatio, was likely inspired by the Greek Porphyry.29 In the same vein, though in a different context, it is quite revealing that the first early modern comparatio of Plato and Aristotle composed in the Western world was written in Greek by a Byzantine philosopher—Gemistus Pletho—at the time of the Council of Ferrara-Florence. The council—which achieved a short-lived reunification of the Greek and Roman Churches—has always been identified, sometimes with providentialist undertones, as a decisive moment for the reintroduction of Plato and his philosophy into the Latin world.30 The Greek mediation permitted the Latin world to rediscover Plato and become acquainted with ways of interpreting him vis-a`-vis the until-then unchallenged philosophical authority in the West, Aristotle. It has been rightly stated that no other debate in the history of philosophy was characterized by such polarization as the fifteenth century Plato-Aristotle controversy.31 With Aristotle’s supremacy at its apogee, Plato’s return gave rise to new questions. Comparationes were the perfect instrument for providing answers, giving form to the exchanges and the clashes of two cultures, Greek and Latin, while also expressing theological, political, and philosophical anxieties. Yet even decades after the council comparing Plato with Aristotle maintained a certain significance. A comparatio compelled one to take a stance and commit to a decision on which of the two philosophers was supreme, with all the corollaries this entailed, such as defending traditions or dismantling them. Sometimes Plato had the upper hand, sometimes Aristotle. On occasion, the purpose of a comparatio was to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and his student.32 Proclaiming the agreement of the two philosophers did not, however, exclude—as we have seen—the establishment of a hierarchy between the two of them. Comparationes were not neutral works, nor were they dull, idle, academic discussions of the philosophies of two ancient thinkers. The need to endorse either Plato or Aristotle or demonstrate their agreement was geared toward the promotion of immediate, even pressing, agendas. When the authors of comparationes attempted to justify their

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contributions, claiming that the works of their predecessors were neither correct nor definitive, their dissatisfaction can rarely be taken at face value. Often their writings hid ideological and philosophical biases that required them to reject an earlier comparatio because it promoted a different, and conceivably opposed, cultural program. For the “subgenre” aimed at demonstrating the harmony between Plato and Aristotle was dissatisfaction with predecessors more firmly grounded. Beginning with Boethius, promises to demonstrate the agreement between the two philosophers were often made but ultimately never achieved. Not surprisingly, therefore, promising to prove the illusive concordia between the two philosophers could become, in some cases, an instrument for impressing powerful patrons. Comparationes in the Western world generally followed consistent patterns, which were largely prefigured in the ancient and Byzantine phases of the genre’s circulation. On the whole, in fact, early modern comparationes of Plato and Aristotle can be divided in two distinct typologies: the first focused on their respective compatibilities with the Christian religion, the second on philosophical, didactic, and exegetical concerns. Both approaches, of course, entailed the superseding or the legitimization of one of the two thinkers. The decline of interest in comparationes occurred when the centrality of Plato and Aristotle, and of their weltanschauungs, was in its twilight. If attempts were made to integrate the traditional institutionalized wisdom of Aristotle (and Plato) with that of modern thinkers who challenged them (such as Descartes and Gassendi), by comparing their systems in elaborate triangulations, eventually the ancient philosophers had to give way. Meanwhile, both Plato and Aristotle seemed also to have exhausted their potential as external aids for the Christian faith and, in some cases, were even viewed as detrimental to it. This signified the progressive abandonment of religiously inspired comparationes as well.

A Greek Affair First Round: Gemistus Pletho and Scholarius When he arrived in Italy, in 1438, as a lay delegate to the Council of FerraraFlorence, which was intended to unite the Greek and Roman Churches in the face of the threat of Turkish invasion, the philosopher from Mistra Gemistus

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Pletho (d. 1452 or 1454) was struck by the philosophical arrogance of his local interlocutors. A dispute hosted in Ferrara by the physician Ugo Benzi (1376–1439), and possibly attended by Pletho, provides a good sense of the ongoing debates. At the end of the banquet he hosted for the members of the Greek delegation, Benzi raised the subject of “all the topics of philosophy about which Plato and Aristotle seem to argue in their works and hold widely differing opinions.” He proclaimed that he would have defended “whichever side the Greeks opposed, whether they supported Plato or Aristotle.”33 A Latin report of the debate claimed that Benzi overcame his Greek opponents one by one, thus proving the superiority of Latins in the field of philosophy. Yet the report makes no reference to the specific arguments he deployed in his impromptu comparatio designed to prove the Greeks wrong. At any rate, his well-known philosophical allegiances allow us to speculate that Benzi presented a case that was very favorable to Aristotle, although possibly read through an Averroist filter, and was probably only to a very limited extent informed about Plato’s philosophy, so central to the Greeks. Moreover, Benzi’s comparatio was almost certainly a rhetorical piece of philosophical bravura, rooted in the Scholastic method of extrapolating sententiae from their original context and fashioning them according to one’s needs.34 These features—a distorted Aristotle, a misunderstood Plato, and an abuse of rhetorical trifles—were noted by Pletho as common among Latin philosophers and theologians. Pletho and other Greeks were even more bothered that Latins displayed a blind devotion to Aristotle even when discussing religious matters. As reported by Silvester Syropoulos, contradictions arose even during the sessions of the council: “ ‘What about Aristotle, Aristotle’ [a Greek delegate from Georgia said], ‘A fig for your fine Aristotle.’ And when I by word and gestures asked: ‘what is fine?’ the Georgian replied ‘St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Basil, Gregory the Theologian; a fig for your Aristotle, Aristotle.’ ”35 Pletho’s religious affiliation is still debated among his interpreters. According to some, he was an exponent of heterodox Christian doctrines, while others claim he was the neopagan proponent of a new nationalistic religion founded on Platonic doctrines and the revival of ancient Greek rites.36 But in reality, regardless of his beliefs, whether he was an eccentric Christian or a neopagan, it is certain that Pletho was very proud of the Platocentric Greek cultural heritage and scornful of the Aristotelianizing theology of the Roman Church.37 These beliefs substantiated his opposition to the reunification of the two churches but also compelled him to affirm the superiority of Plato, whom he saw was ignored or insulted by Latins, and to expose

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the inadequacy of Peripatetic philosophy as a support for religious piety. In order to do so, Pletho deployed a comparatio intended to undermine the traditional allegiance between Scholasticism and Aristotelianism. His decision to pursue this goal by relying on a comparatio was not accidental. By using a genre mastered by Greeks, for both philosophical and apologetic purposes, Pletho could reveal to Latins how little they knew about Platonism, despite disputes like Benzi’s, proving the overall superiority of Greek philosophical culture and upholding Plato as a respected authority. The work, originally conceived during a short illness in Florence—and related to some lectures Pletho held for a group of Florentines who were eager to learn more about Plato—was entitled in Greek How Aristotle Differs from Plato, although typically referred to by its Latin title, De differentiis.38 The original title is revealing: Pletho does not make Plato’s doctrines an object of discussion, simply assuming that Aristotle’s doctrines should conform to them. It is precisely from the conflict between Aristotle’s doctrines and those of his teacher Plato that Pletho takes his cue to criticize the inadequacy of Peripateticism. Particular reference is made to sensitive religious matters, implying an overlap between impious philosophy and bad philosophy.39 Plato believed God to be the creator, while for Aristotle he was merely the first mover; Plato spoke of divine providence, while Aristotle denied it; according to Plato, the universal precedes the individual, while Aristotle maintained the opposite. The list of the places where the two philosophers contradict one another, highlighted by Pletho throughout his tract, is even longer and provides little relief to Aristotle. At best, Pletho argues, Aristotle’s philosophy is defective. He complains, for instance, that Aristotle never described God as a creator. Pletho finds this particularly unjustifiable given that Aristotle instead spent many pages speaking about trivialities like “embryos and shellfish.” This means that not even Aristotle’s merits as a natural philosopher are recognized by Pletho, echoing earlier statements by Metochites and Gregoras.40 The oddity of many Aristotelian doctrines can be explained by his desperate attempts to promote himself as an original thinker, by systematically taking positions different from those of his predecessors—a commonplace criticism Pletho could have found in many ancient sources.41 Plato, by contrast, behaved honestly toward his predecessors.42 Pletho is obviously forced to take interpretative liberties to maintain the unmitigated opposition between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. He considers Aristotle’s contradictions to be unacceptable: in On the Soul and in Metaphysics Aristotle described the intellect as eternal and incorruptible, but

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he omitted this doctrine in the Nicomachean Ethics, where it should have been central in defining virtue. In the Ethics, the Philosopher instead had problematically affirmed that “nothing whatever that is good lies in store for man after the end of his life.”43 Yet when Pletho observes contradictions in Plato’s writings they are entirely justifiable and even praiseworthy from a philosophical point of view. Thus, the fact that Plato is not consistent with respect to the origin of the soul (generated according to the Timaeus, ungenerated according to the Phaedrus) simply proves that, for him, generation in time is not necessarily connected to a causal generation.44 Nor is Pletho reluctant to manipulate sources and definitions. He posits that Aristotle expressly made the universal analogous to matter and the particular to form, while in reality the Philosopher never explicitly made any such analogy.45 And again, it is by expanding the meaning of “deliberation” from how it is used in the Nicomachean Ethics (where it is restricted to the search for a means to an end) that he is able to demonstrate that Aristotle wrongly deprived nature of deliberation and was, therefore, impious, because by doing so he also denied God’s providence.46 It has to be said, in any case, that even in rejecting a conciliation of the two philosophers Pletho’s anti-Aristotelianism had its limitations. For instance, Pletho makes Averroes responsible for misleading interpretations of Aristotle’s doctrines in the Latin West, and he admits that some utility can be found in Aristotle’s writings. And while in De differentiis Pletho expressed contempt for Aristotle’s natural philosophy, in his later Treatise on Laws he affirmed that the fundamentals of his own physics were largely Aristotelian.47 Yet by diametrically opposing the philo-Platonism of the Greeks—that of pagan philosophers and church fathers—to the Aristotelianism of the Latins, and giving the upper hand to the former, Pletho succeeded in depicting Aristotle as impious. He attempted to demolish the foundations of Scholastic theology and, through Plato, made a nationalist statement on the philosophical prowess of the Hellenes. If we accept that Pletho had a paganizing agenda in mind, his praise of Plato contained in De differentiis might have been aimed at silently introducing his own doctrines, which were built on the Platonic corpus, into Western philosophy.48 De differentiis soon provoked a reaction, but not among Aristotelian Latins, to whom the Greek treatise remained by and large inaccessible for a century. Rather, it was a Greek advocate of Aristotle, Gennadius Scholarius (1400–1473), who first addressed the text in a polemical exchange of booklets with Pletho.49 Despite having originally been an advocate for the cause of the

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reunification of the two churches, Scholarius soon changed his mind and abandoned his original conciliatory sympathies. His philosophical preferences were, however, unaffected by this change since, until the end of his life, Scholarius maintained a constant admiration for Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.50 While nationalist pride and competition with Latin philosophy played a role in Pletho’s dismissal of Aristotle—as they did a century before with Metochites and Gregoras—the equally nationalistic Scholarius did not closely associate Aristotle with the Latin world. Instead, he ventured to rescue Aristotle from Pletho, whom he perceived to be the real danger. Although inherently an apology for Aristotle (its title is, in fact, Defense of Aristotle), Scholarius’s work contains long sections of comparison between the two ancient philosophers and addresses Pletho’s De differentiis point by point. Scholarius immediately declares that the consensus omnium Graecorum presented by Pletho as proof of the superiority of Plato is not real, since in the past philosophers were divided on the issue, and many even defended the agreement between the two thinkers.51 Scholarius himself claims not to prefer Aristotle over Plato, nor vice versa, even if, between the two, he considers Aristotle closer to the Christian religion. Faith and philosophy followed different paths according to Scholarius: Moses and Christ revealed true religion to men, while Plato and Aristotle elaborated worthy doctrines but lacked divine inspiration.52 For this reason, one should not be surprised to find erroneous statements in Aristotle’s works, such as the eternity of world, which is in evident contrast with the tenets of Christianity. Scholarius is astute in highlighting many of Pletho’s interpretative liberties, as in the meaning he attributed to “deliberation.” Yet he himself distorts many of the texts he reports on in order to support his own arguments and often relies on purely rhetorical, unsatisfying defenses.53 Nonetheless, between the lines, for Scholarios the main problem with Pletho was not that he attacked Aristotle to praise Plato. More troubling was that Scholarius believed Pletho to be a paganizing supporter of an anti-Christian form of Platonism.54 In order to build a solid theology, Scholarius went beyond nationalist divisions and embraced the clarity and orderliness of Scholasticism. This led him to adopt Aristotle and his dry, unembellished style, and to denounce Plato’s poetic traps. In pursuit of this program, Scholarius had the honor of being of the first Scholastic to react to De differentiis. The struggle over Plato and Aristotle between Pletho and Scholarius is usually regarded as the grand finale of Byzantine philosophy. But it was only the first spark of further developments in the Latin world.55

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A Latin Interlude: Lauro Quirini Pletho’s De differentiis made only small waves among Latins, who were generally incapable of reading his Greek treatise and still for the most part unfamiliar with Plato. This makes it hard to establish a direct connection between Pletho’s work and the first true Latin comparatio, composed between 1439 and 1440 by a Venetian student of philosophy, Lauro Quirini (1420–1481).56 Quirini’s work is a dialogue between him and no less a figure than “Aristotle, who declares and discusses Platonic dogmas, not all of them, but the most important.”57 It was, in fact, through an eidolopoeia, the evoking of the spirit of Aristotle, that Quirini intended to reveal why Platonists disagree with Aristotelians, something he considered very significant and wholly unknown to the men of his time.58 Quirini’s conversation with the ghost of Aristotle opens with a very gratifying message for Lauro: after Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Averroes, Aristotle claimed to consider Lauro his fourth-most faithful follower, the only Latin to make Aristotle’s list. To a baffled Lauro, flattered by the ghost’s words, but confused by the fact that Aristotle prefers him to excellent thinkers like Syrianus, Proclus, Iamblichus, Plotinus, Themistius, Simplicius, and many others, Aristotle explains that they were instead followers of Plato. Lauro then asks the ghost to explain which philosophical dogmas made these men Platonists rather than Aristotelians, inviting Aristotle to list the disagreements between him and Plato. The first one is related to the issue of the eternity of the world, which prompts the ghost to make amends for his error and to admit that Platonists have a better doctrine on this topic, since they believe that the world is created.59 Aristotle then proclaims his merits in rejecting the doctrine of Ideas, though admitting that Plato is preferable regarding the immortality of the soul, again revealing his compliance with the Christian faith.60 These doctrinal disagreements prove that Plotinus, Simplicius, and the others are Platonists and not Aristotelians, at least as far as the investigation of nature is concerned. Further consideration would be needed with respect to human happiness, but Aristotle only touches on the topic before the work abruptly ends. The rushed conclusion was most likely the consequence of a humiliating exchange on the Nicomachean Ethics Quirini had with Leonardo Bruni.61 Yet these quarrels between humanists—something with which Quirini would later become even better acquainted—further indicate that the main reason behind his comparatio was self-promotion.62 Quirini presents himself as an outstanding Peripatetic, whose constant vigils over the books of Aristotle have granted

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him an unparalleled familiarity with his doctrines. Indeed, he knows them so very well that he can even engage in a face-to-face dialogue with the ghost of Aristotle. Aside from self-promotion, Quirini was mainly concerned with establishing a solid exegetical canon that could enable readers to grasp and recover the true thoughts of Aristotle, without the Platonic contaminations contained in the works of many authors that the Latin world was in the process of rediscovering. Quirini’s comparatio did not, however, provide a mere list of disagreements between Plato and Aristotle. Rather, it also expressed a judgment on the merits of their respective doctrines with respect to the Christian religion. The triangulation between faith, Plato, and Aristotle—pivotal in Pletho and Scholarius—seems nevertheless less decisive in Quirini’s work, in which there is no effort to proclaim or reject Aristotle as a valid external aid to the Christian faith.63 Quirini’s comparatio had little to no circulation. Quirini did understand, however, that in a climate of renewed interest in Platonism such a work could have the potential to gain him some attention, both inside and outside the universities, where he was planning—with little success—to build his career.64 His example shows that encounters with Greeks during the council had revealed to Latinate intellectuals that they needed to take the Platonic tradition more seriously and to question its relationship with Aristotelianism.65 Plato’s return to the Western world was not to be straightforward, however, and another comparatio by a Greek, George of Trebizond (1395– 1472/3), made it even more difficult.

Aristotle Strikes Back: George of Trebizond Whereas Quirini had composed his comparatio to promote himself and to express his concern for the proper interpretation of Aristotelian texts— without any bias toward Plato—George of Trebizond’s treatise was motivated by a more complex and polemical agenda. As a Greek and a humanist, George may have seemed an improbable champion of the Aristotelian cause. Yet his comparatio was regarded for centuries to come as the most remarkable example of fanatical Aristotelianism ever composed, proving the unreliability of certain labels and allegiances.66 George of Trebizond—despite his name—was born in Crete and, as a young boy, moved to Venice, where he developed a fierce loyalty to the Latin

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world that had welcomed him. An authority in the field of rhetoric—his manual on the subject was reprinted for at least two centuries—he also displayed a devotion to Latin Scholasticism, even though he never truly mastered it. Like any good humanist of his time, he was involved in a number of bitter struggles with his peers, and he maintained an intense rivalry with another Greek e´migre´, Theodore Gaza (c. 1408–1475), over issues related to Gaza’s translations of Aristotelian texts, which George considered too free and disrespectful of the medieval versions by Gerard of Cremona.67 The constant quarreling with Gaza was likely one of the reasons—among other issues, including a debate over the exegesis of a biblical passage—for his break with Basil Bessarion, a former student of Pletho’s who had become a Roman cardinal and patron of scholars. This rupture was certainly pivotal in George’s decision to compose a work aimed at discrediting Bessarion, and thus at destroying the reputation of the philosopher whom the cardinal notoriously praised and promoted: Plato. This work, entitled Comparatio philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis, reflected much of George’s rhetorical training and was presented as a proper invective.68 Whereas George praises Aristotle as a virtuous and wise philosopher, capable of prefiguring Christian revelation and thus worthy of being saved, he describes Plato as a vicious, ignorant, and impious man. George, like Pletho, did not simply intend to weigh the two philosophers against one another but sought in particular to evaluate their merits in relation to religion. Yet he was clearly eager to confirm the alliance between Aristotelianism and Roman Christianity, which had been challenged in De differentiis. Pletho had attacked Aristotle with the purpose of exposing the contradictions of Scholasticism. George—although he did not really have deep expertise in Thomism—was working in the opposite direction, defending the association between Aristotle and theology established by Thomas Aquinas.69 Yet George went a step further by situating Aristotle above even the Scholastic tradition itself. As we have seen, Scholarius had admitted there were some limits to Aristotle’s philosophy, limits that occasionally put a strain on its compatibility with faith. But for George this was not the case, because he considered Aristotle to be in perfect harmony with religion, even more so than Christian theologians. In fact, the only time in his Comparatio in which he openly mentions Thomas Aquinas, George attacks his doctrines on the relationship of the body to the soul, which stood as an obstacle to George’s most important point: the possibility that Aristotle truly received Christian revelation (II.15.30).70

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For George, after all, the urgency of proving the piety of Aristotle went beyond a defense and reinforcement of Scholasticism. In the opposition between Aristotle and Plato, he identified no less than an apocalyptic struggle in which the survival of the Western world was at stake. Tracing the lineage of Platonic thought, he believed that Plato had different incarnations throughout history (III.20): the second Plato was Epicurus, the third Mohammed, the unnamed fourth was most likely Pletho—whose allegedly paganizing agenda he openly denounced in the same chapter (III.20.2— 18)—or Bessarion himself. George’s fellow citizens, the Greeks, embraced the corrupt philosophy of Plato, and this brought about the Turkish invasion of their country and the Fall of Costantinople (in 1453). Latins therefore needed to persevere in their preference for Aristotle if they wanted to avoid this terrible fate. To substantiate this point, George offered his Latin readers translations of passages from the Platonic dialogues. George in the past had translated the Laws and the Parmenides, which he accompanied with dedicatory letters full of praise for Plato.71 Here instead he applied his interpretative talents to selected passages from Platonic dialogues, that, in his opinion, clearly proved the depravity of Plato. Mainly relying on the Phaedrus and the Symposium, he took advantage of typical anti-Platonic prejudices, common in the Western world, regarding Plato’s description of homoerotic love (III.2). Yet he did so by crafting fanciful interpretations of many of the passages in question, in order to show that Plato was mistaken and dishonest. Many of his exegeses of works by Aristotle were no less inventive, aimed at demonstrating his Christian piety. He even attributed to him knowledge of many Christian dogmas, including the Trinity, which Aristotle supposedly alluded to in the opening of On the Heavens. In exposing Plato’s impiety, George was not even afraid to challenge the church fathers, who often praised Plato and his philosophy. He attempted to undercut the testimony of the fathers by making a distinction with respect to their field of authority: one had to accept without discrimination what they wrote about salvation and faith, but not what they affirmed about other subjects. In so doing, he was consciously breaking with a long Greek tradition, from which Pletho himself had drawn important arguments for his De differentiis. George also made a case for Plato’s ignorance, arguing that he never properly explained the precepts of any discipline, and that his teachings were botched and confused, particularly in their logical structure (I.2–10). Obviously, this was not a problem in Aristotle, whose tenets—in George’s opinion—were excellent and clearly formulated in every branch of philosophy.

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George composed his Comparatio in Latin, making the text accessible to all educated Western readers. The fact that he presented many Platonic texts in translation, accompanied by biased commentaries, could already be perceived as a formidable danger to the reputation of Plato and his acceptance in the Latin-speaking world, even without the apocalyptic framework envisioned by George to warn of the Platonic “threat.” In short, Plato urgently required a defender. The individual who assumed this role realized that a possible ban on Plato could become a major obstacle to his own personal ambitions: Cardinal Bessarion.

Saving Plato: Bessarion As a member of the Greek delegation at the time of the Council of FerraraFlorence, Bessarion eventually came down in favor of the reunifying the two churches, mainly because he considered it part of an effort to save the Greek cultural heritage from impending destruction due to a Turkish invasion, which could only be prevented with Western support. After the brief reunification, Bessarion was quickly made a cardinal and in particular after the fall of Costantinople assumed the role of a “cultural organizer” in the Italian Peninsula, attracting Greek e´migre´s and Latin scholars seeking his patronage.72 Despite his considerable knowledge of Aristotelian philosophy—he also produced an influential Latin translation of the Metaphysics—Bessarion never disguised his preference for Platonism, which was nurtured during the time he spent in Mistra as a disciple of Pletho.73 It is therefore easy to understand how the appearance of George’s Comparatio made Bessarion’s connections with Pletho—who was already dead at the time of the book’s composition —as suspicious as his Platonic allegiances. As a prominent member of the Roman curia, and as a potential candidate for the papacy, Bessarion needed to disprove George’s anti-Platonic allegations, while also revealing the bias and the ignorance of his opponent in order to defend his own reputation as much Plato’s. That Bessarion considered the Comparatio dangerous is evident from the large-scale project he undertook, which was years in the making, in response to George’s attacks. This project involved exegetical maneuvers and the recanting of positions Bessarion had held in the past, and it called for the collaboration of a team of scholars willing to embrace his proposed interpretative line. The main results of this enterprise—aside from a handful of other

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tracts—were six books, first printed in 1469, under the title Against the Calumniator of Plato (In calumniatorem Platonis).74 The story behind De natura et arte, destined to become the sixth book of In calumniatorem, shows clearly how Bessarion was forced to revise his vision of the relationship between Plato and Aristotle.75 Around 1458, Bessarion was asked by Theodore Gaza to evaluate whether nature possessed deliberation according to the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle—a problem with far-reaching implications, posed in the second book of Aristotle’s Physics—for the purpose of determining whether the two philosophers believed in divine providence. At that time Bessarion, disagreeing with the Aristotelian Gaza, sent him a letter in which he resolutely rejected Aristotle’s opinion— according to which nature would not deliberate—and fully supported Plato, explicitly endorsing the position expressed by his teacher Pletho on the subject. When indirectly confronted by George of Trebizond, who at that time was already writing the Comparatio, Bessarion felt compelled to modify drastically what he had written in his private exchange with Gaza and composed a new work, De natura et arte. In this treatise Bessarion abandoned the radical opposition between Plato and Aristotle that he had shared with Pletho and embraced the idea of their substantial agreement. This was founded on the Simplician argument of the division of spheres: even though Plato and Aristotle seem to disagree, they do not in reality, because Plato speaks as a theologian of the superior world, and Aristotle as a natural philosopher of the inferior one. The different perspectives at play in their philosophies account for the apparent contrasts between the two philosophers, who are instead recounting the same truth in a complementary way. After De natura et arte, the substantial agreement between Plato and Aristotle became a signature exegetical key for Bessarion, as he imposed it on his associates who had originally maintained different opinions.76 This kind of concordism, a central feature in In calumniatorem Platonis, was artificially born out of the necessity to reject George’s attacks on Plato. Bessarion needed to accomplish this goal without entering into direct conflict with the Aristotelian preferences of the Latin world, which entailed distancing himself from his damaging association with Pletho’s Platonic extremism. Pletho had attempted to divorce Aristotle from theology by highlighting his disagreements with Plato. In his treatise Bessarion attempted to do much the same, but, by proclaiming that the two philosophers were conciliable, he made Aristotle’s exile to the realm of natural philosophy the pivotal point of his argument.

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The relegation of Aristotle to the natural world established a hierarchy between the two philosophers that helped Bessarion affirm that Plato was a better ally of the Christian cause. This was supported both through philosophical argumentation and through reliance on respected authorities, such as the church fathers, whom George had tried to discredit as philosophers. Yet, like Scholarius, Bessarion did not seek to baptize Plato, openly admitting that the philosopher was a pagan. This did not prevent Bessarion from offering interpretations of Platonic philosophy—strongly influenced by Plotinus and Proclus—that, by means of allegories and translations, permitted him to present reassuring readings of certain Platonic doctrines that would otherwise have disturbed Christian readers, including the nature of matter and metempsychosis (see II.6.16–18, 125–129, and II.8.23–24, 161–165). In addressing the tricky topic of Plato’s doctrines on love, Bessarion instead drew material from the Song of Songs and several Christian writers (IV.2.2–3, 445–449). Unfortunately, the main authorities he referenced in this context were late ancient forgeries: the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. PseudoDionysius was a crucial author for him in other subjects as well—notably the nature of God (II.4.2–3, 89–91).77 Pseudo-Dionysius was believed to be the member of the Areopagus, that according to Acts of the Apostles (17:34) was converted by St. Paul in the first century. The fact that many passages in Pseudo-Dionysius’s works resemble those of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus was explained by some as proof that Plato had anticipated Christianity, and that Proclus—who lived in the fifth century—had appropriated Dionysian doctrines. Of course, the opposite was true: a Christian Neoplatonic philosopher had used the Areopagite’s persona to circulate, between the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, a Christianized version of Platonism. Bessarion had good reasons to nip in the bud attempts by members of his circle like Girolamo Balbi and Theodore Gaza to prove that the Areopagite’s writings were actually apocryphal, since they perfectly served his agenda of promoting Plato in a Christian garb.78 Bessarion also relied on other, less obviously relevant sources. In fact, it was by using Herodotus’s comparative ethnological models that the cardinal made sense of the doctrine of the community of women, described in the Republic, at which George had aimed some of his most vicious attacks (IV.3.12, 511–513). Bessarion’s In calumniatorem addresses almost every point made by George in his Comparatio. The first, second, and fourth books are parallel to the three books of the Comparatio and set out to prove that Plato was wise, pious, and virtuous. In the first book Bessarion produced a Platonic encyclopedia, while

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arguing that Plato had opted against explicitly offering precepts for each of the disciplines out of deference to Pythagorean silence, which aimed to protect the highest truths from dissemination to the uncultivated multitude (I.2, 1–9, 11–23).79 In the second, Bessarion discussed in via Platonis the most important Christian tenets, such as the nature of God, the Trinity, the immortality of the soul, providence, and fate. In the fourth book he defended Plato’s moral reputation, in particular by providing new translations and exegeses of the texts from the Symposium and the Phaedrus that had been extrapolated and distorted by George (IV.2.5–30, 451–493). Bessarion was dissatisfied with the Latin versions of Plato circulating in his time, which he rightly claimed were inaccurate and too few in number. Naturally, George’s treatment of the Platonic texts especially irritated him. While George chose certain passages specifically in order to warn Latins not to read Plato, Bessarion conversely invited them to read the Platonic dialogues and detect the lies uttered by his opponent. This war of translation reaches its apex in the fifth book of the In calumniatorem where Bessarion lists—not always with good justification—all the errors he detected in George’s Latin version of Plato’s Laws. This serves as proof of George’s philosophical incompetence. Bessarion’s efforts to prove George’s unreliability as an interpreter of ancient philosophy were not, however, limited to Platonism: they were also aimed at debunking George’s alleged Aristotelian expertise. How could George effectively support Aristotle, if he did not actually understand his philosophy? The entire third book of In calumniatorem, which was mainly the work of the Dominican theologian Giovanni Gatti (1420–before 1484), is a review of the mistaken interpretations of Aristotle—not all of them actually wrong—made by George in his Comparatio. Added later to the plan of the work, the third book of In calumniatorem can be seen as a counterpoint to the second—in which Bessarion discussed whether Plato provides better support than Aristotle for the Christian faith. In the third book we again find discussions of the Trinity, the soul, providence, and fate, but with a focus on the Aristotelian perspective. On the one hand, Bessarion, with the help of Gatti, cherry-picked passages from Scholastic authorities—including Thomas Aquinas—which he found useful in underscoring George’s ignorance, and which lent support to the Platonic cause. On the other hand, Thomas Aquinas’s readings of Aristotle were challenged when they seemed to Christianize Aristotle too much. The demolition of the reputation George as an interpreter is therefore closely connected to the rejection of his Christianization of Aristotle. This strategy is evident, for instance, in the chapters on the

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immortality of the soul. In them, Bessarion endorsed the interpretations of On the Soul offered by Averroes—which denied individual immortality—and by Alexander of Aphrodisias—which denied immortality tout court—after having proven George’s exegesis to be untenable (III.27, 1–5, 405–411). Bessarion vowed never to attack Aristotle (II.3) in the way that George had attacked Plato: “In fact, I have always spoken of Aristotle in a very honest way, and I am far from thinking something so perfidious and insolent that it is insulting to him while I praise Plato. I believe that both were very wise, and I think to owe to both of them gratitude for the benefits they brought humankind.”80 In a way, Bessarion kept his word. He did not insult Aristotle a single time in the entire In calumniatorem and even tried to demonstrate that certain biographical legends with regard to Aristotle’s disloyalty to his teacher Plato and to other philosophers—legends endorsed by Pletho—were false. He used the examples of Plato, Parmenides, and Melissus to show that Aristotle shared their philosophical tenets, and he railed against them only to preserve their deeper meaning, which was theological and not natural, from the unschooled masses (II.11.2, 199–201). The advantages of this friendly attitude toward Aristotle were numerous. Aside from avoiding an openly agonistic stance against Latin theological and philosophical traditions, it allowed Bessarion to occasionally enlist Aristotle himself, along with other Peripatetics, among the authorities who celebrated and verified Plato’s excellence.81 If Aristotle’s persona is untouched, Bessarion nonetheless exploits the Simplician exegesis that cast Aristotle as a mere natural philosopher, thus divorcing his doctrines from religion and ultimately exposing their divergence from the Christian truth. This goal he achieves mainly in the second book. The comparison with the solutions offered by Plato and the filter provided by the Aristotelian interpreters selected by Bessarion, in particular Alexander of Aphrodisias, supply the image of a philosopher in irremediable conflict with Christian dogma, and thus unable to give satisfactory support to Christianity (II.9, 1–12, 165–179).82 Demonstrating Plato’s greater affinity with Christianity was Bessarion’s endgame, along with discrediting George’s accusations against the “fourth” Plato. Bessarion deliberately downplayed the apocalyptic vision used in the Comparatio to blame Platonism for the fall of the Greek Empire, by relying instead on a philosophy of history founded on the physiological life cycle of a civilization (IV.15, 1–2, 619–621).83 Combining the invective against George of Trebizond—whose name is never mentioned in the work, in accordance with Ciceronian practice84 —

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with an apology for Plato, Bessarion built up his comparatio by avoiding radical contrasts between the two philosophers. The first readers of the work perceived it more as a defense of a Plato than a comparatio, and for good reason. Indeed, Bessarion’s first draft of the work was entitled Defensorium Platonis, and several passages in the first book describe the In calumniatorem as primarily an apology.85 Yet Bessarion expressly referred to the work twice as a comparatio. Both instances occur in the opening of the second book, devoted to proving that Plato’s works could serve as an external support for Christian theology. In doing so, Bessarion adhered to the traditional Byzantine practice of comparing the two philosophers with an apologetic aim, following the examples of Metochites and Pletho. According to Bessarion, George, by contrast, did not even compose a comparatio, since he merely collected insults against Plato: Not too long ago, a book came into my hands, a book that promised a complete comparison between Plato and Aristotle. And after all, many of the ancients, both Greek and Latin, composed works of that kind, some preferring the arguments of Plato, some those of Aristotle, approving these and confuting those. There were also those who tried with great acumen to demonstrate the agreement between the two philosophers. . . . For all these reasons, I thought that the author of this book . . . did the same, either conciliating the opinions of the two philosophers or endorsing the doctrine of only one of the two, and explained the reason that led him to believe it, and expounded the reason for which he thought that the opinions of Aristotle were to be preferred and those of Plato to be condemned with a demonstration and, as convenient, with strong arguments. . . . Nevertheless, as I have finished reading the book, I can say that in the place of the treasures I hoped to find, I found—as they say— coal and, disappointed in my expectations, I have discovered nothing but accusations, offences and insults against Plato.86 In his opinion a comparatio ought to demonstrate either agreement or disagreement and politely express a preference for either Plato or Aristotle, which is precisely what Bessarion did. Bessarion took every care in the production and diffusion of his treatise to maximize its impact and neutralize the effects of George’s work. He subjected In calumniatorem to multiple revisions of its language and contents. The final Latin version, re-elaborated

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by his secretary Niccolo` Perotti (1429–1480), replaced a less elegant Latin text by Bessarion himself, based on an original Greek version that he had abandoned after realizing how few readers it would have attracted.87 Unlike George, Bessarion had his treatise printed, exploiting the new technology to spread the message of Platonism.88 Thus he transformed his quarrel with George into an opportunity to restore Plato’s name in the Western world, offering exegetical keys that made Platonism a palatable alternative to Aristotelianism in its long-standing alliance with Christian theology.89 That Bessarion’s book was republished in two Aldine editions, in 1503 and 1516, while George’s Comparatio appeared in print only once, in 1523, and in a defective edition, ultimately confirmed that Bessarion had won the battle.90

Neoplatonism and How to Criticize It: Ficino, Pico, and Cattani da Diacceto The dispute between George and Bessarion forced scholars to take sides. Some, like Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), found themselves in the awkward position of being torn between a friend, George, and a patron, Bessarion, who sent him a copy of the In calumniatorem hot off the press. For this reason Filelfo, who devoted some writings to the question of the Platonic Ideas, maintained a prudent neutrality rather than publicly endorsing either of the two contenders via their philosophical proxies.91 But after Bessarion and George died, the improved knowledge of Platonism now available to the Latin world allowed others to engage in further discussions over the respective merits of Plato and Aristotle. Another recipient of a gift copy of In calumniatorem, Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), seemed unreceptive to the idea of writing a comparatio between Plato and Aristotle. As the individual responsible for the first complete Latin version of and commentary on Plato’s works, Ficino was instead eager to promote, under the category of prisca theologia, the concordia between Plato and Moses. In this way, Ficino was Christianizing Platonism beyond what had been suggested by Bessarion, yet relying on many of the interpreters employed by the cardinal, including Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius.92 Apparently unfamiliar with Simplicius, Ficino addressed the topic of the relationship between Plato and Aristotle only rarely, and very briefly, from a seemingly concordist perspective.93 In one letter, Ficino proclaimed Aristotelian thought to be a preparation for the superior Platonic wisdom, in an

Figure 1. George of Trebizond, Comparationes phylosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis. Venice: Per Iacobum Pentium de Leuco, 1523. Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania.

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ascending path from nature to the divine. He used the same image in 1482, when he attempted to impose this narrative of ascent on the studies of a young, brilliant, arrogant nobleman whom he regarded as a prote´ge´: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494). It is true that Pico had first delved into Peripatetic philosophy when studying in Padua and then grew interested in Platonism after meeting Ficino in 1479.94 But, despite what his selfdeclared mentor Ficino claimed, the young count did not consider Aristotle subordinate to Plato. On the contrary, he was persuaded that there was a deep consonance, even a communio, between their philosophies.95 This idea was a cornerstone of Pico’s thought—appropriately enough, given that one of Pico’s titles was Count of Concordia—though for him the agreement between Plato and Aristotle was part of a more ambitious program.96 When in 1485 Pico collected nine hundred theses advocating the fundamental concord of all forms of wisdom—pagan, Christian, Jewish, and Arab—with the intention of discussing them in Rome, just one thesis was devoted to showing the agreement between Plato and Aristotle, who according to Pico differed only in words.97 The Roman dispute never took place, because some of the theses were condemned; but Pico did not abandon his conciliatory project, at least as far as Plato and Aristotle were concerned. Though he did not complete the ambitious writing entitled Concordia Platonis et Aristotelis he had announced, he made his position known in a short work composed between 1490 and 1491: the De ente et uno.98 The text was conceived on the occasion of a philosophical dispute between two of Pico’s friends, the humanist Angelo Poliziano (1454–1494) and Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492), the unofficial ruler of Florence, on the relationship between Being and the One. According to Aristotle, Being and the One are coextensive, in contrast to the arguments of Platonists, like Plotinus, who held that the One is superior to Being. Since Lorenzo spoke against Aristotle, Poliziano asked for Pico’s help, because “whoever believes Aristotle to be in conflict with Plato, is in conflict with him too.”99 The result was a short commentary on the Parmenides, the dialogue which Platonic interpreters used to support their interpretation. Pico reacted against their reading of the Parmenides (in particular 127a and ff.) by going back to the original text, in an attempt to examine it without what he considered to be their distorting lenses. Rejecting the Plotinian superstructure, Pico read the Parmenides not as a dogmatic work but as a dialectical one. For this reason, he maintained that no argument in the Parmenides could be regarded as dealing with divine or superior realities. Moreover, he claimed that in the Sophist (237d–e)—a dialogue he deemed instead

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to be dogmatic—Plato had affirmed that One and Being were coextensive and distinct from the participated ens. The coextensive nature of One and being in via Platonis and the dialectical reading of the Parmenides were not fruits of Pico’s exegetical ingenuity, as they had already been suggested by other interpreters.100 What distinguishes his stance is that Pico uses these arguments to prove the agreement between Plato and Aristotle, denying the subordination of Aristotle to Plato on the basis of the latter’s alleged metaphysical superiority. His other purpose in the treatise seems nevertheless to undermine the reliability of the Neoplatonic exegesis of Plato.101 Among those who were not pleased by Pico’s work was Ficino, who, in his commentary on the Parmenides, rebuffed his former prote´ge´ and insisted on the superiority of the One, by proposing original arguments but leaving aside the issue of the harmony between Plato and Aristotle.102 In the same commentary, Ficino praised one of his disciples, Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1466–1522), a fervent supporter of the Neoplatonic exegesis rejected by Pico. Possibly in reaction to Pico, and in defense of his own philosophical allegiances, Cattani repeatedly announced his intention to produce a text proving the concordia between Plato and Aristotle.103 Aware that his contemporaries distorted Aristotle’s doctrines and neglected Plato, Cattani aimed to revive Platonic doctrines while arguing that Aristotle and Plato agreed on almost everything.104 He never completed his concordia, and the elements we can gather from his writings and university lectures—beginning in 1502—make it clear that his text would have been sui generis. Cattani supports the agreement between Plato and Aristotle on subjects that typically displayed the contrast between the two philosophers, including the fifth essence and natural movements. He has no doubts, however, regarding the question at the very center of Pico’s De ente et uno: on that issue the contrast between Plato and Aristotle is irreconcilable, and Cattani fully endorses the Platonic position.105 In short, his intention of demonstrating the harmony between Plato and Aristotle had significant limitations, as it remained subordinate to his Platonic affiliation.106 Interestingly, religion did not play a primary role in motivating the preference Cattani had for Plato, as in the case of his teacher Ficino, who was convinced of the connection between Platonic and Mosaic wisdom. Cattani’s comparatio seems primarily aimed at a philosophical agenda, in which the validity of the Neoplatonic interpretative paradigm is at stake. Yet there are instances in which Cattani was forced to include religion in the context of a comparatio of Plato and Aristotle. In 1509, he was called

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on to defend Plato from the accusation of impiety made by some Parisian theologians. In that circumstance as well, he did not promote the Mosaic phantasmagoria of his teacher Ficino and admitted that Platonism and Christianity are different from each other, even if Platonic tenets seem more consonant with the Christian faith than those of Aristotle, which are nonetheless so highly valued by theologians.107 The entire structure of the writing (Cattani’s acknowledgment of Plato’s paganism and highlighting of Aristotle’s limits apropos religion) appears to come straight from Bessarion’s In calumniatorem, confirming Cattani’s limited personal engagement with the issue of the positions of Plato and Aristotle with regard to religion. What mattered for Cattani in his comparationes, which never became a unified work, was the legitimacy of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato.108 For Pico, in De ente et uno, what mattered was its rejection. It cannot be ruled out that Cattani, who was an insider in the university world, was attempting with his comparative agenda to legitimize Platonism vis-a`-vis Aristotelianism. Pico was certainly alien to this goal, as he was genuinely obsessed with the idea of a veritable concordia between the two philosophers, as part of a larger kind of concordia. In any event, neither Pico nor Cattani was interested in burdening his position with apologetic concerns. These would, however, become dominant in subsequent uses of the comparatio.

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Comparationes and External Aids

The Byzantine tradition of the comparatio was built on the reference to the Christian religion as a privileged parameter from which to evaluate the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Works like those of George of Trebizond, Cardinal Bessarion, and most surprisingly of all Gemistus Pletho, offered Latins models of apologetic comparationes, aimed at identifying one or more useful external aids for Christianity. Cultural and historical events nonetheless offered a new spin on the comparative genre applied to apologetic themes.

Taming Pletho: Augustinians and Protestants Pletho had composed his comparatio with the intention of undermining Aristotle’s support for Latin Scholasticism, celebrating instead the piety of Plato, the author who, in his view, preserved the Hellenic heritage and on whose works he built his own—perhaps heretical—political and religious program. Yet, as we have seen, De differentiis met with opposition from several Greek readers and received little reaction from the Latins in the decades immediately following its appearance. Even Ficino, who eulogized Pletho as the initiator of Plato’s return to the Western world, did not use De differentiis in his own writings, perhaps because he was suspicious of Pletho’s motives.1 In the sixteenth century, however, De differentiis attracted readers even among the elite of the Roman curia, and it was sympathetically received in Protestant Germany too. Pletho’s slow revival was possibly encouraged by the two Aldine editions of Bessarion’s In calumniatorem (1503 and 1516), as

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well as the appearance in print of George’s Comparatio (1523). It was also proof that Western scholars had eventually gained enough Platonic expertise to take on board Pletho’s teachings and exploit them to promote a theological alternative to Aristotelian Scholasticism. They were, however, oblivious to the possible paganizing implications of De differentiis that so troubled Scholarios and Trebizond. Nicolaus Scutellius (1490–1542) was an Augustinian and member of the entourage of the general of his order, Giles of Viterbo (1472–1532), for whom he translated several Greek works, mainly by Platonic authors like Alcinous, Iamblichus, and Proclus.2 The admiration Giles felt for Plato, nurtured by Augustine, was matched by his hostility toward Aristotle. Giles’s philosophical preferences had an obvious religious foundation, since he believed Aristotelianism to be detrimental to the Christian faith, a conviction that eventually culminated in his involvement in the drafting of the provisions of the Fifth Lateran Council (1513).3 With this mind-set, it was natural that Giles abandoned his juvenile attempts to find a way to reconcile Plato and Aristotle, cultivated also through reading Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis, and looked into an author who had attacked Aristotle’s impiety more effectively and directly: Pletho.4 Scutellius translated for Giles some of Pletho’s writings, providing him between 1520 and 1530 with a summary of the contents of De differentiis and of his reply to Scholarius. He likewise composed a treatise that was a re-elaboration of De differentiis, under the title Pletho in Aristotelem. The result was a very Christianized version of De differentiis, enriched with quotations from the scriptures and recurring references to recent theological debates. In his work, Scutellius mentioned that Plato, in the Philebus, spoke about the Trinity and that via Socrates, in the Alcibiades II, had even announced the coming of Christ.5 Plato, Scutellius claimed, had investigated God, elaborating the heavenly doctrine of Ideas while likening the earthly life of men to a prison. Whereas Plato philosophized divinely, Aristotle did so as a pig, as a physicus bound to the material world and therefore incapable of producing a pious doctrine.6 The stubborn attachment of Aristotle to the natural sphere resulted in his belief in the eternity of the world and denial of the soul’s immortality—which explains his shallow definition of happiness. Scutellius exploited the usual distinction between Plato theologus and Aristotle physicus to deny any possible agreement between the two philosophers, insisting instead on their deep-seated disagreement. Pletho had provided him with a wealth of anti-Aristotelian material, to which he added what was necessary to prove that Aristotle was beyond redemption. The recent debates on

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the question of the soul certainly played a role in the attitude Scutellius adopted, in particular if one considers his decision to present Aristotle unambiguously as a mortalist, something not even Pletho had dared to do.7 Augustinians maintained a constant engagement with Platonism.8 A contemporary of Scutellius, Ambrogio Flandino (d. 1532), wrote a treatise against the Comparatio by George of Trebizond, effectively plagiarizing Bessarion, in reaction to the recent printed edition of George’s work.9 Another Augustinian, Callisto Fornari (1484–1552), was associated with Pletho, although indirectly. Callisto had a noteworthy reputation as a Platonist, and as a successful preacher and an active inquisitor he used to insert Platonic references into his writings, pairing them with scriptural passages.10 He was therefore a credible protagonist in a 1540 dialogue largely based on De differentiis, entitled De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae philosophiae differentia, libellus (figure 2), which accompanied the first printed version of the treatise. The author of the dialogue, and the editor of the work, was the humanist Bernardino Donato (d. 1543). Donato’s purpose was established in the first lines of his dedicatory letter to Cardinal Rodolfo Pio: if a form of human wisdom is to be associated with Christian religion, that wisdom must prove, by virtue of its arguments, the immortality of the soul. Only Platonism has achieved that goal, and whoever pursues a different philosophy—like Aristotelianism—is overturning Christianity. Donato promises to substantiate his accusations against Aristotle in a truthful way and not to engage in slander, as George of Trebizond did with Plato. He recounts a dialogue that his friend Adamo Fumano—significantly, a translator of Eusebius—had heard in Pavia between the Augustinian Callisto and an otherwise unidentified Frenchman named Polycarpus.11 Polycarpus had asked Callisto to explain the difference between the Aristotelian school—typically followed by his contemporaries—and Platonism, which fascinated him after he witnessed a debate in Milan on the Platonic Ideas. Polycarpus cannot believe that Aristotle and Plato could agree on this doctrine, or many others, given how Aristotle wrote about his teacher. Despite what Callisto considers its imperfections, Plato’s philosophy appears to him to be respectful of the divine prerogatives, unlike Aristotle’s, which completely eradicates the role of God as a creator. This decisive point is further explicated in the second part of the dialogue, which focuses on other elements of discord between Plato and Aristotle, including being, the relationship between genus and species, the doctrine of reminiscence, vice and virtue, the supreme good, and more generally natural philosophy. In an excursus on the immortality of the soul,

Figure 2. Bernardino Donato, De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae philosophiae differentia, libellus. Venice: Scoto, 1540. Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania.

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Donato has Callisto point out the logical inconsistencies that characterize Plato’s doctrine of the soul, inconsistencies that can only be remedied by Christian dogma. Yet Aristotle’s philosophy is even less satisfactory regarding the soul. Here, while appropriating arguments expressed by Pletho in reference to the absence of an endorsement of immortality in the Nicomachean Ethics, Callisto remarks that there are interpreters like Alexander of Aphrodisias who portray Aristotle as a committed mortalist.12 At the end of the chapter on nature and art, just before the dialogue’s conclusion, there is mention of Bessarion and of Pletho’s De differentiis, and Callisto admits that he has taken over many of Pletho’s arguments.13 This section of the dialogue does indeed closely resemble the corresponding passages in Pletho’s text, and Donato evidently felt the need to reveal his hand. Like Scutellius, Donato made therefore a case for the superior piety of Platonism based on Pletho’s De differentiis. His work is also proof of the existence of Platonic circles in the cities of northern Italy, involving theologians like Callisto and humanists like Fumano, who advocated Platonism as a philosophy that was better suited to the needs of the Christian religion, in the hope of counterbalancing the dominant Aristotelianism of the Scholastics. Similar ideas were behind the decision of Georg Henish (1549–1618) to publish a Latin translation of Pletho’s De differentiis in 1574 in Basel under the name of Georgius Chariander.14 Chariander, who taught in the Gymnasium of Augsburg, was a Lutheran and as such certainly did not appreciate Aristotle-centered Scholasticism. From that perspective, Pletho served him very well, by exposing Aristotle’s limitations.15 But De differentiis also offered Chariander, as it did Scutellius and Donato, a means to propound a Christianizing reading of Platonism. Platonists—Chariander claims—not only have admirable doctrines but also many tenets that are remarkably similar to Christian teachings, proving that human reason is able to find arguments that philosophically support religious truths. Aristotelian philosophy, on the contrary, is subject to many interpretations, and most of them are in complete contrast to Christian teachings. And yet, echoing concerns already expressed in the Protestant world by Adam Henric-Petri and Theodore Zwinger, Chariander complains that Platonism is neglected today by young people, and that its doctrines are proverbially considered obscure.16 Aristotle—who in antiquity always occupied second place—is instead universally taught and honored. Thus, Chariander seems to suggest that Pletho’s comparatio could aid in correcting this situation. In order to clarify and support Pletho’s affirmations against Aristotle, Chariander also offers in the

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index summaries of and brief supplements to the chapters in De differentiis, relying on ancient and modern authors, such as Theodoretus and Jacob Ziegler.17 The Protestant Chariander addressed his translation of De differentiis to the Benedictine abbot of Sankt Gallen, Otmar Kunz, and evidently his intention was not only to enrich the abbey’s library. Since the abbot was responsible for a revival of classical studies in his monastery, Chariander was probably hoping to find an interlocutor who could share his philo-Platonic and antiAristotelian philosophical, theological, and didactic ideals, in spite of their religious differences. Platonism could therefore serve as a cultural bridge between Catholics and Protestants, because it offered support to dogmas shared by both sides of the religious divide, such as the creation of the world and the Trinity. Chariander’s attempt to enter into a dialogue with a Catholic was noteworthy if one considers that, well into the eighteenth century, many Protestant writers were eager to maintain a rigid identification between Platonism and Lutheranism, in opposition to Aristotelian Catholicism.18 The limited circulation of the works by Scholarius and George of Trebizond in the Latin world prevented them from drawing attention to the ambiguous reputation Pletho had in the sphere of religion, making it possible for him to be treated as an acceptable ally, even a predecessor, for the project of building an alternative to the traditional Aristotle-based theology. Men like Scutellius, Donato, and Chariander recognized in De differentiis a text that, thanks to its conciseness and rigorous mode of argumentation, could provide fuel for their anti-Aristotelian enterprises.

Different Shades of Harmony The French physician Symphorien Champier (1471–1539) promised no less than the harmonization of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, by explaining all of their most significant doctrines in his Symphonia Platonis cum Aristotele: Et Galeni cum Hippocrate.19 The quartet of ancient thinkers, harmoniously playing instruments, is pictured in the captivating frontispiece of the work (figure 3). Champier’s Symphonia nonetheless had a first violin, Plato, with the demonic Aristotle insistently subordinated to his divine teacher.20 Aristotle’s philosophy did not provide Champier with a coherent world description, given his own astrological-medical tenets; nevertheless, he underscores several of Aristotle’s views on biology, which he feels ought to

Figure 3. Symphorien Champier, Symphonia Platonis cum Aristotele: & Galeni cum Hippocrate. Paris: Badius, 1516. Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania.

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be considered and followed. The relegation of the Philosopher to the natural and particular realm does not, however, prevent Champier from Christianizing Aristotelian doctrines, including those contained in On the Soul, and demonstrating their agreement with the corresponding Platonic teachings. Yet Champier is even more zealous in his Christianizing of Plato. In fact, he attaches a short apology to the Symphonia—mostly cut and pasted from Bessarion’s In calumniatorem—in which he sets out the reasons why Christians should read Plato and other pagan writers.21 The text, intriguingly, is addressed to Champier’s friend Jacques Lefe`vre d’E´taples (d. 1536), whom he probably wanted to convince that Plato was more pious than Aristotle. Lef e`vre was particularly unreceptive to the Platonic enthusiasm of his time, and even when proposing Plato for pedagogical purposes, like in his Hecatonomiae (1506), he was keen to warn against several of his doctrines.22 In fact, on the one hand, he strongly favored Aristotle, and was sympathetic to George of Trebizond.23 On the other, Lefe`vre, a devoted admirer of the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, rejected the commonly accepted connection between Plato and the Areopagite, already exploited by Bessarion and Ficino for the purpose of Christianizing Plato.24 Champier instead followed Bessarion and Ficino in treating the works of Pseudo-Dionysius as definitive proof of Plato’s piety. For all these reasons we can understand why Champier would praise in a subsequent work Lefe`vre’s decision to devote his time to a pious philosophy rather than composing a comparatio between Plato and Aristotle: evidently, Lefe`vre’s comparatio would not have been very kind to Champier’s beloved Plato.25 The Symphonia can therefore be considered a failed attempt to promote a wider acceptance of Plato in Lefe`vre’s circle, by insisting on a Christianization of Plato and by minimizing the differences between Plato and Aristotle. Another physician, Andrea Camuzio (c. 1512–1587), explicitly aimed at reconciling the two philosophers, both with each other and with the scriptures. To this end, in 1541 he held a debate in Milan, the prolusion of which was published shortly afterward (In sacrarum literarum cum Aristotele et Platone concordiam praefatio). This was not, however, Camuzio’s first such attempt: in 1536 he had organized a similar debate at Pavia. Yet the 1541 debate had an explicit polemical target, a group of theologians and philosophy professors, mainly from Pavia, who were opposed to the reconciliation of scripture and philosophy—especially Aristotelianism.26 It is possible that one of them was Callisto Fornari, the protagonist of Donato’s dialogue, who favored Plato over Aristotle yet maintained that only faith holds the truth.

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The temporal proximity between the publication of Donato’s dialogue and Camuzio’s prolusion clearly adds weight to this suggestion. Explaining his opposition to those wanting to keep philosophy distinct from theology, Camuzio rejected the double-truth paradigm and refused to believe that teachers of philosophy were little more than charlatans who expounded false doctrines. On the contrary, he argued, Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines can open a gradual path to God, which does not replace but runs parallel to the intuitive one provided by religion. The notion that several paths can arrive at the truth is evidently taken from Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who is quoted in Camuzio’s prolusion. Although it firmly establishes the agreement between Plato and Aristotle, the text provides no clues to the arguments used by Camuzio during the actual debate. Camuzio appears more inclined toward Platonism.27 Yet, by not placing philosophy and theology in opposition to each other, he sought to maintain both Aristotle and Plato as valuable allies, able to provide reason-based confirmation of the truths of the Christian religion. The Spaniard Sebastian Fox-Morcillo (c. 1526–1559) instead opted for a conciliatory attitude toward Plato and Aristotle, but he carefully distinguished them from Christianity. This was the modus operandi of his De naturae philosophia, seu de Platonis et Aristotelis consensione (1554).28 The work is divided into five books organized in a geometrical structure of axioms, definitions, and hypotheses. In each chapter, Fox-Morcillo examines questions from the perspectives of Plato and Aristotle and then systematically juxtaposes the opinions of the two philosophers with the tenets of Christianity in order to prevent his readers from being deceived by the heresy of philosophy embedded in their doctrines.29 Fox-Morcillo proposes to his readers—and to the dedicatee of the work, Philip II of Spain—a moralized reading of Plato and Aristotle that endorses the doctrine of double truth. Faith must preside over the evaluation of their writings, establishing what can be saved in their doctrines and what must be rejected as contrary to scriptural truths. Occasionally, Plato and Aristotle are described as being in harmony with faith, yet Fox-Morcillo’s attempt to show a general agreement between the two ancient thinkers lays emphasis on the chasm that divides philosophy (represented by its two most emblematic incarnations) and religion.30 Plato and Aristotle, Fox-Morcillo admits, do not agree on everything. Sometimes their disagreement is justified by the juxtaposition of a Plato geared toward divine realities and an Aristotle interested only in knowledge of proximate causes.31 This distinction underlies Fox-Morcillo’s preference

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for Plato, but it is not enough to earn the philosopher—who remains indicted on account of his polytheism—a privileged status with respect to the Christian faith.32 Accordingly, Fox-Morcillo is unafraid to distance himself even from Augustine when he appears to Platonize excessively.33 The Praecipuarum controversiarum Aristotelis et Platonis conciliatio, written by the Augustinian Gabriele Buratelli (d. 1571) and published posthumously in 1573, followed a similar approach.34 Like Fox-Morcillo, Buratelli works to prove the agreement between Plato and Aristotle, in the belief that the unified truth of philosophy, resulting from the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle, does not imply its compatibility with faith. Buratelli is ultimately able to reconcile Aristotle with Plato by rejecting Alexander and Averroes, and by reading Aristotle through the mediation of Plotinus and other Platonists. And yet, Buratelli is at pains to emphasize that Christian truths must not be confused with Platonizing doctrines. Buratelli’s position—narrowly focused on a philosophical perspective— was somewhat unusual for a member of the Augustinian order, which was often engaged in praising Plato’s piety and utility for Christian religion. It was probably the radical attempt at integrating the Platonic tradition into faith, such as that proposed by his fellow Augustinian Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) in the monumental De perenni philosophia (first printed in 1540), that induced Buratelli to avoid introducing religion into his conciliation of Plato and Aristotle.35 Steuco’s efforts sometimes put him in an awkward position, especially when justifying the presence of Aristotle within the framework of his perennial philosophy, which included Plato as well as Chaldeans and Egyptians, in direct communication with the Gospels. That De perenni philosophia ends with a quotation from the Eudemian Ethics (1249b16–23) is a testament to Steuco’s commitment to integrating Aristotle, despite the controversial nature of many of his doctrines, within a tradition that saw Christianity as the culmination of the single truth that was transmitted over the centuries.36 By removing the Christian viewpoint, Buratelli was instead able to avoid the disheartening exegetical endeavor of saving Aristotle. And by detheologizing Platonism he sheltered it from the excessive concessions that Steuco had made by directly linking it to the roots of faith. Steuco’s excesses did not dissuade all his fellow Augustianians from considering Plato a better philosophical guide than Aristotle to piety, as is clear from the case of Stefano Conventi (d. 1602), who composed a number of treatises devoted to proving the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on individual topics. Conventi followed the tradition of his order, which privileged Plato,

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and his approach consisted in a Platonization of Aristotle. This is evident in his De primo enunciato summi boni, Platonica, Peripateticaque speculatio (1555), De ascensu mentis in Deum ex Platonica et Peripatetica doctrina libri sex (1563), and particularly the vernacular La prima parte de’ discorsi peripatetici, et platonici (1565), composed in the milieu of the Accademia degli Umorosi. Conventi opens this work by declaring that he intends to harmonize Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines also in other writings he is planning to compose. In commenting on the first two books of On the Soul, Conventi mixes Hermetic and Kabbalistic motifs to prove that Aristotle is a faithful follower of his teacher Plato, and that Plotinus’s philosophy could be considered a form of Peripateticism. These conclusions are enabled by Conventi’s reliance on Simplicius and on the spurious Theologia Aristotelis—in reality a collection of excerpts from the Enneads—that the Augustinian believed was genuinely Aristotelian, having filled a gap in Aristotle’s otherwise encyclopedic production.37 Through that Platonic lens, Aristotle’s most controversial opinions no longer threatened the faith, even with regard to the doctrine of Ideas. Indeed, a Christian reader could find tenets such as providence and creation entangled within the Platonic doctrine of Ideas. For this reason, the fact that Aristotle’s rejection of the doctrine was an obstacle for many religious writers. The Dominican Mattia de’ Gibboni, better known as Mattia Aquario (d. 1591), believed in a wide-ranging connection between philosophy and theology. This was not limited to the classical alliance between Peripateticism and Thomism but was extended to Platonism, in order to reinforce the rational demonstration of Christian dogmas. Aquario therefore needed to demonstrate the true consistency of this harmony between Plato and Aristotle in order to strengthen Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy and the Christian religion. This is what spurred him in 1575 to compose a short treatise entitled Disputatio pulcherrima de ideis, in qua ostenditur Aristotelem non adversari Divino Platoni. In it Aquario explains the attribute of “divine” traditionally ascribed to Plato by referring to Eusebius, according to whom Plato read the Mosaic writings and borrowed from them excellent doctrines, including the Ideas.38 Then, relying on Simplicius, Aquario states that Plato does not disagree with Aristotle about the Ideas, because Aristotle is in reality attacking an unsophisticated opinion held by other Platonic philosophers, who betrayed their master’s true thought. The worthy interpreter must look beyond the letter of what Aristotle says against Plato and focus on the spirit, to pinpoint the harmony that reigns between them on the majority of issues. After explaining why the passages apparently showing conflict between the

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philosophers instead demonstrate their harmony, Aquario yields to the authority of Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae Ia, 9.6 2.4 co.) to prove the philosophical peace between Plato and Aristotle. Thus, Aquario’s comparatio attempts to update Scholasticism by establishing the ancient roots of Thomism. Even if founded on cliche´d arguments, it is a serious attempt to find rational answers to theological questions and is sensitive to the—often implicit—Platonic references present in Thomas’s works.39 Another comparatio that deals exclusively with the doctrine of the Ideas is the 1615 Disceptationes de ideis in tres libros distributae by the Mantuan Scipione Agnello (1586–1653). Agnello claimed that the apparent disagreement between Plato and Aristotle was founded on a misunderstanding, on the part of Aristotle, of the Platonic definition of the term “Idea.”40 Accordingly, Agnello concludes that Aristotle is in harmony with Plato, and that both are in harmony with Christian theologians. After reconciling no less than Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, he reveals in his final peroratio that the harmony with regard to the problem of Ideas between ancient philosophers and Christian theologians culminates in an association with the Kabbalah. The association between the kabbalistic system and the Platonic Ideas, both harmonized with Aristotelian philosophy, was not an original solution: a similar conception was proposed by Cesare Evoli in his De divinis attributis quae Sephirot nuncupantur (1573).41 But Agnello aimed to incorporate aspects of “alien wisdom,” both Jewish and pagan, into Christian theology, granting Plato a privileged role in a manner not too different from Steuco’s. Reconciling Plato and Aristotle could therefore serve different, at times even opposite, purposes: obtaining the acceptance of Plato in Aristotelian circles; rejecting the double truth and unifying theology and philosophy; carefully distinguishing theology and philosophy by embracing forms of double truth; and strengthening Christian theology by enlarging the canon of its philosophical arsenal. In different degrees, nonetheless, all of the writers I have been discussing so far in this chapter pointed to the superior piety of Plato, a view that by the end of the sixteenth century would become extremely controversial.42

With or Against Plato: Jesuits, Franciscans, and Others In the period of time that separates the works of Aquario and Agnello, Catholic theologians for the most part moved in a completely different direction,

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attempting to minimize or eradicate any affinity between Christianity and Platonism. This anti-Platonic reaction was largely driven by Jesuits. According to a well-known anecdote, an illustrious member of the Jesuit order— Roberto Bellarmino—tried to dissuade Pope Clement VIII from establishing a chair of Platonism at La Sapienza, claiming that Plato’s thought was more dangerous than Aristotle’s, because it resembled Christianity too closely, thus making it a source of heresy.43 I return to the vicissitude of the Roman Platonic chair in Chapter 3. But for now let us delve into this connection between Platonism and heresy, which had as a frequent corollary the praise of Aristotle’s philosophy, whose many errors were patently obvious and therefore less harmful. This view was expressed, for example, in 1597 by another Jesuit, Pedro de Fonseca (1528–1599), in a sort of comparatio on the respective merits of Plato and Aristotle regarding faith that opens his commentary on the first book of Metaphysics and strongly favors Aristotle.44 Antonio Possevino (1533–1611), also a Jesuit, wrote enraged pages against Plato—though he did not spare Aristotle from attack—while in 1594 Giovan Battista Crispo (d. c. 1598), a layman closely associated with Cesare Baronio, Francisco de Toledo, and Roberto Bellarmino, devoted to Plato the first and only volume to be published in a planned series of volumes dedicated to the destruction of pagan wisdom.45 Among the things Crispo most bitterly criticized in the Platonic tradition were the attempts to establish a link between Plato and Moses, a theory he considered so preposterous that he condemned church fathers and modern interpreters alike for advancing it.46 In 1591, shortly before the publication of Crispo’s work, another Jesuit, Benito Pereira (1536– 1610), had presented chronological proofs that Plato could not have met Moses.47 This anti-Platonic campaign was a reaction to attempts to replace Aristotle with Plato as an ally of Christian philosophy and theology. As I stated above, this was not only the position of a few iconoclasts but was also proposed in a number of comparationes composed by influential members of the clergy, starting with Bessarion.48 Even worse, these attempts were often built on genealogies that put pagan philosophy in direct communication with Moses, as in Ficino, Steuco, or Muzio Pansa’s De osculo ethnicae et Christianae philosophiae (1601).49 At a time when apologetic battles—particularly by Jesuits—were fought on a daily basis, flirtations with an ambiguous ancient philosophical tradition in the context of theology could be perceived by Catholics as potential sources of heresy. And for the same reasons similar anxieties about Platonism were present in the Protestant world as well.50

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This context explains why a former Jesuit, Paolo Beni (1552–1625), needed to take careful precautions with his comparatio. Beni had begun working on this comparatio, designed as a commentary on the Timaeus, before leaving the Jesuit order in 1593. He published the first part it in 1594, while teaching at La Sapienza, but worked on it until the end of his life.51 Contemporary sources suggest that his comparatio did not irritate Jesuits and other opponents of Plato. In fact, he wanted to rescue Plato but did so by freeing him from the Neoplatonic and Christianizing superstructures imposed on him by ancient and recent exegeses.52 It was in keeping with this aim that in 1593 Beni abruptly abandon his translation of Proclus’s opera omnia into Latin.53 Proclus is, along with Ficino, the main target of Beni’s In Timaeum, since he was responsible for allegorizing Plato’s philosophy—making it fanciful—whereas Beni felt that it had solid logical foundations. Ficino built on Proclus’s approach to attempt something even more dangerous: linking Plato’s philosophy with the Christian religion. Ficino was also among those who followed Eusebius and affirmed that Plato was familiar with the Mosaic writings, as allegedly demonstrated by the Timaeus.54 Beni—who accepted an exclusively pagan prisca theologia—rejected any contamination and syncretism between Greek and Mosaic wisdom. He therefore affirmed that is impossible to align a text like the Timaeus, written by a “multorum philosophorum auditor,” with Moses’s writings, which originated uniquely from divine wisdom.55 It has been rightly suggested that Beni was essentially “detheologizing” Plato, distancing himself from more radical adherents of Platonism (like his colleague at La Sapienza Francesco Patrizi, discussed further in Chapter 3), in order to shield the ancient philosopher from the attacks he was being subjected to in Rome.56 The other reason Beni’s comparatio was acceptable to a traditionalist readership—suspicious of Plato and well disposed toward Aristotle—was Beni’s attitude to Aristotle. Despite his declared preference for Plato, Beni never openly questions Aristotle’s reputation. This is true even when he develops a detailed critique of Aristotelian cosmology, based not only on Plato and Christian theology but also on Galileo’s observations.57 Furthermore, although he makes several criticisms of Aristotle, which focus on the typical points of conflict between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology (in primis, the eternity of the world), he nevertheless devotes several sections to highlighting the aspects of Aristotelian thought that are useful for religion.58 And even when he points out Aristotle’s errors, he often labels

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them as tolerable or claims that they can be fixed.59 These “sops” to Aristotle allow Beni to express openly his predilection for Plato’s doctrines. But also his preference for Plato comes with a caveat: the ancient philosopher must be read in a straightforward way, without the tendentious distortions that transform him from a pagan thinker into a perfect Christian. Franciscans were nonetheless better disposed than Jesuits toward Plato and much less so toward Aristotle. A remarkable example of the sympathy Franciscans had for Platonism—and of their hostility to Aristotelianism—is the Christianae theologiae cum Platonica comparatio (1627), by the Bolognese Livio Galante.60 Although Galante invites his readers to approach the works of pagan writers with caution, his work is mainly a collection of authorities aimed at substantiating the affinity between Platonic philosophy and Christianity, with occasional mentions of Aristotle.61 He offers some conventional words of praise for Aristotle but often rebukes him for having attacked Plato for no reason, in particular regarding the doctrine of Ideas, which showed that the student was unworthy of his teacher.62 Unlike Beni, Galante has no intention of abandoning the link between Plato and Moses, and he relates the opposite reactions Plato and Aristotle had when reading the account of the creation of the world in Genesis. Whereas Plato praised the divine teaching, Aristotle blamed Moses for saying too much and proving nothing. Galante exploits this proverbial anecdote, which enjoyed wide circulation (see Chapter 4), to emphasize further the traditional difference between the “divine” Plato and the “demonic” Aristotle.63 Ultimately, Galante uses Aristotle as a punching bag to reveal the consonance of Plato’s doctrines with faith, the true subject of his comparatio.64 Around the same period in which Galante published his work another author, affiliated with the Roman Accademia dei Desiosi headed by Cardinal Maurizio di Savoia, sought to strengthen the link between Plato and Christianity to the detriment of Aristotle. Alfonso Pandolfi (d. 1648) was a product of the University of Ferrara, a traditional Platonic stronghold. This imprint evidently remained in some writings that Pandolfi drafted as a member of the Accademia, starting with the oration Che nella divina Scrittura si contengono tutte le scienze (That all sciences are contained in the divine scriptures), printed in 1630.65 The title is particularly intriguing if we consider that the Accademia was frequented by several of Galileo’s friends, such as Giovanni Ciampoli and Virginio Cesarini, and that the oration was written in the years immediately preceding Galileo’s condemnation. Even though Pandolfi elsewhere endorsed the Tychonic system, he was not interested in taking issue

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with Galileo.66 Instead, he sought to test the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle against the standard of the teachings of scripture. To this end, he used the scriptures as a tool to unveil the true nature of the two philosophers’ doctrines. He first dealt with the Platonists, mentioning the Mosaic roots of their philosophy.67 They partially foresaw the Trinity, although they did not grasp its unity and established a hierarchy between the first and the second God. Pandolfi dedicates several passages to the works of Plato that suggest that he had direct knowledge of the scriptures (for example, the chariot of the soul in the Phaedrus recalls Elijah’s flaming chariot). After admitting that he has devoted ample space to Plato because he is the worthiest of the philosophers, Pandolfi moves on to Aristotle. He praises some of the analogies between the book of Job and Aristotle’s writings. Yet Aristotle was not as wise as Job, not only because he was unable to explain why the sun causes heat, but most of all because he believed the world to be eternal, despite admitting the infinite power of God. This is truly a shame, especially since the book of Genesis contained the same principles he listed in his Physics; but Pandolfi lets Aristotle off the hook, for now. He goes on to display a more antagonistic attitude toward him in another text, which elaborates on the analysis offered in the Discorso, a comparatio of Plato, Aristotle, and the scriptures, extant in a single manuscript in Rome, with no title. The indication of the author (“the bishop of Comacchio”) allows us to date the work to after 1631, the year in which Pandolfi was raised to the episcopacy.68 Like other comparationes, his was left unfinished, and he apparently never composed the second part, which he announces at the end of the manuscript. He opens the treatise with the statement “Facilior est Platonem quam Aristotelem cum Sacris Litteris conciliare” (“it is easier to reconcile Plato than Aristotle with the Holy Scriptures”), which he substantiates by explaining how Plato was acquainted with the Mosaic and Judaic wisdom, despite not knowing Hebrew. Pandolfi also reports the testimony of those who accused Plato’s philosophy of aiding in the spread of heresy. Yet Plato’s errors, he writes, are no match for Aristotle’s, which are more dangerous for the Christian faith: the eternity of the world, the affirmation that God acts out of natural necessity, the exclusion of providence from the sublunar world, the fact that according to many interpreters Aristotle endorsed the mortality of the soul—the list goes on.69 Wondering how Christians came to rely on such an impious philosophy, he quotes Fonseca: Aristotle’s errors are evident, unlike those embedded in Platonism. Further still, the style of Aristotle’s philosophy makes it more suitable for teaching, and in any case Thomas

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Aquinas and other theologians accommodated Aristotle’s thought to a higher and better meaning. Pandolfi then describes Aristotle’s mistakes as a natural philosopher, taking into consideration some recent discoveries, such as the position of comets, and the entire doctrine of the celestial movements. It is therefore important, he claims, to find a new natural philosophy that is immune from errors and that can be drawn from the scriptures.70 And a comparison of Plato, Aristotle, and the scriptures can serve as its foundation.71 The idea of basing a natural philosophy on the scriptures was not an uncommon project in the seventeenth century.72 It was also what Beni was attempting to construct. Pandolfi’s comparatio follows a consistent template: the explanation of Plato and Aristotle’s doctrines on a given topic, followed by a comparison of their compatibility with the tenets of faith, and the judgment that Plato’s errors were less serious.73 While definitive truth can be found only in scriptures and in theology, Plato can nonetheless provide Christians with an imperfect philosophy, whereas Aristotle is only able to offer poison. Like Beni, Pandolfi is particularly enraged by Aristotle’s belief in the eternity of the world, a topic he again discusses in a posthumously printed work, Disputationes de fine mundi (1658). Several sections of the Disputationes are taken verbatim from the manuscript comparatio, and the underlying attitude of the two works is much the same. Pandolfi expresses his clear preference for Platonic doctrines, which are more consonant with Christian truth. He does not change his position about Plato’s acquaintance with the Mosaic texts, pointing out that Plato could not have had access in his time to a Greek version of the scriptures and that he could not meet Jeremiah, as stated by Augustine.74 But since the discussion of the end of world encompasses other sensitive religious topics, such as providence and the soul, it is obvious that Plato’s principles would be of greater service to a Christian philosophy than Aristotle’s. Notably, Pandolfi, like Beni before him, does not moderate his praise for Plato’s better adherence to the scriptures by acknowledging Aristotle’s natural philosophy as superior. On the contrary, he places Aristotle’s cosmology under scrutiny, since in his opinion the discoveries of the new science found better footholds in Plato’s philosophy and in the scriptures, particularly in relation to the generability and corruptibility of the world.75 The decline of the Neoplatonic exegesis of Plato, as initiated by Pico and carried forward by Beni, certainly damaged the thesis of Plato’s affinity to

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the Christian religion, which was largely based on the allegorical arsenal of Neoplatonism.76 The association of Plato’s philosophy with ancient heresies and heretics, mainly by Origenes and Arius, also helped to counterbalance enthusiasm for Plato’s patent of piety.77 Downgrading the utility of Plato as an “external aid” to religion did not, however, mean that Aristotle would have been seen as a good Christian. Early modern comparatores rarely attempted to baptize Aristotle—with the notable exception of George of Trebizond.78 In the eyes of many of his supporters, it was precisely his open conflict with Christian dogmas that made Aristotle a useful ally. Yet during the seventeenth century the limits of Aristotelianism with respect to faith became all too evident. And further religious attacks were made on Aristotle’s cosmology by the novatores.79 With new philosophical systems eager to serve the needs of faith, the apologetic comparatio of Plato and Aristotle was destined to fade quietly from the scene.

chapter 3

Learning, Protecting, Advertising Comparationes in University Halls

We have already seen that in ancient schools of philosophy comparing Plato to Aristotle was an exercise intended to gain a better understanding of Plato’s thought. This idea was based on the perception of Aristotle’s philosophy as a simplified form of Platonism, which made it an ideal introduction for younger students. When early modern professors of philosophy resorted to the use of a comparatio, the relation between the two philosophers was almost always inevitably inverted. It was Aristotle, not Plato, who occupied center stage in university halls. This meant that Plato was juxtaposed to Aristotle in order to obtain a full understanding of Aristotle’s philosophy. Nonetheless, when Platonism began to circulate in universities, comparationes also became an instrument for proposing or rejecting modifications to the traditional curriculum.

The French Connection: Francesco Vimercato and Beyond Born in Milan, Francesco Vimercato (1512–1569) studied in Bologna, Pavia, and Padua before going to Paris in 1540 to teach logic.1 His superior philosophical and philological skills, coupled with the support of Bishop Pierre Duˆchatel, resulted in his becoming a royal lecturer in Latin and Greek philosophy at the Colle`ge Royale in 1542. In this position, Vimercato significantly contributed to the first condemnation of the anti-Aristotelian writings of Petrus Ramus (1515–1572), in 1544.2

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What is believed to be one of Vimercato’s first works, composed between 1540 and 1542 at the Colle`ge Duplessis and left incomplete, is today preserved in a single manuscript, written in an elegant hand: a comparison of Plato and Aristotle entitled De placitis naturalibus Platonis et Aristotelis, ac inter eos de illis consensione et dissensione.3 Before this work, comparationes did not really have a place in universities. Indeed, for the first four decades of the sixteenth century, philosophy professors did not generally consider comparationes of Plato and Aristotle to be suitable teaching aids. This can partially be explained by the marginalized presence at that time of Plato’s dialogues, which were often relegated to instruction in Greek and generally excluded from the philosophy curriculum.4 Even a master who flirted with Platonism in many of his works, Agostino Nifo (1469–1538), repeatedly proclaimed himself incapable of ranking the two philosophers, maintaining in his 1520 commentary on De anima that comparisons are always hateful.5 This state of affairs helps to clarify why Vimercato’s recourse to a comparison between the natural philosophies of Plato and Aristotle made such a powerful impression: “My friends,” writes Vimercato in De placitis, “made me change my mind, and having heard that the king [Francis I] was coming, they urged me to put into writing the opinions about the natural philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and their reciprocal agreement and disagreement, because they heard me occasionally discussing these things in my lessons.”6 The mention of the king is particularly notable, showing that the interest Vimercato displayed for Plato was likewise indicative of his participation in an ongoing French cultural trend. Beginning around 1540, Plato became widely read in French courtly circles, as evidenced by a number of Latin and vernacular translations of Platonic works that appeared during these years— both in print and in manuscript—and were often addressed to Francis I and other members of the royal family.7 The Parisian teaching of Vimercato needs therefore to be framed and rooted in this flourishing interest in Platonism, in a moment in which he aimed at advancing his career and gaining the attention of the king.8 Yet De placitis was more than an occasional work written to please a powerful patron.9 This is made clear not only by the contents and sources of the text but also by the consistent method of exegesis Vimercato employs in his subsequent works and commentaries. The treatise was supposed to be the first part of a larger project intended to offer a complete comparison of the natural philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. This project grew out of a distinct pedagogical problem, already familiar to Lefe`vre d’E´taples: Aristotle often criticized Platonic doctrines without offering a clear

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description of them: “In fact,” says Vimercato, “it is impossible for us to understand what Aristotle meant in the many passages in which he criticizes Plato, reporting his opinion in a concise and brief way, unless we read it explained at greater length and more fluently in Plato himself. And not everyone has the time to do this.”10 Therefore, if one wishes to understand Plato’s doctrines correctly, and consequently fully comprehend Aristotle’s arguments, firsthand knowledge of the Platonic dialogues is a necessity.11 In introducing De placitis, Vimercato outlines his plan, which includes four treatises devoted to the treatment of different topics by Plato and Aristotle: a first book on the principles and the causes of things (that is, De placitis itself ), a second on the heavens and the four elements; a third on meteorology and earthly beings; and a fourth on the common natural affectiones, such as movement, void, time, and space.12 In each of the treatises, Vimercato planned to follow the same order, first explaining Plato’s position, followed by Aristotle’s, and demonstrating in the conclusion their conflict or agreement. De placitis was not completed, even though he had announced its imminent appearance in print in 1543.13 But this fact did not mean that he had abandoned his comparative enterprise. In fact, Vimercato composed another comparison of the Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines of natural principles. This is his De dogmatibus, a work which until now has been considered lost, but which I have been able to trace and identify in two different manuscripts—one complete and one containing a partial version of the work—in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.14 Divided into ten books, De dogmatibus is a massive treatise consisting of more than four hundred folios, which discusses at length such topics as the creation of the world, time and eternity, space and infinity, the elements, the animation of the heavens, and the stars. Yet it is not simply an extended revision of De placitis; instead, it overturns the perspective of the previous work. In terms of its content, De dogmatibus very much resembles another work by Vimercato, De principiis rerum naturalium, which appeared posthumously in 1596 but was composed around 1556, a date that can be considered a terminus ante quem for the writing of De dogmatibus.15 In both works, he clearly states once and for all his preference for Aristotle’s natural philosophy over Plato’s. And, not by chance, in De principiis he refers many times to De dogmatibus, while never mentioning De placitis, which he evidently considers an opus suppressum.16 De dogmatibus and De principiis share the comparative approach of De placitis to the two philosophers.17 This is perfectly coherent with the broader

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attempt by Vimercato to revise the teaching of natural philosophy, as described, for example, in the introduction to his commentary on (and translation of ) of Aristotle’s Meteorology, published in 1556 (figure 4): “I have therefore decided to examine that part of philosophy devoted to the study of nature according to my method, and to consider the tenets of the ancient philosophers, in particular of Aristotle and Plato, who were the most important among them, to compare them, and finally to lead them to the judgement of truth. . . . I have deemed it useful first to translate into Latin those books by Aristotle and Plato in which their natural philosophy is contained, and expound them with commentaries, as far as I am able.”18 In reality, Vimercato published only his translations of and commentaries on the Physics and the Meteorology (and, previously, the twelfth book of the Metaphysics), and nothing on Plato’s natural philosophy. It is clear that at a certain point in his career he became aware of the limits of natural philosophy in via Platonis and wholeheartedly embraced Aristotle, whose superiority in the field of natural philosophy he openly proclaimed both in De dogmatibus and in De principiis. While in De placitis he held a position that could be described as moderately concordist—stressing as much as possible the analogies between the two philosophers—in De dogmatibus and De principiis he emphasized the chasm between Plato and Aristotle, claiming that only the latter spoke as a natural philosopher should. By labeling Aristotle in his later works as the best natural philosopher, Vimercato was not flatly accepting the traditional division of spheres between Plato the theologian and Aristotle the physicus, which had often resulted in Plato being implicitly and explicitly declared the superior philosopher. When highlighting in De dogmatibus certain theologizing features of Plato’s philosophy, he used them, in fact, to reassert the inferiority of Plato, who, incapable of producing a good natural philosophy, was also in conflict with some of the most important religious dogmas. Accordingly, he rejected Christianizing interpretations of Plato. For instance, discussing the issue creation, he declared untenable Ficino’s claim that according to Plato prime matter was created by God along with the universe.19 As is evident in the Timaeus, he maintained, Plato believed that prime matter preexists the universe: “But we first need to make this clear, that is, that even if Plato agreed more than Aristotle with Moses and with the tenets of our faith, he was not fully in agreement, but rather disagreed to no small degree on both sides of the question, to the extent that he occupied a sort of intermediary position between natural and religious truth.”20 The contrast between Aristotle the physicus and Plato

Figure 4. Francesco Vimercato, In quatuor libros Aristotelis Meteorologicorum commentarii. Paris: Vascosan, 1556. Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania.

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the—imperfect—theologian therefore allowed Vimercato to situate Aristotle solidly in the natural world, away from any theological and metaphysical ballast. By overturning the Simplician exegesis used by Platonists like Bessarion to claim Plato’s superiority as an external aid to religion, he found an invaluable underpinning for his own very different agenda, aimed at reading Aristotle without external Christianizing interferences, strictly within the philosophical realm. Not by chance, when in his commentary on the twelfth book of the Metaphysics (1551) Vimercato claimed that Aristotle is no less divine than Plato, rejecting for him the lower epithet of daimonion typically related to his natural expertise, he founded his assertion not on theological arguments but rather on Aristotle’s praeclarior methodus.21 Strenuously convinced of the neutrality of Aristotelian philosophy in matters of religion, Vimercato was certainly reacting against Petrus Ramus’s attempts to exploit the distance between Aristotle and the Christian faith, as a means of dethroning him from his central role in the curriculum of universities, while advocating for a new methodus that he at times strategically associated with Plato’s.22 Their disagreement might have compelled Vimercato to progressively radicalize his own interpretation of Aristotle, so that by eliminating any remnants of theologizing he could rescue the Philosopher from accusations of impiety. The fact that, for example, in De placitis Vimercato still accepted as genuine the spurious treatise De mundo—which credited Aristotle with belief in divine providence and was usually regarded as proof of his piety—while in De dogmatibus and in De principiis he expressed serious doubts regarding its authenticity, exemplifies how in his mature years he was committed to freeing Aristotelian teaching from any religious implications.23 As I have already indicated, De placitis was composed during a time when Vimercato was at a turning point in his career and needed to impress Francis I. I have also said that the French court was particularly interested in Platonism, and De placitis was indeed undeniably sympathetic to Plato. In his chapter devoted to the natural principles of Plato and Aristotle, for instance, Vimercato claimed that there were no significant differences between the doctrines of the two philosophers (18v). On the other hand, in the same chapter, Vimercato openly rejected a defense of Aristotle devised by Bessarion in order to clear Aristotle of the accusation of envy and ingratitude toward Plato. According to Bessarion, Aristotle attacked and misinterpreted Plato’s doctrines to protect their deeper meaning from exposure to the unlearned masses.24 Vimercato subscribed instead to the black legend of a wicked Aristotle, intent on destroying the works and reputation of any philosophers

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who preceded him—including Plato—in order to exalt his own name.25 This passage is situated in a key section of the chapter, in which Vimercato suggests that Aristotle’s arguments against Ideas “either assume the false, or are deduced, not from the Platonic Ideas, but from a kind of Idea he himself has fabricated.”26 Years later, however, Aristotle’s criticisms of the theory of Ideas appeared in a different light to Vimercato. In De dogmatibus and De principiis Aristotle is no longer described as an envious manipulator of other thinkers’ doctrines; rather, Vimercato insists on the intrinsic theoretical weaknesses of the Platonic Ideas he had previously defended. He claims that “Aristotle’s arguments seem stronger, and less easy to confute.”27 He points out too that Aristotle rejects Platonic Ideas because they are useless for his system of the universe, which does not contemplate creation.28 In his later works Vimercato therefore establishes a close connection between the Aristotle’s critique of Platonic Ideas and his doctrine of the eternity of the world, a topic about which he was reticent in De placitis, limiting his discussion to a single line.29 If at that time his intention was to minimize as much as possible Aristotle’s conflicts with Plato (and Christianity), downplaying such a slippery topic was a necessity. But Vimercato’s attitude in De dogmatibus and De principiis is completely different. In those treatises, the eternity of the world in via Aristotelis is continuously mentioned and even praised for its theoretical strength, serving as the foundation for several chapters in both works and as a solid argument underlining the conflict between Plato and Aristotle.30 Vimercato conceived his comparationes and shaped a large part of his production mainly with exegetical-pedagogical purposes in mind, according to which an understanding of Aristotle required knowledge of Plato. Yet over the years, these exegetical-pedagogical purposes developed into something more and the evolution from De placitis to De dogmatibus and De principiis was no doubt also related to Vimercato’s intellectual battles. By focusing on natural philosophy and minimizing theological concerns, the hierarchy of the division of spheres between the divine Plato and the physicus Aristotle lost all meaning. Also, by presenting his reflections as purely concerned with natural philosophy, Vimercato was not only entitled to crown Aristotle as the best thinker but could also escape doctrinal traps that would have highlighted the clash between Aristotle and the Christian religion. Stimulated by the challenge of Ramus, he needed to build a safe space for Aristotle and for himself: emphasizing the limitations of Plato was the best way to emphasize obliquely the merits of Aristotle; the daring

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absence of religious concerns in his comparationes—even when discussing the eternity of the world—defused at its source Ramus’s denunciation Aristotle’s impiety. Interestingly, Jacques Charpentier (1524–1574), a colleague of Vimercato’s who was so critical of Ramus that many believed him responsible for Ramus’s murder during the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, took the opposite stance.31 In 1573, soon after Ramus’s death, Charpentier published a comparatio of Plato and Aristotle, built around Alcinous’s handbook. Charpentier addressed Ramus’s allegations against Aristotle directly, defending the Philosopher’s piety by arguing syllogistically in favor of his reconciliation with Plato: if Plato’s philosophy is pious and Aristotle agrees with him, then his philosophy will be pious as well. Charpentier resorted to the usual exegetical tricks in order to facilitate the agreement between the two ancient thinkers: Aristotle was keen to flaunt his philosophical originality and so at times, precisely for this reason, disagreed with Plato; and, at any rate, while Aristotle spoke as a natural philosopher, Plato was a theologian. But Charpentier, by relying on the spurious Theologia Aristotelis, which he had recently edited, also revealed the mystical side of Aristotle.32 Charpentier believed that it was necessary to argue against Ramus’s depiction of Aristotle as an impious man point by point, rather than opting for a strategic confinement to the field of natural philosophy, as Vimercato had done. Vincent Raffar (d. 1606), another professor at the Colle`ge Royale, also based his comparatio on Alcinous’s handbook, in the form of a prolusion to a course devoted to the ancient text.33 Although supporting a conciliatory position, like Charpentier, Raffar seemed in other respects to follow Vimercato’s lead, keeping the issue of the relationship between Plato and Aristotle on purely philosophical grounds. Therefore, he advocated making a clear division between philosophy and theology, in place of the commingling of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy and Scholastic theology that he saw in the universities.34 The contents of his comparatio are, nonetheless, rather disappointing. The rhetorical structure of a prolusion left Raffar little space to compare and harmonize Plato and Aristotle, and he resorted to making the usual arguments: Plato and Aristotle say the same things but use different words; when Aristotle declares that he disagrees with Plato, he only wants to proclaim his superiority; the interests of the two philosophers do not necessarily overlap. But aside from these well-worn motifs, Raffar stressed that his goal was to use Aristotle to illuminate Plato, and vice versa, for the sake of understanding and teaching philosophy.35

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Raffar published his work at the end of 1604, when Ramus was no longer a boogeyman, and Platonism itself was under attack. In 1605, in fact, King Henry IV—who had received papal absolution only a few years earlier— decided not to establish a chair for the study of Plato in Paris, an outcome plausibly dictated by the need to avoid any conflict with Rome, where Platonism was viewed with suspicion (see above chapter 2 and below).36 That behind the plan for establishing the Platonic chair in Paris lay the intention to teach “a doctrine less in contrast with the Christian religion than the Peripatetic”37 was certainly perceived as more dangerous than a purely philosophical approach like Raffar’s, which after all kept the prerogatives of theology safe by opting for a form of double truth. As Vimercato had shown, detheologizing Aristotle was an effective strategy for defusing any accusation of impiety, thus leaving his philosophical reputation and value as an authority untainted.

Other Aristotelians Vimercato’s comparationes apparently did not enjoy wide circulation: De placitis and De dogmatibus were never published, and De principiis was printed only in 1598. Yet in the second half of the sixteenth century interest in comparationes grew in universities. This was in large part due to a growing familiarity in university settings with the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, suggesting that in many cases the boundaries between Platonism and Aristotelianism were quite blurred.38 This circumstance obliged Aristotelians to gain a deeper knowledge of Plato’s philosophy in order to comprehend the relationship between the two philosophers, either to preserve the traditional curricula from Platonic interferences or to incorporate them. In his Universa philosophia de moribus (1583), Francesco Piccolomini (1523–1607), a leading professor of philosophy in Padua, listed Vimercato among those masters who avoided confusing the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and who recognized the importance of taking both thinkers into account in their teaching.39 His list also included Vincenzo Maggi, Marcantonio Genua, Federico Pendasio, Niccolo` Turchi, Gian Bernardino Longo, Girolamo da Ponte, Flaminio Nobili, Francesco Verino, Francesco Bonamico, and Antonio Montecatini.40 All of these thinkers, according to Piccolomini, had chosen the “via regia” to wisdom by maintaining a distinction between Plato and Aristotle, which allowed them to receive guidance from both of the two lights of human philosophy.

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Piccolomini himself adopted the same approach, presenting the positions of Plato and Aristotle as distinct throughout his Universa philosophia. He labeled the complete neglect of either Plato or Aristotle as sheer madness and criticized those who praised Plato in order to destroy Aristotle, and vice versa. He also believed that philosophers like Simplicius, Boethius, and Pico—while admirable for their reverence toward both Plato and Aristotle—were wrong in trying to reconcile the two philosophers on all subjects, because, although at times Plato and Aristotle do indeed agree, it was necessary to evaluate each doctrinal aspect separately.41 In Universa philosophia Piccolomini favors those who compare Plato and Aristotle to gain a better understanding of their doctrines, thus emphasizing both their agreements and their disagreements. He claims that those who wish to understand Aristotle without knowing Plato deserve to be condemned.42 But knowing Plato is important not only if one wants to grasp the true thoughts of Aristotle, he argues, because the two philosophers have pursued wisdom following two very different paths, both worthy of praise and useful for other men. Only God knows which of these two ways of philosophizing is the stronger and more truthful, because they are intrinsically irreducible in terms of genre and style: Aristotle composed treatises, Plato dialogues; Aristotle is an example of clarity and order, Plato of elegance and irony. Piccolomini nonetheless seems to nod in the direction of Plato when he mentions that Aristotle claimed credit for introducing new sciences and disciplines, while Plato preferred the attitude of his teacher Socrates, who knew only that he knew nothing. Following Bessarion, Piccolomini defends Plato from those who accused him of ignorance because he allegedly did not lay the foundation of any sciences. Piccolomini’s conclusion is the typical hierarchizing dichotomy between Aristotle, the physicus, and Plato, the theologian, except that he does not use it to reveal their intrinsic harmony but rather uses it to highlight their disagreement, which he regards as complementary: “Thus Aristotle tested the faculties of human mind in a more perfect way, Plato relied on the superior light; Aristotle is more capable of explaining those things which are perceptible to the senses, Plato in investigating new things, and in forming sublime abstractions; Aristotle stood out for handing down the art of rhetoric, Plato for using it; Aristotle abides resolutely by mortal things, Plato lifts us to superior things with a freer spirit; Aristotle perfectly teaches us to live this mortal life, Plato, in a sublime way, directs us to the future life.”43 The position Piccolomini takes is therefore fully consistent with his overall exegetical view of Aristotle, founded on the rejection of Platonizing

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influences in the interpretation of his thought.44 Also, the basic comparatio that we find in the Universa philosophia is not that far from Vimercato’s position. Piccolomini recognizes Plato’s merits by engaging in metaphysical and moral investigations, which were not part of Vimercato’s program, but upholds Aristotle’s primacy in natural philosophy; and, like Vimercato, Piccolomini does not indulge in apologetic evaluations of Plato and Aristotle, nor does he consider religion to be a measure against which their philosophies should be judged. Yet even if Piccolomini declares that knowing Plato gives one a better understanding of Aristotle, his commitment to Platonism seems to run deeper. After all, his sympathy for Platonism is coherent with the metaphysical interest that emerges throughout his philosophical production, in a context in which others in his circle (such as Luigi Lollino and Tommaso Pellegrini) favored assigning Plato a more significant role in the teaching of metaphysics.45 An even more marked preference for Platonism shines through in an earlier comparatio that has been often attributed to Piccolomini, though it appeared under the name of his student Stefano Tiepolo: the Academicarum contemplationum libri X (1576). There are certainly striking similarities between these ten Academicae contemplationes and the ideas expressed by Piccolomini in the Universa philosophia. Both works are critical of those who reject either Plato or Aristotle or try to reconcile them, and both lay stress on the differences between the two philosophers; moreover, the corresponding passages in the two texts are also remarkably similar in terms of expressions and vocabulary.46 Nevertheless, these arguments are not sufficient to prove that Piccolomini was the author of the Academicae contemplationes, because a good student often merely repeats what he heard his teacher saying. More significant is the evidence found in a seventeenth-century text that reports Piccolomini used to give to some of his students—those from prominent families—works that he had composed, for them to publish under their names, and that the Academicae contemplationes was a gift to Tiepolo.47 Yet “the wisest course”—as Frederick Purnell Jr. suggests—is “to postpone making a firm attribution” but to treat the works as closely connected to Piccolomini’s teaching.48 For this reason I refer to the author of the Academicae contemplationes as Tiepolo/Piccolomini. The treatise is a comparatio that, by analyzing in via Platonis ten crucial topics—including God, Ideas, soul, and universe—calls for Peripatetics to attain a better knowledge of Plato. According to Tiepolo/Piccolomini, Aristotle and his followers have unjustly attacked Plato. Aristotle declared his

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disagreement with Plato even when their differences were only superficial; and when he criticized his teacher on more serious grounds, his arguments are easy to reject. Peripatetics instead disregard Plato either because they have sworn to follow the words of Aristotle, and therefore cannot philosophize freely, or because they simply do not know anything about Plato’s thought, thus refusing to eat a fruit they have never tasted.49 In line with the initial declaration that Aristotle and Plato are the two lights of human wisdom, and the awareness that Plato’s thought is not sufficiently known, the work seeks to reestablish a balance between the two philosophers.50 Maintaining a double focus on Plato and Aristotle is very important, according to Tiepolo/Piccolomini, because the complementarity of their philosophies is beneficial to both of them. This complementarity, however, reveals the superiority of Plato, for Aristotle’s thought is propaedeutic to Plato’s, but Plato’s doctrine can enhance Aristotle’s teachings.51 Even when Tiepolo/Piccolomini demonstrates that the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle is often only apparent, he is more concerned with pointing out how Aristotle has misunderstood Platonic doctrines. Tiepolo/Piccolomini has generally a relaxed attitude toward religion. He does not accept, for example, those interpretations that credited Plato with some knowledge of the Trinity and, at the very end of the work, states that he is aware that Plato cannot fully satisfy the superior doctrines of Christianity.52 Yet he uses theology with gusto when it allows Plato to gain the upper hand, as when he discusses the relation between Ideas and the creation of the world, endorsing a position that he describes as shared by Plato, theologians, and the prisci sapientes.53 This marked Platonic preference aside, the Academicae contemplationes can nonetheless be read in close conjunction with Piccolomini’s De universa philosophia: the irreducibility and complementarity of Plato and Aristotle and the invitation to become proficient in both their philosophies are absolutely consonant. On the other hand, the polemical philo-Platonism of the Academicae contemplationes can be explained by considering the nature of this work, which was probably intended to be a manifesto for legitimizing the study of Plato alongside that of Aristotle. De universa philosophia—in which both Plato and Aristotle are invoked as authorities—put into practice the program proposed in the Academicae contemplationes. The hefty list of professors and theologians in De universa philosophia who honor Plato—as much as Aristotle—in their teaching showed that Piccolomini and Piccolomini/ Tiepolo were ultimately achieving their goal.

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Among the virtuous masters praised by Piccolomini for their engagement with both Plato and Aristotle was a former colleague of his in Padua, the Mantuan Federico Pendasio (c. 1525–1603), renowned for his expertise in natural philosophy. The interest Pendasio had in Platonism was well known.54 He frequently used Platonic sources to interpret Aristotelian works and in his commentaries often emphasized how Aristotle himself believed that it was useful to comment on the differences between his philosophy and Plato’s.55 His comparatio of Plato and Aristotle, entitled De differentia Platonis et Aristotelis, which was the fourth lesson of one of his courses on the Physics and which survives in a single manuscript, has not been taken into consideration by modern scholarship.56 Having answered general questions about philosophy in his earlier lessons—which are not included in the manuscript—Pendasio investigates which method ought to be followed in natural philosophy. To this end, he introduces a discussion of the Timaeus, the work in which Plato offered his most comprehensive treatment of natural philosophy. The manuscript is not dated, but its subject matter suggests that he delivered this course at the time of his Paduan teaching, or shortly after moving to Bologna in 1571, when he was still under the influence of the discussions on the best method for teaching philosophy.57 It was in Padua, in fact, that masters like Giovan Battista da Monte (1489–1551) and Bassiano Lando (d. 1562) had pointed to the need for a new method that integrated Platonic tenets with Aristotelian ones.58 Pendasio was evidently receptive to these debates; yet despite his interest in Platonism he was unwilling to acknowledge the merits of Plato’s method in the area of natural philosophy. In his De differentia he offers a schematic summary of the contents of the Timaeus, highlighting the different sections that form the dialogue. At the end of this brief summary, he says that his students will now understand the extent to which Aristotle surpassed Plato in the field of natural philosophy. Plato has, in fact, founded his arguments on obscure principles, the Ideas, that risk compromising the primacy of God. Plato’s logical skills are even less satisfying for Pendasio, who shows how reducing doctrines from the Timaeus to syllogisms unavoidably results in contradictory assertions. Worst of all is the order followed by Plato for his natural investigations, because in the Timaeus he places the question of the generation of the world first and foremost, without first presenting a discussion of principles. Plato likewise followed the wrong order when discussing the soul or the different parts of the soul without a preliminary examination of the body and its operations. In this way, Plato cannot account for the soul’s essence, something Aristotle

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could explain precisely because he began his investigation of the soul by considering the operations of the body. Pendasio finally reaches this conclusion: “On account of this, I believe that we cannot become perfect philosophers following this kind of reasoning. On the contrary, Aristotle knew very well that nothing can be adequately explained if we do not know the principles on which all the other things depend, since if we ignore the principles, everything collapses.”59 Aristotle always moved “a principiis . . . ad principiata,” and he also distinguished between those principles that are common to everything and those that are particular to certain things. That is why in all his writings— including those focusing on particular subjects such as On the Heavens and Meteorology—he invariably begins by discussing principles. Becoming acquainted with Aristotle’s method would allow Pendasio’s students not only to gain a perfect knowledge of natural realities but also to confront Plato’s natural philosophy without being deceived by it.60 Pendasio’s didactic comparatio has a very narrow focus. In De differentia the comparison between Plato and Aristotle is centered not on the contents of their doctrines but rather on their argumentative methodologies in natural philosophy. Pendasio adapted the comparatio to the scheme of a typical introductory lesson on method in a course on the Physics. The integration of a comparison between Plato and Aristotle into a university course on natural philosophy allowed him to enthrone Aristotle as the authority in that field and to underline Plato’s limitations. The unreliability of Plato’s method and order of exposition was—as we will see—behind many attempts to keep Platonism out of the university curriculum, and this issue was an important battlefield for those who were instead trying to legitimize the teaching of Platonism.61 Antonio Montecatini (1537–1599) was another of the professors Piccolomini lists as making use of both of Plato and Aristotle in their teaching.62 Montecatini was a student of Vincenzo Maggi—who was also praised by Piccolomini, and who advocated the use of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle—in Ferrara, and in 1567 he obtained a chair there in natural philosophy.63 In 1576 he published his In eam partem III libri Aristotelis de anima, quae est mente humana, lectura.64 This work, edited by his student Girolamo Bovio, was strongly influenced by Averroist and Simplician readings of Aristotle. But the main point of interest of the book is that throughout its pages Montecatini repeatedly alludes to other of his writings, including an apology for Aristotle against some unnamed slanderers, and another work

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entitled Concordia. This Concordia was likely left unfinished: in one of the marginalia Bovio informs readers that he saw only some unrefined drafts (“sylva”) of his teacher’s text.65 Montecatini’s Lectura nevertheless provides clues to the nature of his comparatio. As the title of the work suggests, Montecatini undertook the ambitious task of demonstrating the agreement between Aristotle and Plato, along with other ancient philosophers. Though not particularly original, his Aristotelian and Platonic expertise was certainly solid.66 There is a passage from the Lectura in which Montecatini refers to an interpretation of Iamblichus reported by Philoponus (De anima 3, 533.25– 35).67 According to this interpretation, Aristotle agreed with Plato that all knowledge is reminiscence, and Montecatini reacts by claiming that Iamblichus did not have the right method of showing the harmony between the two philosophers. In his Concordia he suggests a different approach, which also takes into account the different ways in which Plato and Aristotle expressed their ideas: “In my Concordia I do not, however, wish to reconcile Aristotle with Plato and with the other ancient philosophers in this way [like Iamblichus], so that their opinions are confused and corrupted. It is enough for me to demonstrate that they agree and consent in the roots and causes of their opinions, even though they can emit different sounds, so to speak, with their foliage; and if someone has to be interpreted, it is certainly not Aristotle, who speaks in a plain way, but rather other philosophers, who speak figuratively and symbolically.”68 The stylistic exuberance of this statement does not conceal that Montecatini is basically repeating the traditional argument used to prove the harmony between Aristotle, Plato, and other thinkers, such as the Eleatics: Aristotle disagrees with them only in words (the sound of the foliage), not in essence (the roots). No less traditional is Montecatini’s claim that the apparent disagreement between philosophers could be reduced to their different styles of expression, plain and clear in Aristotle, metaphorical and complex in the case of others, including Plato. Montecatini, therefore, seems to have undertaken his Concordia in pursuit of an encyclopedic ideal that aspires to reduce ancient poetic wisdom to the clarity of Aristotelianism.

Professors of Platonism We can consider Montecatini’s project, so favorable to Aristotle when comparing him to his predecessors, as a sort of photographic negative of, and

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possibly in connection with, the almost contemporary enterprise of a colleague of his in Ferrara, Francesco Patrizi, the second volume of whose Discussiones Peripateticae, printed in 1581, significantly is addressed to Montecatini.69 Patrizi also wanted to demonstrate the agreement between Aristotle and his predecessors; in contrast to Montecatini’s, however, his aim was to reveal the ways in which Aristotle had betrayed, misunderstood, and appropriated the doctrines of those who philosophized before him. In short, for Montecatini Aristotle systematized the convoluted doctrines of his predecessors and made them more accessible, whereas for Patrizi Aristotle was no more than a fraud and a plagiarist.70 Although it is plausible to assume a relation between Montecatini’s Concordia and apology for Aristotle and Patrizi’s attack against the Philosopher, it must be emphasized that Patrizi’s treatise was the pars destruens of a larger philosophical and pedagogical project. Patrizi’s ultimate goal was to replace Aristotelianism with a new philosophy—associated with Platonism but also based on even more ancient thinkers—as the core of university teaching.71 Patrizi was pursuing this aim as an insider: of the very few chairs of Platonism in sixteenth-century Italian universities, he held two in consecutive order, the first in Ferrara (1578–1592) and the second in Rome (1592–1597). Yet the prestigious position in Rome, created by Pope Clement VIII himself and his nephew Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini, was short-lived. Precisely in 1592, Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia (1591)—the pars costruens of his philosophical program of renewal—was put under investigation, and in 1596 eventually included donec corrigatur in the Index of Prohibited Books in the wake of an anti-Platonic reaction led by the Jesuits.72 After the death of Patrizi and that of his successor in Rome, Jacopo Mazzoni (discussed further later in this chapter), the Platonic chair was definitively abolished in 1598.73 The failure of Patrizi’s project, and the brief flowering of Platonic teaching in Rome, should not be viewed merely as the result of a conflict between Aristotelians and Platonists within university halls. Rather, it must be considered in a larger theological context, in which Patrizi’s enthusiasm for ancient pagan wisdom, including that of Plato, aroused considerable concern. The contemporary attitudes toward Plato of Beni and Crispo (see Chapter 2) were different expressions of this disquiet.74 Yet the hostility of Patrizi to the philosophy of Aristotle, as the cornerstone of university instruction, was central to his works, including his comparationes, which make up books II and III of his Discussiones Peripateticae. The two books offer a comparison of Aristotle and his predecessors, stressing their affinities in book II and focusing

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in book III on the apparent disagreements between the Philosopher and other ancient thinkers. In endorsing the biographical traditions that depicted Aristotle as envious and ambitious, Patrizi suggests that Aristotle criticized the doctrines of his predecessors—above all, those of his teacher Plato—not because he disagreed with them but instead to underscore his own theoretical ingenuity. Patrizi views this attitude as especially reprehensible because it jeopardized the entire understanding of ancient philosophy: “Thus, I am particularly amazed . . . that such a serious philosopher as Aristotle, who proclaimed to prefer the truth to friends, even to his own writings, has continuously made accusations against Plato that are entirely false and pointless, so much so that if we did not possess those books by Plato that he criticizes, just as we do not possess the books of other ancient authors, what Aristotle says about them would be considered the irrefutable truth.”75 Patrizi declares that presenting a complete account of borrowings Aristotle made from his predecessors is impossible, since he is aware that many of their works have survived only in fragments and cannot be verified, and also because there would be too much to list from Plato’s works.76 Whereas Bessarion claimed that Aristotle had criticized the Eleatics from the perspective of natural philosophical solely in order to defend the deepest core of their theological truths, Patrizi instead implies that Aristotle denied Melissus and Parmenides the status of physici, in order to mask his pilfering of their doctrines.77 In other instances Aristotle simply borrowed what he needed from his source, thus reshaping the original argument in a new form. This happens, for instance, with Plato’s political and poetic teachings, and also with his cosmology.78 Patrizi thinks that Aristotle was greatly helped by Averroes in establishing his philosophical tyranny. Averroes, in fact, described Aristotle as the inventor of every branch of philosophy, a claim that Patrizi argued he had disproven by means of his investigations.79 The Discussiones Peripateticae were not intended to offer simply a comparatio of Aristotle, Plato, and other ancient philosophers. Overriding this issue was Patrizi’s call for a new mode of reading Aristotle, based on a consideration of his works in their entirety. Patrizi maintained that this was the most effective antidote to the limitations and errors of Peripateticism.80 Not by chance, in the first book of the Discussiones he openly praises those interpreters—among whom he lists Vimercato—who were able to offer a purer exposition of Aristotle’s works. In the fourth book, he provides instead a full review of what he considered to be Aristotle’s philosophical aberrations.81

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Thus, the agreement of Aristotle with Plato and other ancient philosophers proclaimed by Patrizi was not aimed at celebrating their harmony, under the umbrella of the philosophia perennis. On the contrary, Aristotle’s agreement with Plato and others revealed Aristotle to be an impostor and a stumbling block in the way of the philosophia perennis, as Patrizi explains in his Dell’ordine de’ libri di Platone (1590).82 In the years following the composition of the Discussiones, Patrizi adopted a more common argument to support replacing Aristotelianism in the schools with his own Platonizing philosophy: the superior piety of Plato.83 He repeatedly insists on this both in his Nova de universis philosophia and in his Dell’ordine. Addressing in 1591 the Nova de universis to Pope Gregory XIV and to all future popes (“futuris romanis ponteficis maximis”), Patrizi makes it clear that he is looking for the continued support of the church in bringing to fruition his project of evicting Aristotle from the universities. Unlike Plato and Hermes Trismegistus, Aristotle is in fact impious, and as such was rejected by the church fathers.84 In Dell’ordine Patrizi argues that the entrance of Aristotle into university teaching has caused the ruin of many souls imbued with his false tenets. Yet Plato and his school are excluded from universities, despite being “little less than Christians.”85 The absolute superiority of Plato over Aristotle in matters of religion would normally have been a valid argument for the Platonic cause.86 But in post-Tridentine Rome, Aristotle and his philosophy were unassailable. The attacks Patrizi made on him, together with his call for a new philosophy that was too closely aligned with pagan wisdom, ultimately resulted in the collapse of his project and the abolition of the Platonic chair in Rome. The case of Patrizi shows that some precautions were needed when advocating the teaching of Platonism. While he had dared to challenge Aristotle and the Aristotelian university tradition openly, other professors of Platonism in the late sixteenth century were careful not to exhibit hostility to Aristotle in their comparationes. Nor did they present Plato’s philosophy as a replacement for Peripateticism in the schools, generally arguing for the fundamental agreement of Plato and Aristotle. Furthermore, apologetic concerns were behind virtually every comparison of Plato and Aristotle produced by these professors of Platonism, but without Patrizi’s virulent bias against Aristotle. When Aristotelian professors like Vimercato and Pendasio composed their comparationes, apologetic concerns were absent or at least marginal. This was not only because their comparisons were focused specifically on natural philosophy, thus defusing a priori theological interference, but also because

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they did not need to legitimize Aristotle by proving his utility as an external aid for the Christian religion. Professors of Platonism were in a very different and much more precarious position, and therefore they had to prove the merits of their subject, though avoiding Patrizi’s anti-Aristotelian excesses. This happened even in Pisa, the university in which Ficino’s legacy arguably remained stronger than anywhere else, and in which Platonic teaching managed to survive—with interruptions—from 1576 to 1635.87 Francesco de’ Vieri (1524–1591)—an ordinario di filosofia who in 1576 had been granted the right to teach Plato in die festivo—reports that the introduction of the teaching of Platonism was met with resistance by some of his colleagues, forcing him to abandon his efforts after only three years. Vieri provides us with this information in the opening to his own comparatio, entitled Vere conclusioni di Platone conformi alla dottrina Christiana e a quella d’Aristotile (1589). He composed this work in the hope of reviving his Platonic teaching in Pisa or Florence, counting on the endorsement of the Medici family, which he believed to be sympathetic to Platonism.88 Among the jealous and insolent colleagues he denounced was doubtless his rival Girolamo Borri (1512–1592). Borri, a staunch Aristotelian, claimed that Plato was not suitable for university teaching because he lacked method and order.89 Borri’s position echoed what had previously been claimed by Pendasio and many others. But in the final decades of the sixteenth century, when the introduction of Plato into the universities was beginning to take off both officially and unofficially, several advocates of Platonism felt the need to justify and systematize the contents of Plato’s writings, in order to demonstrate that they were no less useful for teaching than those of Aristotle. Vieri himself had initially singled Aristotle out for proceeding “with order and stronger demonstrations” than those presented by Plato. He eventually changed his position, however, possibly in reaction to Borri, and certainly to promote the assimilation of Plato into the university curriculum.90 In any case, Borri’s opposition to Vieri ran even deeper, as Borri was not only hostile to the teaching of Platonism but also extremely critical of any attempt to harmonize Plato and Aristotle. The two philosophers, he affirmed, were happy to disagree and would laugh at those who try to reconcile them. He considered conciliatory exercises to be self-deceptions that breed ignorance with their permistio doctrinarum.91 Nothing could be therefore further from Borri’s position than Vieri’s pedagogical program. During his three years of Platonic teaching, Vieri

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lectured on the Hipparchus twice in a row, focusing only on those conclusions “on which Plato and Aristotle agree, which are in large number.”92 He also planned to compose two hundred conclusions that would demonstrate the concordia between Plato and Aristotle.93 And in the Vere conclusioni he proposes a curriculum for teaching Platonism designed to take place over four years, in the second of which, he writes, “I would like to compare that same author [Plato] with Aristotle, regarding the conclusions on which they are in agreement (without manipulating their texts), because in this way the Peripatetic philosophy would be more credible and certain.”94 Through his agreement with Plato, Aristotle would therefore enhance his own philosophy by revealing its true contents. Vieri had already attempted to restore the ancient truth of Aristotelianism, in order to counter those whom he labeled as modern heretics.95 The identity of these modern heretics is revealed in a passage of the Compendio della dottrina di Platone (1577), that relies heavily on the well-known preface to Plotinus by Ficino. Echoing Ficino, Vieri argues that the return of Plato has been instrumental in the recovery of the real Aristotle. In fact, he affirms, Plato’s pious philosophy has urged Peripatetics to abandon bad interpreters, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes—who maintained that the soul was mortal or unique for all humanity—and to embrace instead the individual immortality of the soul.96 Tellingly, in the Vere conclusioni Vieri indicates the individual immortality of the soul as the most important among the fifteen points of agreement between Plato and Aristotle. He frames his positions within an Aristotelian theory of knowledge, however, which rejects the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence, though this issue is left more in the background in the Vere conclusioni than in his other writings.97 Despite his stated intention not to distort the texts of the two philosophers, Vieri nevertheless forces their agreement by making Plato more Aristotelian and Aristotle more Platonic. Although he does not accuse Aristotle of impiety, Vieri in his Compendio praises Plato for his greater proximity to Christianity. As we would expect, Vieri explains his judgment by relying on the traditional distinction between Plato the theologian and Aristotle the natural philosopher. The study of nature did not provide Aristotle with as many divine truths as those Plato was able to obtain by following a different and superior path.98 Yet Plato was not a Christian. He was familiar with the scriptures, but his reading was not fostered by contact with God’s elects; nor was he brave enough to challenge the pagan laws.99

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By stressing the adequacy of the argumentative order Plato exhibits and the soundness of his doctrines, by emphasizing his piety without Christianizing excesses, avoiding open conflicts with Aristotelians, and conversely endorsing Plato’s general agreement with Aristotle, Vieri attempted to facilitate the revival of teaching of Platonism in die festivo, which he wanted to carry out himself. Unluckily for Vieri, he died in 1591, the year in which the Platonic teaching was restored, and was entrusted instead to Jacopo Mazzoni from Cesena (1548–1598). Mazzoni had joined the University of Pisa in 1588, after having been trained in Padua under the guidance of Pendasio.100 His educational background clearly explains his exposure to the comparative reading of Plato and Aristotle. Unlike his teacher, however, Mazzoni initially believed in a complete reconciliation between the two philosophers, and in 1576 he published 5,197 theses, many of them related to the agreement between Plato and Aristotle.101 He defended his theses publicly a year later in Bologna and, as a testimony to his orthodoxy, was invited to collaborate with the Inquisition.102 After a brief period spent teaching in Macerata, he moved in 1588 to Pisa, where he taught both Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy until 1597. By that point he had substantially revised his original concordist position with regard to Plato and Aristotle. He openly admitted as much in a book he published at the end of his Pisan years, which was supposed to be the first of a series: the In universam Platonis et Aristotelis philosophiam praeludia, sive de comparatione Platonis, et Aristotelis liber primus.103 Although Mazzoni had previously affirmed that the disagreement between the two philosophers was limited to only a few issues, he now admitted that in those instances they were divided by an Empedoclean discordia, from which almost the entire universe of philosophical truth originates.104 This disagreement has positive connotations for him because he argues that from the contrast between the two philosophers we can obtain “more abundant sparks of truth.” He does not declare his allegiance to either of the two philosophers, since in his opinion they can both be useful: Plato and Aristotle are like two merchants offering different kinds of goods. Therefore, we need to decide from whom to buy goods, and if neither of them offers what we look for, we will not purchase anything.105 The Praeludia are, in reality, much more than a simple comparatio of Plato and Aristotle. Mazzoni’s arguments produce a polyphonic sound, which brings together a number of dissonant auctoritates—mostly ancient and medieval—contributing to the discussion of the positions of Plato and

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Aristotle. Mazzoni sometimes refers to alternative schools of thought from a historical perspective, in order to explain what motivated Plato, Aristotle, or their followers to develop controversial doctrines or methodologies. This happens, for example, with academic skepticism, which he acutely views as a strategic reaction to Stoic dogmatism.106 Similarly, Plato’s convoluted argumentative style was caused, according to Mazzoni, by his conflict with the Sophists. Aristotle, who philosophized at a later stage, did not have Sophists as opponents and could therefore write more plainly.107 The thirty chapters of the Praeludia focus on a single issue, the problem of the active and the contemplative life, which ultimately represents a defense of philosophy as the pursuit of the highest good, that is, truth. In terms of theme, the Praeludia are very close to Mazzoni’s De triplici hominum vita, which was a step on the path of their composition, despite Mazzoni’s change of attitude regarding the agreement of Plato and Aristotle. In terms of structure, the different parts of the Praeludia are organized in a dialectical scheme typical of university teaching, beginning with theses, followed by objections, and concluding with their resolution. As Purnell points out, Mazzoni considered the comparatio to be a proper “philosophical technique,” which for him had significant didactic value.108 The didactic scope of the Praeludia is revealed by at least two elements. Most evident is that the work is explicitly addressed to young students of philosophy.109 Also, the discussion of the merits of philosophy, and of the active and the contemplative life, was typically the object of the preliminary lectures in a university course on the Physics.110 Since the Praeludia were conceived as the first in a series of volumes, this seems to suggest that Mazzoni wanted to employ the comparatio as a methodological tool that could accompany the traditional structure of an entire university course, whereas his teacher Pendasio had applied the genre to a single, introductory lecture (see above). A good example of the methodological use of the comparatio can be identified in the treatment of one central concern in the Praeludia, Mazzoni’s defense of philosophy against skepticism. The combined use of Plato and Aristotle becomes decisive, permitting Mazzoni to construct a theory of knowledge that reacts to the challenges of skeptics. He maintains, in typical Aristotelian fashion, that physical substances are the object of scientific knowledge, while praising, in a Platonic manner, the advantages of mathematics in the investigation of nature.111 Unlike Vieri, Mazzoni does not feel the need to give his opponents an explicit justification of his parallel use of Plato and Aristotle. The only

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implicit endorsement of Plato can be found in a section devoted to his piety, in which corresponding references to Aristotle’s religion are significantly absent.112 But Mazzoni’s comparative method implied in the first place an acknowledgment of Plato’s utility within the university curriculum, as a critical voice that helps to shed light on aspects of truth that are not evident from the study of Aristotle’s doctrines alone. Mazzoni’s original conciliatory paradigm, as described in the theses, by smoothing out the differences between the two philosophers, would have deprived the comparatio of its essential purpose. By giving Aristotle a positive role in his comparatio, Mazzoni ensured that it was not challenged by those who opposed the teaching of Plato in the universities; and when he was called on to replace Francesco Patrizi in Rome, he was perceived as representative of a reassuring traditionalism. The only apparent reaction to Mazzoni’s comparatio came from outside the university milieu. As a letter from Venice reveals, in 1604 Francesco Maria Sagri from Ragusa had composed a “conciliatione delle differenze che sono tra Aristotele et Platone,” with the intention of dedicating it to Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici.113 Sagri had already challenged Mazzoni’s writings on Dante, and it is reasonable to assume that this comparatio—which, unlike Mazzoni’s, sought to demonstrate the complete agreement of Platonism and Aristotelianism—was intended to carry forward their rivalry.114 A diplomat and correspondent of Isaac Casaubon and Justus Lipsius, Sagri was executed as a heretic in 1616.115 The conciliatory comparatio that he promised as a gift to a powerful patron, if it was ever written, has disappeared, perhaps in the wake of his tragic death.116 The teaching of Plato on feast days in Pisa came definitively to an end in 1635. Those who occupied the position after Vieri and Mazzoni—Carlo Tomasi, Cosimo Boscagli, and Girolamo Bardi—consistently referred to the comparatio between Plato and Aristotle in their didactic material. They usually posited the agreement of Plato and Aristotle (even with respect to the question of methodus) and incorporated mild apologetic motifs in praise of Plato.117 Yet their writings were rehashes of arguments of the past, at that point deprived of any coherent purpose, since the battle for Plato’s legitimization in the university was no longer the order of the day. Among professors of Platonism—with the exception of Patrizi— comparationes were mainly instruments of legitimization for Plato, whose precarious position, both from a didactic and from a theological perspective, forced his supporters to rely on Aristotle as a sort of guarantor, with whom he was in agreement or at least complementary.118

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The End of the Comparatio Tradition In the second half of the seventeenth century the comparatio of Plato and Aristotle took a different path, exploring the relationship between ancient and modern philosophies, in terms both of competition and of complementarity. At that point the visions of Plato and Aristotle were no longer considered only in their reciprocal opposition, and they occupied a side of a wider philosophical battlefield that included thinkers like Pierre Gassendi and Rene´ Descartes. When in 1671 the Jesuit Rene´ Rapin (1621–1687) composed his comparatio demonstrating that Aristotle was more compatible than Plato with the Christian faith, he was not simply perpetuating his order’s traditional hostility toward Plato. In Rapin’s view, the real conflict was not so much between the two ancient philosophers as between them and their modern colleagues. The querelle des anciens et des modernes, as he presented it, had clear winners and losers.119 He implied Platonism’s vulnerability with regard to the Christian faith and affirmed that “a simple villager, who behaves with submission and docility in matters of religion, is preferable to Plato and Aristotle.”120 Nevertheless, he concluded that “human reason never appeared in so much natural force and vigor” as in the two ancient philosophers.121 Considering the fragility of human knowledge, and despite their many mistakes that had been exposed by moderns, Plato and Aristotle remained for Rapin—inclined toward a fideistic skepticism—the safest guides. No modern philosophy, or scientific theory, grounded on a phenomenological level, could boast such solid foundations as those constructed on ancient metaphysics.122 A similar claim had already been made by Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706), particularly in his De consensu veteris et novae philosophiae (1663). Even though the comparison between Plato and Aristotle is limited to traditional arguments (Plato divinus and Aristotle physicus, Aristotle who misunderstood Plato, and so on), De consensu is noteworthy in that it presents Aristotelian (and Platonic) doctrines as the foundations for the observations of the new science, which, in turn, confirms the ancient tenets.123 As in Rapin, in du Hamel the phenomenological character of early modern philosophy is deemed insufficient and in need of “metaphysical” guidance. Therefore, the real comparatio in du Hamel is between ancient and modern philosophy, arguing for their possible complementarity, a goal many were pursuing at the time, also by openly rejecting the Scholastic abuses of Aristotle’s genuine thought.124 The historicizing outlook that characterizes large

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sections of works like those of du Hamel and Rapin, which offered accounts of the reception and modifications of the ancient philosophies, is symptomatic of a gradual shift in the conception of the comparatio, from an apologetic or exegetical-pedagogical tool to one used primarily for historiographical purposes.125 Yet the historiographical approach to the comparatio did not necessarily exclude philosophical engagement or the desire to pursue an urgent cultural agenda. This was the case with Giuseppe Valletta’s Discorso della filosofia of 1697 (figure 5). Valletta (1636–1714) composed his Discorso in reaction to the cultural repression he witnessed in Naples after the 1688 inquisitorial trial of four young lawyers accused of atheism. Due to popular protests against the Inquisition and the forced abjurations of the four defendants, the trial did not come to an end until 1697.126 The trial was motivated by the authorities’ concern over discussions held within the local Accademia degli Investiganti, whose members advocated a free philosophy, which did not compromise reason with faith like Scholasticism. Exposing the limits and the errors of Scholasticism, the Investiganti promoted instead the novel ideas of Gassendi and Descartes. Throughout the trial, both traditionalists and Investiganti “reformers” exchanged polemical pamphlets, among which was Valletta’s Discorso.127 The first section of Valletta’s tract is a comparatio of Plato and Aristotle, nurtured by a vast knowledge of the previous literature on the topic by historiographical digressions, while the second part—like the works of du Hamel and Rapin—expanded the discussion to include modern philosophy.128 Valletta’s recourse to the comparatio was strategically aimed at legitimizing Cartesian atomism by revealing its ancient Platonic-DemocriteanPythagorean foundations (which, incidentally, validated belief in the ancient Italic wisdom—that is, in a tradition of thought rooted since antiquity in southern Italy).129 In further re-elaborations of this genealogy, Valletta added Moses as the true founder of atomism, which resulted therefore consistent with the piety of Plato’s philosophy as praised by the church fathers.130 If this is the pars construens of Valletta’s comparatio, the pars destruens is obviously devoted to attacking Aristotle and his tradition, and it draws on customary anti-Aristotelian arguments. Valletta identifies Aristotle as the main impediment to a lineage that connects Plato to Descartes. And while the opponents of the Investiganti labeled Cartesianism a danger for religion, he denounced Aristotle as the source of all heresies and of atheism itself. In reaction to those who claimed that refuting Aristotle meant refuting Thomas Aquinas as well, he tries to downplay Thomas’s preference for Aristotle, stating that Thomas

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commented on Aristotle’s works only in an attempt to remedy their errors.131 It is in Peter Lombard’s writings that he finds the beginning of the Aristotelian darkness that has enveloped philosophy, a darkness that ended only in the fifteenth century thanks to the restoration of Plato, favored by the Greek scholars, including Pletho and his student Bessarion. There is a nice circularity in the fact that, as in the case of Pletho, the philosopher responsible for the Western revival of the comparatio, Valletta’s comparison—probably the genre’s last hurrah—celebrated Plato at Aristotle’s expense and was largely directed against Scholasticism. But Valletta wrote his comparatio to support philosophical freedom and the autonomy of science, exploiting Plato’s authority not only against Aristotle and those who had abused his philosophy but against all restrictions on human reason. Once this battle had been won, the comparison between Plato and Aristotle, could be absorbed and digested in historiographic works along with its typical motifs, for example the contraposition between Plato the theologian and Aristotle the physicus which will be later employed to identify them as respectively the forefathers of Idealism and Materialism. But the need to defend or destroy the authority of Aristotle was no longer at the core of those battles.132

Conclusions Comparationes were works ultimately intended to keep an auctoritas alive, for either religious or professional agendas. The return of Plato to the Latin world provided an opportunity to rethink the traditional dominion of Aristotle, both in theology and philosophy. After Bessarion’s triumph over George of Trebizond contributed to secure the survival of Platonism in the Western world, Plato was exploited either to damage or to buttress Aristotle’s reputation. The dualism between Plato and Aristotle, as brought out in comparationes, could therefore be employed for different ends, including revisions to the traditional university curriculum or its preservation, the promotion of external aids to Christianity. Generally speaking, in the hands of Aristotelian professors, the comparatio was a tool employed to reinforce Aristotle’s position as an authority in the field of natural philosophy, and at times to expose Plato’s theoretical limitations, leaving aside religious concerns. Yet in cases like that of Vimercato recourse to the comparatio was also guided by a genuine interest in

Figure 5. Giuseppe Valletta, Discorso della filosofia (Ms. Codex 435). Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania.

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gaining better comprehension of Aristotelian texts via the contents of Platonic dialogues. Among the professors of Platonism, only Patrizi—who had a deliberate plan to replace Aristotle with a new form of philosophy infused with Platonism—dared to defy the Aristotelianism of the schools openly and to compose a comparatio that was unremittingly hostile to Aristotle. Other professors of Platonism were instead too concerned with defending their precarious chairs to do much more than safeguard the reputation of Plato without trying to damage his ancient counterpart. This required them to minimize any conflict with the Aristotelians, producing comparationes that were conciliatory or syncretistic and emphasized the utility of Platonism for Christianity. Religious concerns were central to those comparationes that were primarily apologetic and aimed at establishing which of the two philosophers was better suited to serve Christianity. Proving the agreement of pagan authors with the scriptures was a common feature of the humanists’ self-promotion and legitimization, and the apologetic comparationes between Plato and Aristotle could be framed in that wider practice. In apologetic comparationes—typically produced outside university halls—Aristotle was often made subordinate to Plato, and the religious inconsistencies of the Peripatetic system were exposed. Highlighting Plato’s greater suitability to serve the faith permitted Scholasticism to be questioned and could even favor dismissing it entirely. In this sense, one often has the impression that Plato was mainly useful in challenging Aristotle’s tyranny, a goal shared by Catholic and Protestant authors alike. On the other hand, the extremism of certain partisans of Plato provoked a reaction on the part of Jesuits and other Scholastic philosophers, which eventually led to undermining belief in Plato’s utility for Christianity. But apologetic comparationes could also be used to prove that Plato and Aristotle agreed not only with each other but also with the scriptures. Grouping all of the authorities of reference together—both religious and philosophical—and arguing for their intrinsic coherence may have been an attempt to gain traction in a world that was complicated by textual, geographical, and scientific discoveries that had weakened traditional forms of knowledge (just as in late antiquity some pagan authors like Simplicius argued for the harmony of the two philosophers in reaction to Christianity). But when the history of philosophy emerged as a scholarly discipline, the need to harmonize Plato and Aristotle was reevaluated as a chimera, if not an obstacle to understanding the doctrines of the two philosophers.133 The search for contrasts was more in tune with the necessities of the historia philosophica.

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The differing results of comparationes were based on rhetorical strategies—for instance, the choice of stressing a particular topic or appropriating ad personam arguments according to one’s needs—and on the programmatic selection of interpretative filters and testimonies. Proclus and PseudoDionysius were helpful when there was a need to sanctify Plato, and so was Simplicius when agreement between Plato and Aristotle was invoked. Alexander of Aphrodisias was rejected whenever Aristotle’s piety needed to be underscored and invoked when the goal was to undermine it. For these reasons, the comparatio was also a useful means of testing, approving, or dismissing exegetical schemes. In sum, comparationes of Plato and Aristotle were vehicles for customized accounts of their lives and ideas, at the service of the aims of their early modern followers and opponents.

chapter 4

Customizing Authorities Legends, Anecdotes, Fictions

The three case studies treated in this chapter are distinct examples of ways in which the authority of Aristotle and occasionally of Plato were appropriated, manipulated, and reshaped. The two legends discussed in the first section focus on nationalistic uses as well as cultural agendas. Yet, despite being apparently similar, one of the legends transcended the limits of its place of creation, assuming an entirely different set of values, while the other was conceived within a restricted context, in which it ultimately remained. And although both would eventually be debunked by virtue of philology, one enjoyed a short life, while the other continued throughout the entire lifespan of early modern Aristotelianism. The proverbial anecdote at the center of the second section allows for an intertwining of the issues of authority and authorship, showing how the former often ended up canceling the latter. The authoritative and symbolic importance ascribed to an author—Aristotle or Plato—made it easier to attribute an anecdote to him, even if it had never appeared in his writings, while obliterating the memory of the individual who had actually written it. And even when the true author’s name eventually resurfaced, it was to meet specific needs. The final case studied in the third part of this chapter brings us into the world of apologetic literature, showing that Aristotle could at times help to reconcile Catholics and Protestants. That he was able to play this role is by no means improbable, given that both denominations recognized him as an authority in their cultural institutions.

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Aristotle the Spaniard, Aristotle the Jew The Judaism of Aristotle is a motif that flourished in the world of Jewish learning beginning around the second half of fourteenth century. Ioseph ben Shem Tov (c. 1400–c. 1480), Abraham Farissol (1451–1525), and Abraham ben Shem Tov Bibago (c. 1420–c. 1489) were among the Jewish authors who accepted different versions of Aristoteles Judaicus.1 According to one version of the legend, Aristotle was born Jewish or converted to Judaism later in life, while according to another version he acquired his wisdom by stealing books from the Temple in Jerusalem.2 This double perspective repeated argumentative patterns already applied by the church fathers, mainly with regard to the Platonists who were their contemporaries: Platonists were either “converted” and integrated into the Christian tradition or accused of having stolen their doctrines from the Bible.3 In the Jewish context the two different versions of the legend were both coherent with a long-established Judaic apologetic tradition, focused on the appropriation of Greek philosophy, by which the “master of those who know” became a part of Jewish culture. This self-promoting appropriation of Aristotle on the part of the Jews is paralleled by another apocryphal tradition that enjoyed notable circulation between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries: Aristoteles Hispanus. Francisco Rico has reconstructed the genesis and reception of this improbable legend.4 In 1236, Luca de Tuy (d. 1249) composed a chronicon in which he praised Spain. A remarkable section of it is devoted to highlighting the Spanish origins of Aristotle, who left his homeland to study with Plato in Athens.5 The passage from de Tuy was reused in 1288 by Juan Gil de Zamora (d. c. 1318) in another work in praise of Spain, De preconiis Hispaniae.6 Zamora mentioned his debt to de Tuy in recounting the tale of Aristoteles Hispanus, but he also claimed to have relied on more authoritative sources and, according to some manuscripts, on Pliny the Elder.7 The presence of the apocryphal legend in de Tuy and Zamora was not accidental. As Rico has argued, in the thirteenth century Spain was engaged in a cultural struggle with France, at the same time that Aristotle was in the firing line at the University of Paris. The 1277 Paris condemnation sealed a century of censures of Aristotle in France; yet in Spain he was read and honored without restriction. Thus, the tale of Aristoteles Hispanus exalted Spain at expense of its rival, France, and glorified the important role played by Iberian culture in the complex vicissitudes of the translatio studiorum. Zamora, in transforming Aristotle into a Spaniard, probably had a specific kind of philosophical genealogy in mind.

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The Aristotelian commentator Averroes, born in Cordoba, was unquestionably Spanish, and his legacy was retroactively ascribed to Aristoteles. It was within this same narrative that another influential reader of Aristotle, Avicenna (born in modern-day Uzbekistan) was likewise made a Spaniard by Zamora.8 The connection with Averroes allowed the legend to develop even further: Aristotle was not just from Spain but specifically from Cordoba, like the Commentator. This evolution occurs in a work of 1438 by Juan de Mena (1411–1456), the Coronacio´n del Marques de Santillana, celebrating the marquess’s victories against the Moors. In it, the motif of the Spanish Aristotle is again used to celebrate Iberian glory.9 The legend of Aristoleles Hispanus, given its nationalist slant, was well received only in the Spanish cultural world. Outsiders like Petrarch rejected it due to the chauvinistic implications embedded within the legend. He used it in his Invectiva contra eum qui maledixit Italiam (Invective against a detractor of Italy) to silence the French arch-Aristotelian theologian Jean de Hesdin (d. 1420), who had praised Aristotle as if he were a fellow French citizen (“tanquam . . . Aristotiles gallus sit”). Responding to de Hesdin, Petrarch pointed out the ridiculousness and flagrant nationalism of the Spanish appropriation of Aristotle: “Now, I have read a book by a certain Franciscan entitled Prosodion. In this little work on grammar, the friar wanders far from his subject and is so drunk with vain patriotism that he says that Aristotle was a Spaniard. And now our madman apparently makes him a Gaul. His words can only mean that he dismissed Tullius [Cicero], an Italian and a Roman, by citing the alleged Gaul, Aristotle—who I am sure never saw or even heard of Gaul, since he was Greek or Macedonian by birth, and a native of Stagira!”10 The Franciscan mentioned by Petrarch was Zamora, who evidently had also inserted a passage on Aristoteles Hispanus into one of his grammatical works, the Prosodion. The passage does not, however, appear in the extant manuscripts of the work, possibly because these were transcribed by nonSpanish scribes who had no reason to copy it.11 But the codex used by Petrarch evidently included the passage. In the sixteenth century even Spanish editors decided to suppress references to the legend in some printed versions of de Mena’s Coronacio´n.12 It is therefore clear that Aristoteles Hispanus was marketable only within a limited nationalist context. And herein lies the decisive difference between this legend and that of Aristoteles Judaicus.13 The Jewish Aristotle similarly

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functioned as an ennobling cultural agent. Yet even when stripped of its narrow “identitarian” implications it could still be used outside the Judaic world. In this different context, however, the Jewish Aristotle was no longer employed for the exaltation of a well-defined cultural and social group. Instead, Aristotle’s biography was revised to serve apologetic purposes. Making Aristotle a Jew permitted him to be a monotheist, who was not a Christian solely for reasons of chronology. The crux of the anecdote was accordingly overturned. Whereas the Judaic versions of the Aristotle legend dignified Hebrew philosophy by portraying the Philosopher as Jewish, in its Christian versions Aristotle was dignified by his portrayal as a monotheist Jew, very close to Christianity. The legend of the Jewish Aristotle did not, however, enter the Christian world through Judaic texts. It was the Latin translation of Eusebius’s Praeparatio evangelica by George of Trebizond, printed for the first time in 1470, that accidentally led to the circulation of the motif outside the Jewish community. In the ninth book (§6), Eusebius quotes a passage from Josephus (Contra Apionem, I, 180), who had in turn taken it from the dialogue On Sleep by the Peripatetic Clearchus of Soli, recounting an encounter between Aristotle and a Jew.14 Josephus had employed the passage from Clearchus, which Eusebius took over in its entirety, in arguing that the Greeks knew of and admired Judaic culture.15 Due to a misprint, however, by which a comma was misplaced in the Latin edition, the meaning of the passage was completely altered, so that it implied Aristotle was himself a Jew (“Ille igitur subiunxit, Aristoteles Iudaeus erat” rather than the correct “Ille, igitur subiunxit Aristoteles, Iudaeus erat”).16 Those, like Marsilio Ficino in his De Christiana religione (c. 1476) and Gilbert Ge´ne´brard (1535–1597) in his Chronographiae libri quatuor (1580), who wanted to establish an uninterrupted lineage of pious wisdom, beginning with Moses and permeating Greek philosophy and finally Christianity, did not miss the opportunity to quote the corrupt passage.17 Only in 1573 did the great Jewish scholar from Modena, Azariah de’ Rossi (d. 1577), expose the error in Me’or Enayim (The Light of the Eyes), entirely rejecting the legend of a Jewish Aristotle in both its Judaic and Christian versions.18 De’ Rossi’s works had limited circulation in Jewish circles, however, and when the Me’or Enayim was read and used as a text of reference, it was not always properly exploited. This happened with the 1587 Sefer Shalshelet haK.abbalah (or Cabalistic Chain), by Gedaliah ibn Yahya (c. 1515–c. 1587), a work that later earned the unenviable epithet of “Chain of Lies.”19 Gedaliah

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appropriated the material collected by de’ Rossi against the Jewish Aristotle to defend the legend, in all its permutations, depicting the Philosopher as Jewish either by birth or conversion with the support of an arsenal of quotations. In so doing, Gedaliah’s text had the effect of reviving the circulation of the legend, even outside Judaic circles. In 1634 the Orientalist Jacques Gaffarel (1601–1681) copied, and translated into Latin, a short passage devoted to the Jewish Aristotle in the Sefer Shalshelet ha-K.abbalah. This exercise was sure to please his Italian friend, the Aristotelian professor Fortunio Liceti (1577–1657).20 Fully committed to Aristotle and to the demonstration of his excellence, Liceti was indeed delighted by Gaffarel’s communication, and he shared the fragment with their common acquaintance, the French scholar Gabriel Naude´ (1600–1653), in a letter he published in 1640.21 Liceti then made the fragment the keystone of his treatise De pietate Aristotelis (1645), a work in which he attempted to show that Aristotle was essentially a Christian, and that his philosophy mirrored the piety of his religion.22 The reason Liceti was so enthusiastic about the passage is obvious. By enabling him to show that Aristotle had converted to Judaism, he had concrete evidence in support of his monotheism, rather than having to rely on the much-disputed Homeric passage at the end of the Metaphysics (1076a 4: “Let one be the ruler”). It also allowed Liceti to infer that Aristotle could have been a Christian had he only lived at a later time. And from a theological point of view, Judaism made it easier to argue for Aristotle’s salvation, while granting the Philosopher a role in the unfolding of a sort of lineage of ancient theology.23 Excited by having found proof of Aristotle’s piety, Liceti asked the Portuguese scholar Vicente de Nogueira,24 who had studied Hebrew in Venice under the famous Rabbi Leon Modena, to revise the Latin translation provided by Gaffarel, which runs as follows: We have already demonstrated above that Aristotle read the Holy Books of the Jews, which circulated in his time. That the excellent philosopher accepted the truth expressed in them, and that he honored the true God, seems clearly proven by a fragment written in ancient Hebrew, which a very learned man, as well as a great scholar of Judaic wisdom, transmitted to me not long ago. Jacques Gaffarel wrote to me as follows: “You are right to complain that I have not sent that little Jewish note about the faith of Aristotle. . . . The disorder of those manuscripts which I bought in Mantua and which

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I have now organized, was in part the cause of my silence. . . . Here is that little note, extracted from a Spanish Rabbi named Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Iosef in his Cabbalistic Chain: [he transcribes the Hebrew text, followed by a Latin translation]: ‘And I saw in the preface of the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics written by Rabbi Ioseph Shem Tov, that in Egypt he read a book, in which it was written that, at the end of his days, Aristotle believed in everything in the book of the Law of Moses, and that he converted to the Honest Pilgrims, or Jews. This can also be read in the book entitled Maquen, that is ‘shield,’ written by Abraham Sapienza Perissol.’ ”25 Even Pierre Gassendi, an arch-opponent of Aristotelianism, had implied that being a Jew could have in some way redeemed Aristotle and his use in a Christian context.26 Thus it might seem that Liceti’s advocacy of Aristotle’s Jewishness was, in the first place, a response to detractors of Peripateticism like Gassendi. In reality, Liceti was instead exploiting the legend because he was engaged in a war fought from within the ranks of Aristotelianism and was targeting Peripatetics and Scholastics who had, for one reason or another, undermined Aristotle’s religious credibility. That these internal divisions could encourage attacks from outside the Peripatetic school is certainly implied; but in De pietate Liceti did not point his finger at any self-declared anti-Aristotelian authors, focusing his attack rather on those fellow Aristotelians who, in his view, were not zealous enough in their defense of the Philosopher.27 This helps to explain why Liceti’s Jewish Aristotle prompted indignation and mockery particularly from authors who would have defined themselves as Peripatetics. The fiercest opponent of this Jewish Aristotle was Liceti’s longtime nemesis, the Franciscan Mattia Ferchio (1583–1669), who very likely provoked Liceti to compose De pietate.28 Ferchio was not opposed to Aristotle at all, nor did he deny his relevance in theological matters. What Ferchio did not approve of was that a “laicus et uxoratus” (“a married layman”) such as Liceti had unduly entered into the arena of religion, and that he had done so by relying on Jewish authorities.29 The appeal to Jewish sources had at that point become a normal feature of religious writings, providing theologians (both Catholics and Protestants) with a confirmatio of the truth of Christianity.30 But for Liceti the recourse to a Jewish source was presented in a context that Ferchio considered unacceptable. In his Observationes, which appeared in 1652, the Franciscan responded that he would prefer to believe that the

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Jewish Aristotle was “a Judaic tale, which Liceti accepted in order to please the Jews and which was invented by some Jew against the true stories of the faith.”31 Ferchio steadfastly stood by this opinion, and only the death of Liceti interrupted the polemical exchange between the Aristotelian philosopher and the Franciscan. The Dominican Serafino Piccinardi (1634–1695), a leading figure of the generation of Paduan theologians after Ferchio, was no more generous toward Liceti. He considered the Jewish contaminations of his work to be driven by an absurd desire to demonstrate that Aristotle had knowledge of the Trinity. Piccinardi reused several arguments from Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis and characterized both George of Trebizond—Bessarion’s original opponent—and Liceti himself as defenders of radical Aristotelianism. Relying on the authority of Bessarion, he denied that Aristotle had ever read Jewish Holy Books and maintained that the Trinity was not implied in any way by Jewish doctrines, negating at its root the possibility of a Judaic confirmatio of the Christian dogma. He concluded that, in his view, Liceti’s position was nothing more than “a made-up story or laughable conjecture” (“fabulosa narratio seu coniectura ridenda”).32 Several pages of the Commentarii in octo libros Aristotelis De physico audita by Giovanni Cottunio, a professor of Greek origin and a professional rival of Liceti’s, were probably also intended as a reaction to Liceti’s extreme Christianization of Aristotle.33 Cottunio devoted the initial section of his commentaries on the Physics, printed in Venice in 1648, to listing a series of arguments typically used to undermine the reputation of Aristotle from both a moral and a philosophical point of view. Cottunio—who did not have any religious bias against Aristotle, and who usually supported a Thomist interpretation of his thought—rejected these arguments. Yet, while declining to endorse the proposition that Aristotle was opposed to every single Christian dogma, he argued against a complete reconciliation of him with religion. Precisely for this reason, he warned his readers to be skeptical of the legend that Aristotle was acquainted with the scriptures. His tenets on the origin of the world are in direct contrast with the Bible and, unlike Pythagoras and Plato, he never traveled to lands where he could have met Jews and learned about their books or doctrines. And even if he had access to the Holy Books, he would not have been able to understand or properly honor them.34 Although Cottunio did not explicitly mention Liceti, his unambiguous distinction between natural philosophy and theology and his invitation to avoid excesses in the interpretation of Aristotle seem clearly addressed to the Jewish

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Aristotle of his former competitor. While it is true that many other authors, including Ferchio himself, had admitted that Aristotle had some—direct or indirect—familiarity with the Bible, Liceti had gone well beyond that.35 Liceti’s aim of making the biography of a pagan philosopher as palatable as possible for Christians was not an isolated droˆlerie, nor was his recourse to Jewish sources in order to achieve this goal.36 Yet, in a further twist to the circulation of the legend, De pietate captivated Jewish readers. Isaac Cardoso (1603/4–1683), a physician of Marrano descent who had eventually reconverted to Judaism, had words of high praise for Liceti’s book, which he considered a demonstration of Aristotle’s Jewishness.37 In his Las excelencias de los hebreos, published in Amsterdam in 1679, he wrote: “In every age there have been wise gentile men who became proselytes of the Jews, and they were great experts of the law, and distinguished scholars. . . . The same is said of Aristotle, that is, that at the end of his days he converted to the Law of the Jews, as Liceti [el Lyceto] in large part demonstrates in a book specifically devoted to this subject, entitled De pietate Aristotelis erga Deum.”38 Azariah de’ Rossi was nonetheless soon to be avenged, as the legend of the Jewish Aristotle was quickly and definitely dismissed. Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), for example, seized the opportunity to reveal its absurdity, and in the entry in his Dictionnaire devoted to Aristotle he even established a hierarchy of ridiculousness between the different versions of the legend: if little faith was to be placed in those who claim that Aristotle learned many things from a wise old Jew, and even less to those who maintain that he eventually converted to Judaism, those who hold that he was born a Jew are simply to be regarded as buffoons, because they have been deceived by a banal error of punctuation in Eusebius.39 Bayle’s main source in this section was without doubt the Bibliotheca magna Rabbinica by the Cistercian Guido Bartolocci (1613–1687). Bartolocci’s bibliographical enterprise listed around two thousand Hebrew texts, accompanied by a biography of their authors. A full entry was devoted to Aristotle and to the legend of his Judaism, which Bartolocci dismissed as a fable concocted by little Jewish masters, rich in myths and incompetent, singling out Gedaliah and his Cabbalistic Chain—that is, Liceti’s source—for the story’s recent circulation.40 After quoting sections from Gedaliah’s text, he lingered on the infamous passage from Eusebius, which appeared prominently among the sources listed in the Sefer Shalshelet ha-K.abbalah to support the legend of the Jewish Aristotle in all of its variants. And like de’ Rossi, Bartolocci was easily able to explain how the text had been misread: “By what stratagem did

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this sly and dishonest Jew unearth this passage [in Eusebius], and conclude that Aristotle was Jewish? Aristotle speaks here not about himself, but about a third person. This ignorant Jew, however, reads the text in such an inept and foolish way, because he does not understand the Latin expression, and because he punctuates the sentence incorrectly.”41 With Gedaliah again as his sitting duck, Bartolocci also rejected the other variants of the legend, according to which Aristotle stole his wisdom from the Temple of Jerusalem and was a Jew not by birth but by conversion. And apropos of Aristotle’s alleged conversion, Bartolocci spoofed the Kabbalah with gusto. An apocryphal letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great, also quoted by Gedaliah, claimed that the Kabbalah was a central factor in Aristotle’s decision to embrace Judaism.42 Bartolocci, however, showed that the letter had to be a forgery, since it contained a repudiation of philosophy, something that the real Aristotle, prince of philosophers, would have never written. This gave Bartolocci the opportunity to insert a long digression on the relationship between philosophy and faith, and to list all the points of conflict between Aristotle and Christianity. Still, he found it remarkable that even without the light of faith Aristotle could reveal so many secrets of nature, again insisting that he certainly could not have relied on the books from the Temple of Jerusalem, as maintained in the Jewish legend he had debunked a few pages earlier. Bartolocci’s dismissal of the Jewish Aristotle was, therefore, framed within a Christian reappropriation of the philosopher and was intended as a complete extirpation of all possible Judaic roots from his biography and works. Exposing the different versions of the Jewish Aristotle as sheer absurdities, Bartolocci subtly shifted the focus of the discussion toward demonstrating how the rationality of Peripatetic philosophy found a better match in the Catholic tradition than in Judaism, without any need for elaborate biographical and genealogical fantasies. A similar approach to the problem of the Jewish Aristotle was undertaken in a 1704 dissertation defended in the Protestant milieu, which largely relied on material collected by Bartolocci: Aristoteles utrum fuerit Judaeus, presented at the University of Greifswald by Johann Christoph Bo¨ttiger in front of a committee headed by Lorenz David Bollhagen.43 The Jewish appropriation of Aristotle was, for Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen, a case study of a broader issue, the alleged tendency of Jews to proclaim themselves the source of all philosophy. Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen complained that this view had been endorsed and made authoritative by church fathers like Clement, and identified its contemporary proponents as Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736) and Thomas Gale

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(1635–1702), among others.44 As a model for their writing on Aristotle, they therefore referred to a similar work composed a few years earlier by Johann Friedrich Mayer and his student Daniel Bandeco, Pythagoras utrum fuerit iudaeus monacusve carmelita, which dealt with the Jewish appropriation of another Greek philosopher.45 After this status quaestionis, Bollhagen and Bo¨ttiger discussed the biography and works of Aristotle from an erudite angle, which showed the great admiration the Jews had always expressed for him. Although the Jews were not the only people to revere him, they alone believed that the wisdom of this pagan philosopher could not be natural (“solo lumine naturali”) but instead had to come from a higher source. They thus invented a Jewish identity for Aristotle. Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen pointed out that the Philosopher never mentioned Jerusalem and Judaism in his writings, referring only once to the Dead Sea as the lake of Palestine.46 They argued that ancient biographies of him, coupled with questions of chronology, had irrefutably exposed the self-promoting fabrication of the Jews in all its manifestations. Essentially reviewing the same material previously refuted by Bartolocci, Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen offered supplementary evidence for its rejection, while also adding short digressions. The most notable of these, in the closing part of the dissertation, emphasized the multiplicity of the philosophical sects that denied Aristotle’s predominance. This denial was justified, according to them, by the decline in Aristotle’s reputation: “And anyone who today rejects Aristotelian philosophy must consider how many sects have arisen now that philosophical liberty has been granted, sects we were unaware of as long as Aristotelian philosophy was flourishing. Meanwhile, we do not swear by his words, but believe in Aristotle, in the same way that we believe in all philosophers, invariably supporting all things that are in agreement with reason.”47 Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen did not seem to reject Aristotle tout court. Rather, they aimed to reduce his authority by pointing out the existence of alternative philosophical schools and by accepting only those doctrines of his that they considered to be reasonable.48 Yet in doing so Bo¨ttiger and Bollhagen appear to provide further justification for eliminating the Jewish Aristotle, beyond the inherent falsity and partisanship of the legend: Peripatetic philosophy was no longer in fashion. The Jewish Aristotle had many lives. After its initial emergence as an exclusively Judaic motif, aimed at celebrating Hebraic wisdom through the appropriation of the main symbol of Greek philosophy, the Jewish Aristotle topos was easily adapted to the needs of Christian humanists and apologists, who sought confirmation of their own tenets—both philosophical and

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religious—in Judaism. When Christian interest in the legend, initially sparked by a misprint in the 1476 edition of Eusebius, died out, it was reignited by Liceti. He relied on a work written by a Jewish author, Gedaliah, who exploited, for opposite purposes, material that had been collected by his coreligionist Azariah de’ Rossi in order to debunk the legend. In the end, however, the legend could not withstand the attacks of learned seventeenthcentury authors, Catholic and Protestant alike, who pursued an agenda that included rejecting any continuity between Judaism, Hellenism, and Christianity. The precarious state of Aristotelianism was yet another reason for abandoning a legend that had already been irreparably damaged by the weapons of philology.

Aristotle (and Plato) Versus Moses In 1671 the French canon Be´sian Arroy (c. 1590–1677) composed a treatise entitled Le prince instruit en la philosophie, in which he promised his readers—not the prince of the title but clergymen—a full treatment in the vernacular of scientific and theological topics embracing Aristotelianism and Scholasticism.49 In the work, Arroy takes every opportunity to attack Plato by accumulating proof of his impiety in opposition to the virtues of Aristotle. Among the pieces of evidence he presents against Plato in the section devoted to the creation of the world, he recounts an anecdote, the provenance of which he does not specify. Far from being an Attic Moses—he claims—Plato would have instead unabashedly insulted both the prophet and his book of Genesis: “Moses is by far the most ancient among the many old philosophers who joined in the investigation what nature was, and there is only one among them, the most notable, that is Plato, who, after having read Moses’s history, insulted this great man: ‘This horned man has written many things, but he does not demonstrate anything.’ ”50 What follows is a page-long word-forword exegesis of the sentence attributed to Plato. First, Arroy is bothered by the use of the word “horned” in a pejorative sense, which seems to imply a correlation between the horns and Moses not writing well (“ses cornes sont elles cause qu’il n’a pas bien e´crit”): Moses’s horns, he claims, were instead made of light and a sign of divine election. He then points out the physical deformities of Plato’s teacher and spokesman, Socrates; but he quickly abandons that line of argument to concentrate on a different issue raised by the

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sentence: the problem of “demonstrating.” Moses wrote Genesis as a historian, and history simply reports facts without demonstrating them; so Plato has no right to expect the prophet to provide a demonstration. After all, when Plato spoke of the transmigration of souls and other bizarre things, he too recounted stories but offered no demonstration of them.51 Arroy’s arguments were nothing new. We find a very similar formulation in the commentaries on the Meteorology written a few decades earlier by the Jesuit Niccolo` Cabeo (1586–1650). The commentaries included also the reference to the non-apodeictic nature of the Mosaic writings, which was after all borrowed from a text on rhetoric composed by another Jesuit, De oratore libri quinque (1574) by Jean Herbet (1528–post 1578).52 Still, Cabeo’s text differed from Arroy’s in two ways. In the first place, Cabeo’s Moses is not described as cornutus. Secondly, and more significantly, Cabeo attributed the rejection of the book of Genesis not to Plato but to Aristotle: “I once heard that when the books of Moses reached Aristotle’s hands, reading the first lines In the beginning God created Heaven and earth, Aristotle is reported to have said: ‘Here, this author says many things, but proves nothing.’ But Moses was speaking as a historian, and his narration was historical. This kind of narration requires not proof, but a simple exposition of the fact. Thus, Aristotle is wrong in expecting proof from a historian. The Philosopher must prove what he says, and for this reason someone could with good reason reply to Aristotle: You say many things, but prove nothing.”53 It is interesting to note that a few pages earlier Cabeo had complained that there were men in his day “who follow Aristotle more than Moses,” and he had denounced the abyss that separated Peripatetic philosophy from what was acceptable according to faith.54 Arroy’s bias against Plato and Cabeo’s bias against Aristotle certainly played a decisive role in their treatment of the anecdote. Nevertheless, the attribution of the saying “Moses multum dicit, sed nihil probat” to either Plato or Aristotle had been contested for centuries and had even been shared between them.55 From a theoretical point of view, there were good reasons to link the anecdote to both philosophers. The opinions of Plato and Aristotle on the creation of the world, and their relationship to the biblical account, had long been an obstacle for any Christian philosopher. The cosmogony of the Timaeus was not enough to make Plato palatable to all Christian tastes, nor was Aristotle’s repeated affirmation of the eternity of world sufficient for him to be unanimously classified as an opponent of creation. Reading the Timaeus

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through a Neoplatonic filter could provide the instruments needed to claim that Plato endorsed the eternity of the world, and in this context the doctrine of the receptaculum raised major difficulties for the Christian creation ex nihilo. Conversely, a passage in the first book of the Topics (104b10–17) allowed some Peripatetics to believe that Aristotle had spoken of the eternity of the world not assertively, only hypothetically. Furthermore, there were debates as to whether Plato and Aristotle had read, or were at least acquainted with, the contents of the Mosaic books.56 These conflicting positions help to explain why both Plato and Aristotle could each be set against Moses. Variations in the use of the two names were, in fact, embedded in the theoretical agenda of those who quoted the anecdote, as is shown by the examples of Arroy, a committed anti-Platonist, and Cabeo, whose commentaries on Aristotle systematically challenged his authority and highlighted his distance from Christianity.57 Nonetheless, despite its theoretical potential, the anecdote was not commonly used in contexts in which the doctrines of Platonism and Aristotelianism were juxtaposed with scripture. Another example of this pattern is De abusu philosophiae Cartesianae (1670), written by the Protestant theologian Samuel Maresius (1599–1673), who was reacting against the use of Descartes’s teachings as a tool for interpreting the Bible. Maresius doubted the propriety of relying on philosophy when explaining things described in the scriptures, an exercise that inevitably provoked clashes with faith. This occurred, for instance, if one adopted the Aristotelian doctrine of the first mover, which denied God’s providence and freedom, and which required the world to be eternal. Thus, it came as no surprise to Maresius that Aristotle had said of Moses, “Multa dicit cornutus iste, sed nihil probat.”58 Still, even in contexts that were not philosophical, the attribution of the anecdote to either Plato or Aristotle was often founded on programmatic needs and cultural preferences. It played a preeminent role in the Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (1567) by the Lutheran theologian Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520–1575). Flacius quoted it in the section on method, discussing why God wished to communicate his sublime doctrine through plain words, without giving men proof or demonstrations of them. What Aristotle is said to have declared about Moses—“multa dicit, sed pauca probat”—had some bearing on this issue. Flacius nonetheless explains that only internal blindness prevents men from seeing that the scriptures provide better and clearer demonstrations than those devised by philosophers. Even the wisest pagan thinkers became entangled by their own efforts while searching for God: the more

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you think of God, the less you will find him.59 As a Lutheran controversialist, Flacius was keen to cite the anecdote in reference to Aristotle because it allowed him to attack the mixing of faith and reason employed by his Scholastic opponents. The English Presbyterian churchman Edmund Calamy (1600–1666), by contrast, attributed the sentence to Plato.60 The anecdote in this instance was connected to doubts about Platonism, which among moderate Protestant British writers of the seventeenth century was associated with fanatical enthusiasm.61 In some versions of the anecdote, however, the names of Plato and Aristotle were interchangeable or used indifferently, without any bias toward, or preference for, either of them. The story of the philosophers reading the Bible can be traced, for example, in some texts composed by members of the Carmelite order in the fourteenth century. The first case is a dialogue in defense of the order written by John of Hildesheim (1320–1375), in which Aristotle is the protagonist, while the second case is that of a short text by Richard Maidstone (d. 1396) written against the Lollard John Ashwardby (fl. 1392), in which Plato criticizes Moses.62 In other instances, such as the trial of the atheist Jacques Gruet in Geneva in 1547, during the course of which he was condemned to death, the judges interrogated the accused regarding some sentences written in his own hand on a piece of paper, including “Iste cornutus multa dicit, sed nihil probat” in reference to Moses. Gruet defended himself by stating that he was unsure if he had found the sentence in Plato or in Aristotle.63 A century later, the preacher Jean Lejeune (1592–1672) dismissed the wisdom of paganism, just as the pagan philosophers Plato or Aristotle had dismissed Moses: “Let the pagan philosophers not believe what they see, let Aristotle or Plato say, when speaking of Moses, ‘Iste cornutus multa dicit, sed nihil probat.’ ”64 The role played by the anecdote differed considerably from example to example, of course: leaving aside the gnomic presence in the Carmelite writers, it was used against religion in Gruet and in favor of religion in Lejeune. Differences notwithstanding, these occurrences showed that—in the absence of a known urtext that could determine the attribution with certainty—Plato and Aristotle, as the two most important exponents of pagan philosophy, were both credible protagonists of the anecdote. And, as the examples cited here demonstrate, it was often employed in writings that were completely alien to the discussions about the creation of the world and used more generally to highlight the opposition between paganism and Christianity.

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Yet, despite its broad application and flexibility, the anecdote raised doubts. Whereas many authors quoted it while displaying no interest in its provenance, others—as seen in some of the examples above—could not hide a degree of skepticism regarding its authenticity. They therefore introduced it with such formulas as “I have heard” and “it is reported.” A few, like Francesco Zorzi (or Giorgi, 1466–1540), openly challenged it. In the opening pages of the De harmonia mundi, Zorzi demonstrated the universal pervasiveness of the Jewish tradition. In order to undermine those who used the anecdote to deny any connections between Peripatetic and Jewish philosophy, he attempted to dismiss it: “But since there are some who do not believe that Peripatetic philosophy can be integrated with Jewish philosophy, and even find the idea amusing, I would like these men to declare where they found—or rather, fabricated—that their Aristotle said of Moses: this man has said many good things, but has not proven anything?”65 Zorzi therefore invited his opponents to rely on more trustworthy sources. He was correct in assuming that solid proof of Aristotle’s rejection of Moses’s writings was nowhere to be found; but he was unable to identify the origins of the misleading anecdote. The solution can, in fact, be found—rather unexpectedly—in a polemical exchange over the so-called Oath of Allegiance (1606) between James I of England and his Catholic opponents, the Jesuits Roberto Bellarmino and Francisco Sua´rez (1548–1617). In the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, the king had required his Catholic subjects to swear an oath that included, among other things, the rejection of the pope’s power to depose secular rulers. The oath, mainly on account of that article, ignited a decade-long controversy, fomented by an incessant exchange of polemical writings between members of the king’s entourage and Catholic writers. The anecdote concerning Aristotle and Moses was no more than an incidental footnote in these texts; but this heated debate, in which every statement made by one’s adversaries had to be analyzed and discredited, offered an opportunity to explore its history. After the first skirmish in 1608, King James published An Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, which he had composed with the aid of a group of theologians. In it, James discussed the different points contained in two papal briefs and in a letter by Roberto Bellarmino. One brief in particular had alerted English Catholics that the oath contained many things that were directly opposed to faith and to the salvation of souls. James replied: “To this, the old saying fathered upon the Philosopher, may very fitly bee applied, Multa dicit, sed pauca probat, nay indeed Nihil omnino probat.”66 James thus quoted the

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anecdote in a proverbial fashion, without explicitly naming its protagonist— though “the Philosopher” strongly implies Aristotle—and without mentioning Moses as the target. But despite the king’s cautious and rhetorical use of the anecdote, his Catholic opponents reacted indignantly. The first was Roberto Bellarmino, in his Responsio (1610). The Jesuit Bellarmino indicated that the papal brief did not contain a theological dispute but merely provided a fatherly admonition, which required no demonstration. On this basis, he proceeded to challenge the anecdote, claiming that non-christian authors like Galen and Averroes had affirmed that Christ said many things but did not demonstrate them. James, by maintaining that the pope says many things without demonstrating them, was attacking the Vicar of Christ speaking like a pagan against Christ, thus making his infidelity evident.67 In 1613 Francisco Sua´rez extensively quoted Bellarmino in his Defensio fidei Catholicae when rejecting the king’s use of the anecdote.68 The feature that most strengthened the attack by Bellarmino was his identification of the source of the anecdote, which allowed him to argue that the king was indeed insulting Christ. More than Averroes, who occasionally expressed his disagreement with Christianity—without directly referring to Christ or Moses—that source was Galen (c. 130–200).69 In several works Galen had identified Moses and Christ as bad models who expect to be adored by their followers without offering any proof of their teachings. Of these works, only De differentia pulsuum—mentioned by the two Jesuits— and De usu partium survived in the original Greek. The others are preserved either in fragments or in Syriac and Arabic versions.70 In De differentia pulsuum Galen writes: “One might more easily teach novelties to the followers of Moses and Christ than to the physicians and philosophers who cling fast to their schools.”71 And: “So that one should not at the very beginning, as if one had come into the school of Moses and Christ, hear talk of undemonstrated laws, and that where it is least appropriate.”72 In these passages Galen attacks empiricist physicians who resisted his method and blindly followed their own traditional beliefs, refusing to accept any novelty. Whereas here Galen underscores the gap between his approach to medicine and that of his adversaries—compared by him to the disciples of Moses and Christ who accept their tenets for faith—in De usu partium we find a more precise reference to the doctrines contained in the Mosaic texts. These Galen rejects in the context of a discussion of the constant length of eyelashes: Did our demiurge simply enjoin this hair to preserve its length always equal, and does it strictly observe this order either from fear

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of its master’s command, or from reverence for the god who gave this order, or is it because it itself believes it better to do this? Is not this Moses’ way of treating Nature and is it not superior to that of Epicurus? The best way, of course, is to follow neither of these but to maintain like Moses the principle of the demiurge as the origin of every created thing, while adding the material principle to it. For our demiurge created it to preserve a constant length, because this was better. . . . It is precisely this point in which our own opinion and that of Plato and of the other Greeks who follow the right method in natural science differs from the position taken up by Moses. For the latter it seems enough to say that God simply willed the arrangement of matter and it was presently arranged in due order; for he believes everything to be possible with God, even should He wish to make a bull or a horse out of ashes. We however do not hold this; we say that certain things are impossible by nature and that God does not even attempt such things at all but that he chooses the best out of the possibilities of becoming.73 Bellarmino and Sua´rez did not cite this passage in De usu partium, where Galen mentions only Moses, since they were seeking to capitalize on the analogy between the pope and Christ. Nonetheless, the core of “multa dicit, sed nihil probat” was present in this treatise, as it also was in the other fragments of lost works that probably influenced the original formation of the anecdote. In On Hippocrates’ Anatomy, for example, Galen writes: “They compare those who practice medicine without scientific knowledge to Moses, who framed laws for the tribe of the Jews, since it is his method in his books to write without offering proofs, saying ‘God commanded, God spake.’ ”74 The methodological juxtaposition of theology and science—in terms of both medicine and natural philosophy—was therefore what had stood behind “multa dicit, sed nihil probat” from the very beginning. And despite the sometime formulaic versions of the anecdote, that original meaning was never lost in the early modern period and resurfaced in many of its later occurrences. What actually changed, over the period in which the anecdote was employed, were its protagonists. Galen was rarely associated with the anecdote: an exception is Girolamo Cardano, who on several occasions claimed, tongue in cheek, that it was Galen who said many things but demonstrated nothing, showing that he was aware of the source of the anecdote.75 Galen,

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although the fulcrum for the study of medicine for centuries, could not compete with the encyclopedic reputations of Aristotle and his traditional counterpart Plato, whose teachings were, in many instances, directly comparable to, and even competitive with, those of the Bible (particularly Genesis). The two philosophers were widely regarded as the most obvious symbols of the pagan wisdom that clashed with Christianity in doctrines and method. The association of Aristotle with Scholasticism and Libertinism, and Plato with enthusiastic mysticism, made them relevant in the battle for ideas and thus interchangeable protagonists of the anecdote, according to whatever need was at hand. Attributing the saying to Aristotle or Plato helped to expand the outreach of its relevance, beyond the readership acquainted with Galen.76 The anecdote seemed often to be reduced to a sort of “learned proverb,” in that it was usually quoted in Latin, even in vernacular texts, and can therefore be related to one of the possible actualizations of the simple form “saying,” as described by Andre´ Jolles.77 What makes it special is the need of those who used it to make explicit the identity of the individual who allegedly pronounced those words—“multa dicit, sed pauca probat”—without caring about contradictory attributions. Behind the most common uses of the anecdote was in fact its emphasis on Plato and/or Aristotle as a “negative authority,” which served to heighten the “positive authority” of Moses (and Christ). That no one had been able for so long to name a source for the anecdote did not seem to be an issue, except for Zorzi and a few others. Plato and Aristotle were both, in different ways, credible and convenient critics of Moses; and no matter how generic this connection was, it inexorably led them to be associated with the anecdote.78

Aristotle the Papist As we saw in Chapter 2, the hostility of the Jesuits toward Plato and Platonism did not mean that they perceived Aristotle as a champion of the Catholic faith. On the contrary, for them, Aristotle was an authority to be deployed in full awareness that he was a pagan, not all of whose doctrines could be reconciled with Christian theology. Nonetheless, one Jesuit came up with the idea of transforming Aristotle into a spokesman for Catholicism. Just as Aristotle has recently been made the main character in a successful series of crime novels by Margaret Doody, in the seventeenth century he played this role

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in a series of apologetic dialogues written by the Jesuit Melchior Cornaeus (1598–1665).79 A native of the Sauerland, Cornaeus traveled a good deal over the course of his career, living and teaching in Toulouse, Mainz, and finally Wu¨rzburg, where in 1657 he published his most important work, the Curriculum philosophiae Peripateticae (see my chapter 5). Despite his scientific interests, which are on display in the Curriculum, Cornaeus was, above all, a controversialist, who engaged in numerous battles with Protestant theologians. It was in that role that he invented a fictional Aristotle to support his apologetic efforts. Between 1652 and 1660 he composed a series of pamphlets, in which he imagines Aristotle returning to life and, after embracing the papal cause, defending Catholicism from Protestant attacks. The series of dialogues featuring Aristoteles redivivus was evidently conceived as a spin-off from a previous apologetic pamphlet, which appeared in 1652, entitled An papista, an non Christianus.80 In this quaestio Cornaeus staged a dialogue between a Protestant, Sedulius, and a Catholic, Prudentius, who attempts to convince his interlocutor of the advantages offered by the Roman Church. Cunningly, Cornaeus emphasized the points of contact between his two characters. Prudentius and Sedulius, for instance, agree on the fact that a pagan, whether Socrates or Aristotle, could not have been saved unless he had been granted faith in the one true God by supernatural grace before the coming of Christ. In this way, Cornaeus could sidestep criticism regarding the issue of justification by faith in relation to the salvation of pagans. The Catholic Prudentius then lists a series of rational arguments, with which he supports his thesis for the superiority of Catholicism, the only religion that in his opinion can be embraced without offending the intellect. Among these arguments are the infallibility of the pope, the antiquity of the Roman Church, the virtue of the saints and martyrs, the authority of the church fathers, miracles, and, finally, the church’s effectiveness in obtaining conversions. These include not only real conversions, though, such as those taking place in America and the Far East thanks to the Jesuits’ evangelization, explicitely praised, but also imaginary ones, which Cornaues envisaged by means of a sort of mental experiment. If a pagan philosopher, accustomed to relying exclusively on reason, came to know Catholicism, Prudentius is certain that he would readily convert and maintain that faith because of the authority of the Roman Church. If, however, that same pagan philosopher were exposed to Lutheranism or Calvinism, which do not offer comparable instruments of persuasion, he would not embrace these faiths.

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To clarify this point, Cornaeus proposed an example, because “something certain appears even more certain when it is presented before the eyes of mind.”81 Cornaeus therefore imagined Aristotle, the wisest of men, leaving the netherworld (“ab inferis reducem”) in search of faith and supernatural truth. According to Cornaeus, he would scorn the superstition of the Muslims, quickly abandon the company of the Jews, and then investigate Christianity. Aristotle would first meet with the Protestants, who would offer him a copy of the Bible; but his reaction would not be what the Lutherans and Calvinists expected: So, this would be the word of God? I would be a fool to believe it. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” I do not think so. Out of nothing comes nothing. Everything comes out of something else. What? Is this book saying that God made woman out of a man’s rib? How stupid is this? Does it also claim that the wife of Lot was transformed into a pillar of salt? What a silly tale. A she-ass spoke articulately? Only an ass can believe that. The sun stopped, solely by virtue of a man’s voice? A virgin was able to conceive and give birth without copulating with a man? God became man? An immortal God dead on the scaffold? Oh, what a prodigy! Such things are more akin to the inventions of the poets than to the word of God. Apella the Jew can believe these things, not me.82 Aristotle would also make it clear to the Protestants, upset by his reaction to the Holy Scriptures, that he would believe in such things on the condition that adequate proofs were provided that were not apparent in the biblical text. Protestants would then make the situation worse by claiming that Aristotle could find these proofs in the writings of Luther and Calvin. But Aristotle would reject their authority, because Luther and Calvin were evil men, unworthy of any credibility. Furthermore, if one accepts the arguments of Protestants concerning the authority of the Bible, nothing would prevent Muslims from advancing the same claims about their Koran. Aristotle would say that he always followed the path of reason, forcing him to abandon the company of the irrational Protestants and instead to visit the magnificent Catholic churches, where he would admire beautiful ceremonies and finally find what he was looking for. Catholics do not simply believe in the Holy Scriptures but also have an authority that establishes their truth: the church, which includes the community of believers, under the direction of the pope.

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Moreover, the scriptures represent only a fraction of the Catholic heritage, the rest consisting in its traditions, which are not to be found anywhere in writing. Starting with the infallibility of the church, Aristotle would again list the evidence already presented by Prudentius, as Cornaeus’s spokesman, in favor of the Roman cause, since repetita iuvant. And at the end of this review he would be able to declare solemnly, “If the papists are wrong, all Christians are of no avail. Therefore, if I am Christian, I am papist; but if I am not a papist, I cannot be Christian.”83 Thanks to this imaginary Aristotle, Prudentius obtained what he wanted and almost convinced Sedulius to become a Catholic. In highlighting the “cuius regio, eius religio” principle as the root of religious controversies, he could argue that, had Lutherans and Calvinists been born in a Catholic country, they would have embraced the Roman religion, since there are many virtuous and righteous men among them. Naturally, he did not affirm the reverse: that if a Catholic were instead born in a Protestant country, he would have been a Lutheran or a Calvinist. Prudentius concludes with a further exaltation of the Catholic faith, which, like philosophy, is nurtured by rationality. Yet, whereas philosophy offers access to natural realities, faith instead opens a path to the supernatural. This final observation is less incidental than it might seem, since it is useful to contextualize the comments in puris naturalibus that the imaginary Aristotle had initially deployed against the Bible, by reaffirming the ancillary position of philosophy with respect to faith. In the end, Sedulius realizes that it is right to be a papist, and he will perhaps soon act on his newly acquired conviction. Thus Aristotle the papist operates as a kind of deus ex machina in the quaestio, serving as the vital witness for the invincible authority of the Roman Church. Cornaeus quickly realized that the reborn Aristotle, turned Catholic, could be the protagonist in an exemplary narrative, of the kind that characterized apologetic conversion literature in the early modern age, enhanced by an intrinsically logical structure and a captivating story that made its otherwise dry theological discussions more attractive.84 In the An papista quaestio, the reborn Aristotle appeared only in the final pages and was not featured on the title page. In subsequent years, however, Cornaeus decided to promote him as the main character of his apologetic writings. The dialogues between Aristotle and his friends or opponents were no longer condensed into a few pages but instead occupied entire pamphlets. The first installment of the Aristoteles redivivus series—Aristoteles redivivus Romano-Catholicus—is essentially an expanded version of the short dialogue section that concluded the An papista quaestio. There are several stylistic

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embellishments, such as the opening dialogue between Charon and Aristotle as he makes his way out of Hades. This narrative frame clearly reveals the transition of the Aristoteles redivivus from merely a character in a larger story to the central figure in an autonomous work. The plot is as follows: the netherworld judges have decided to send Aristotle back to earth so that he can discover the true faith. Aristotle, who lacked true faith at the time of his death, was unable to obtain salvation. He is now granted a second chance and leaves with Charon as his guide. Yet Aristotle does not recognize the places indicated to him, because the shores of the river Acheron, along which they are traveling, have fallen into the hands of the Turks. Charon takes the opportunity to update him on the worldwide religious situation. He does this nation by nation, offering Cornaeus the opportunity to praise Francis Xavier and the Jesuit order (“proborum et eruditorum Sodalitas”) for their efforts in disseminating the Christian faith.85 Charon then abruptly leaves Aristotle in order to greet new souls arriving in Tartarus. He bids him farewell and advises him to go to Germany if he wishes to discover the true faith. In the second scene, Aristotle arrives in Germany, where he meets Schedorus and Icorcus. The two men welcome him by speaking—though badly—in Greek, revealing themselves to be pedants. Aristotle explains why he has come back to life and points out that his notion of a supreme God, as invoked in articulo mortis, was not enough to save his soul. This was because his act was not illuminated by faith; accordingly, Cornaeus inserts into the narrative a theological digression on the centrality of faith for salvation, just as he had done in his earlier work. Aristotle begins interrogating his interlocutors, asking if they are Germans and if they are Christians. He regards the abuse of superlatives in their responses (“Germanissimi! Christianissimi!”) as a red flag.86 Schedorus and Icorcus then make distinctions between Christians by singling out papists—especially Jesuits, who represent in their view the worst possible form of Roman Catholicism—for a series of insults. As in the Quaestio, this provokes a discussion on the authority of the scriptures that places Schedorus and Icorcus in opposition to the papists. Once again, Aristotle reacts by stating that the scriptures contain many things that challenge human rationality and therefore cannot simply be accepted without further proof. Schedorus identifies himself as a follower of Luther, and Icorcus of Calvin; yet Aristotle easily debunks the authority of these Protestant theologians. The meeting does not end well, and Aristotle proclaims that if to be Christian means to be Lutheran or Calvinist, then he is not a Christian. At this point, two new interlocutors arrive on the scene, Cabenus and Orecanus,

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both Catholic, who propose arguments in support of papal supremacy. Mimicking the structure of a Scholastic quaestio, composed of arguments and counterarguments, a final attempt by Schedorus and Icorcus fails to convince Aristotle to accept the Protestant faith. And, after another conversation with Cabenus and Orecanus, the Philosopher requests to be baptized in the Catholic Church because the Roman faith is the only one that does not repel natural reason and thus “aut papista, aut non Christianus.”87 In the subsequent pamphlet on Communion sub utraque specie, Cornaeus introduces the dialogue between Aristotle and his interlocutor along with a prologue explaining the plot.88 Cornaeus also supplies further details about changes in Aristotle’s behavior (Aristotle has, for example, learned to shake hands when he meets new people, “more germanico”) and, above all, about his new manner of discussing his adversaries’ arguments. Indeed, Cornaeus’s discussion of Communion is mostly founded on biblical exegesis and analysis of texts of canon law. Most interestingly, in the opening pages of the pamphlet, Aristotle is asked to explain the reasons behind his preference for the papists, in a sort of declaration of faith. He takes the opportunity to praise Thomists, Nominalists, and Scotists, all of whom honored him and are counted among the ranks of Catholics. He also praises the Jesuits, who helped him to dethrone Plato from the pulpits—referring to the contaminations of religion by Platonism denounced and rejected by their order—and who reinforced the association of Aristotle with Thomas Aquinas (“And when St. Thomas is mentioned, who is ever more friendly to me and my name than this man?”).89 In what follows Aristotle defends himself against those who say that his authority extends only to trivial matters, not to serious ones. He proudly affirms the weight of his authority, describing attacks on it as mere slander, concocted by those who want to steal his glory for themselves. He thus establishes his right to discuss theological questions. Subsequent installments of the Aristoteles redivivus series generally followed a repetitive pattern, starting in medias res with an exchange between Aristotle and an interlocutor, without delving into narrative details about Aristotle and his background. By now a staunch papist, he does not need to explain again why he came back to life and why he chose to go to Germany above all other places in the world. The fictional Aristotle often states that he could not become a Lutheran or a Calvinist, because then he would be deprived of his intellect. And when he is provoked to compare his philosophy to Catholicism, he affirms that the papist dogmas do not raise any conflicts between reason and faith. At the end of the dialogues, the strength of his

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arguments forces his Protestant interlocutors to admit that, even if they are reluctant to abandon their faith, they have changed their perception of Catholicism for the better. Moreover, they hope to have other meetings with the Philosopher, who by his own conversion was able to convert others. Convinced that Lutheranism in Germany was merely an accident of history—a consequence of the Peace of Augsburg—and keen to convert as many people as possible, Cornaeus did not adopt an aggressive tone toward Protestants. Yet Aristoteles redivivus nevertheless provoked reactions from Lutheran authors. In 1654 Johann Conrad Dannhauer (1603–1666), a Lutheran theologian from Strasburg, composed a violent response to the dialogues of the Loyoliticus (“follower of Loyola”) Cornaeus, entitled Aristoteles ex orco redivivus at heu! recidivus in orco (Aristotle reborn from hell but alas! fallen again to hell).90 Dannhauer used all the characters invented by Cornaeus in his dialogues but inverted their roles, with the Protestants as protagonists and Aristotle (or, rather, Cornaeus’s Aristotle) as the antagonist. After stating that the real Aristotle defended several doctrines that were in conflict with the Christian faith, Dannhauer proceeds to list a series of paralogisms from the first two pamphlets of the Aristoteles redivivus series that compromised the reliability of the Jesuit’s arguments. He even provides his readers with a chart detailing all the points of divergence between Catholic doctrines and the corpus Aristotelicum. Dannhauer’s arguments, inasmuch as they aimed to prove that the real Aristotle was by no means an appropriate spokesman for Catholicism, were misguided. Cornaeus, although he considered Aristotle to be a pillar of Scholasticism, did not use the philosopher’s doctrines to defend Christian dogmas. Rather, he drew almost exclusively on texts from within the Christian tradition. Dannhauer instead sought to impugn Cornaeus’s general claim that the Catholic faith never clashed with natural reason, as represented by Aristotle. Dannhauer concludes that Aristoteles redivivus was a Pseudo-Aristotle and, as such, devoid of any authority or value for apologetic purposes. Later, in 1659, an Aristotelis epistola reprehensoria (A letter of reprimand by Aristotle), composed by a professor of eloquence from Jena, the Lutheran Goffried Zapf (1635–1664), was published. Zapf pretended to be the editor of a resentful letter written by Aristotle himself. The Philosopher had obtained special permission from the devil, Beelzebub, to compose the document against Cornaeus, as he was unable to leave hell and deal with the Jesuit from Wu¨rzburg

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in person. Using scriptural sources, Aristotle maintains that Lutherans understand his philosophy better than papists do.91 Both Dannhauer and Zapf showed a certain degree of respect for the real Aristotle and blamed Cornaeus for having lured him into a papist web; but neither attempted to make the Philosopher into a Lutheran, even if only for fictional purposes. Instead, they preferred to lock him up in the deepest netherworld. This choice has several explanations, all connected to Luther’s teachings. From a purely theological point of view, Luther had subordinated the possibility of salvation to justification by faith and to knowledge of the Gospel (“There is no saving doctrine except the Gospel; everything else is night and darkness”) and had harshly excluded pagans from any form of salvation.92 This on its own would be enough to explain Dannhauer and Zapf ’s rejection of the fiction dreamed up by Cornaeus; but another factor was the mistrust of Aristotle felt by many Protestant theologians, because of the repeated attacks Luther made against the Philosopher for his association with Catholic Scholasticism.93 Luther therefore advocated for double truth in order to dismantle the Scholastic mingling of philosophy and theology, which he considered wrong and dangerous.94 The problem of the double truth had been the subject of debates in Protestant cultural institutions, particularly during the so-called 1598 Hofmann-Streit at the University of Helmstedt.95 The dispute led to a consensus among Protestant intellectuals that the possibilities of philosophy should not be overstated and that a proper balance between inquiry and religion should be found. If these controversies helped to explain why Dannhauer and Zapf did not try to convert Aristotle to Protestantism, we might still wonder why Cornaeus considered him a valid ally for his Catholic apologetic enterprise. Beyond his personal preference—as a Jesuit—for the Philosopher, Cornaeus was evidently trying to find an authority who could establish some common ground between Catholics and Protestants. From this perspective, the choice of Aristotle made a great deal of sense. It was undeniable that, prior to the Reformation, he was highly respected in German-speaking countries: in Cologne, for instance, a group of theologians led by Lambertus de Monte (d. 1499), had written passionately in favor of his salvation; and, according to some sources, his Ethics was even read at Mass in the Middle Ages in Tu¨bingen.96 Although such excesses would scarcely have been conceivable after Luther, Aristotle remained ubiquitous also in Protestant German culture, dominating the world of education. The influence of Aristotelianism in the

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early modern era was probably stronger in Protestant countries than in Catholic ones, and, despite some short-lived resistance, Aristotle’s works constituted the backbone of the curriculum in German universities throughout this period.97 After all, even Dannhauer and Zapf, although relegating Cornaeus’s Aristotle to hell, were insistent that the real Aristotle would have regarded Protestants as his true followers. Cornaeus was obviously aware that a conciliation of the real Aristotle with religion was not possible. For this reason, he was careful to not touch on critical points of his philosophy that would have brought to light the distance between his thought and Christian theology. What Cornaeus needed was an exceptional spokesman to corroborate the rational superiority of Catholicism, and, for that role, there was no one better than the Philosopher. In the following decades the dialogues des morts—a development of Lucian of Samosata’s model—was reintroduced in Europe in the context of the querelle des anciens et des modernes, typically to proclaim the superiority of the moderns.98 Alien to these kinds of debates, Cornaeus deployed the ancient Aristotle to win a battle exclusively between moderns. Yet, as Dannhauer and Zapf noted, Cornaeus’s Aristotle was in reality nothing more than a name, a symbol, with no real content to support the fiction of his conversion to papism. Nevertheless, it was his status as an authority, respected by both Catholics and Protestants, that inspired Cornaeus to cast Aristotle as the leading character in his dialogues—a Trojan horse who would possibly be welcomed in the camp of the Lutherans and Calvinists and set in motion their conversion.

chapter 5

If Aristotle Were Alive, or the Paradoxes of Authority

In a frequently quoted passage from a letter to the arch-Aristotelian Fortunio Liceti, Galileo boldly claims that if Aristotle had lived during his time, he would have chosen him as a follower, rather than those foolish men who merely swore on his words without verifying the truth of his assertions: “For now, I would just like to add this: I feel confident that, if Aristotle came back to the world, he would receive me among his disciples, on account of my small number of contradictions and my good conclusions, rather than many others who, in order to maintain anything he said as true, are struggling to find in his texts ideas that he would never have conceived.”1 The passage is rhetorically brilliant and effective, in that it presents Galileo as respectful of tradition. It shows how he carefully drew distinctions between Aristotle and his modern followers. And it accomplishes the goal of ridiculing these followers precisely by appealing—in a manner as fierce as it is cunning—to the authority of Aristotle himself. Nonetheless, it has never been stressed that this was not the first time that Galileo had employed the “if Aristotle were alive” motif in his writings, and that when he did so, it was never as mere ornamentation. Moreover, what has thus far escaped the attention of interpreters is that when deploying this motif, Galileo was not inventing anything but instead exploiting, with renewed refinement, a versatile rhetorical expression that had already enjoyed a centuries-old circulation, not only in astronomical treatises, but also in the most diverse fields and contexts, and that would continue to be used well into the eighteenth century. Yet “if Aristotle were alive” is a rather paradoxical notion, since the Philosopher himself stated

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(On Generation and Corruption 338b5–18) that it is not possible for a man to return from the dead. That, however, was not the only paradox surrounding this motif. Whereas in the previous chapters I considered the use of Aristotle (and Plato) in comparationes, fictions and legends, the present one deals instead with the European trajectory of the single motif “if Aristotle were alive” between the late Middle Ages and the eighteenth century. In the multifaceted applications of this kind of counterfactual imagining,2 we can find not only the reasons and context for the claim of Galileo which opened this chapter but also a variety of meanings, which continually changed throughout the decades, even in contradictory ways. This counterfactual imagining (what would happen, what would Aristotle do, say, or think if he were alive?) might appear fanciful in our own day, when we typically find it in the form of speculation as to what he would do for a living today (a biology or medicine professor, with interdisciplinary interests, according to Alfred North Whitehead).3 But the “if Aristotle” motif had for centuries been a powerful, polemical tool in the hands of intellectuals with different orientations and areas of expertise. The invocation of Aristotle could be made in any number of ways—ironically, polemically, or even with emphatic seriousness—and applied to his work as a whole, to his individual doctrines, to his religious belief, and also to his persona. Tracing its circulation through significant examples will therefore provide us with a privileged vantage point from which to evaluate the early modern trajectory of the Aristotelian tradition.

Preliminary Observations Some clarification is necessary before examining the complex vicissitudes of the motif from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. In the first place, there was not a single, standard formulation of the expression. This was not only due to the multitude of languages in which it was used. For stylistic reasons, or because it was important to put emphasis on one word rather than another, a number of different variants were adopted. “If Aristotle were alive” is the most common formulation, usually rendered in Latin with the verb “vivere.” Another typical formulation has “to live again” or “to come back to life” (the corresponding Latin verb is “reviviscere”). The choice of variants could reflect a particular context; to mention just one example, when

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speaking of celestial observations performed using instruments that were not available to Aristotle, commentators preferred the variant “if Aristotle saw”— unsurprisingly, this variant is found in Galileo. When the intention was to corrode the connection between him and his followers, at times the imagined reaction of Aristotle was described with verbs like “ridere” (“to laugh”), “irridere” (“to deride”), and even “castigare” (“to punish”).4 It is also worth pointing out that during the Middle Ages and early modern period the “if Aristotle were alive” motif had ethical and exemplary implications only on exceptional occasions. This is in stark contrast to contemporary motifs such as “if Jesus were alive” or “what would Jesus do.”5 Early modern writers did not conjure up a reborn Aristotle as a model to emulate: the message conveyed was not an imitatio Aristotelis. An instance in which the meaning of the motif does have some analogies with modern usages is when Aristotle was invoked by interpreters, philologists, and translators as a guide to grasping or restoring the sense of his writings (discussed in the section “Aristotle Reads Aristotle” below), an application that reminds us of the debates led by the so-called originalists over the interpretation of the United States Constitution (in this case, the question would be “what would the founding fathers do if they were alive today?”).6 In these two examples, both the early modern one and the contemporary one, the implication is a kind of dehistoricization, which cancels the chronological gap between sixteenth-century philologists and the ancient philosopher, just as much as it removes the distance between twenty-first century readers of the Constitution and the founding fathers. Yet, aside from this “philological-exegetical” application of the motif, its early modern use was eminently historicizing and underscored the limited length of any human’s life and its fixed place in history. Recurring variants employing the verb “to know,” such as “if Aristotle knew/if Aristotle had known,” hinge on his ignorance of scientific and religious developments that happened after his death. Had he been informed of them, he would have changed his mind and revised his teachings accordingly. An interesting variation of this use of counterfactual imagining occurs in the seventh chapter (“The Complaint of Books Against Wars”) of the Philobiblon (c. 1345) by Richard de Bury, who claims that Aristotle “would have not missed the quadrature of the circle, if only baleful conflicts had spared the books of the ancients, who knew all the methods of nature. He would not have left the problem of the eternity of the world an open question, nor, as is credibly conceived, would he have had any doubts of the plurality of human intellects

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and of their eternity, if the perfect sciences of the ancients had not been exposed to the calamities of hateful wars.”7 Therefore, according to de Bury, Aristotle was unaware of certain doctrines not because he lived prior to their emergence but rather because they had been lost with the books that contained them, long before his birth. Even in this instance, however, he is limited by the historical period in which he lived. In this perspective, which emphasizes the limits of Aristotle’s knowledge, the motif “if Aristotle were alive” appears to be related to—or even to function as an explanation of—another topos present in medieval and Renaissance authors: the anti-authoritative argument that “Aristotle was a man, and therefore fallible.”8 And in the Bibliotheca selecta by the Jesuit Antonio Possevino the two motifs—“if Aristotle were alive” and “Aristotle was a man, and therefore fallible”—are in fact employed at the same time: Therefore they [Christians] understand that Aristotle could be wrong, and they discern in him the limitations of human intelligence, because he was a man, and even a pagan. . . . There is no reason to be surprised if he changed over the years, and those things that once were obscure to him became clear when he grew old (as usually happens). . . . For this reason, had he lived longer, or if he now came back to life after so many centuries, during which other innumerable things and almost another world have surfaced, he would certainly correct many of his doctrines, which today we know from experience to be the opposite of the truth.9 Here, Possevino connects the fallibility of Aristotle to his limited lifespan, both in terms of duration and place in history. Thus, he concludes that, had he lived longer, or lived centuries later, Aristotle would have been forced to correct his doctrines when learning of the new discoveries that had come to light in the meantime. Such a depiction is completely understandable as part of Possevino’s agenda, which was to distinguish pagan from Christian authors, revealing the dangers Possevino believed were lurking in the pages of the former. But Possevino’s pairing of the two expressions was unusual: “Aristotle was a man and therefore fallible” was not generally associated with “if Aristotle were alive” in other authors. The reason for this becomes clear if we consider the main implication of “if Aristotle were alive.” Whereas “Aristotle was a man, and therefore fallible” was used to downplay the reliability of him

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as an authority, the assumption behind “if Aristotle were alive” is that his authority can be imagined as defying the chronological boundaries of the historical period in which the Philosopher lived.10 Aristotle’s fixed place in history precluded him from obtaining knowledge of the many things discovered, or revealed, after his death. Yet by virtue of an imaginary return to the world of the living he can overcome the temporal boundaries of his existence, thus filling in the gaps in his learning, correcting his own doctrines, and, crucially, providing support for modern tenets. Nonetheless, there is often a paradox underlying the “if Aristotle were alive” motif and its relationship to authority: the Philosopher’s auctoritas is usually invoked against his own doctrines in order to show that his precepts have to be corrected; but, in doing so, the reborn Aristotle frequently ends up endorsing agendas that are alien to his doctrines and to the traditional allegiances of his school. Particularly in the seventeenth century, when the philosophical supremacy of Peripateticism was crumbling, the motif “if Aristotle were alive” was capable of turning Aristotle into a spokesman for libertas philosophandi, inviting others to revise or even abandon his doctrines.11 It was precisely the traditional, long-standing authoritative status of the Philosopher that gave the polemical stances of the imaginary Aristotle their rhetorical force. Mainly Scholastics—who endorsed and intended to maintain Aristotle’s traditional role—instead used the motif to postulate his conversion to Christianity. Even among them, however, it could serve a polemical function. For example, when the Dominican preacher Melchior Cano (1509–1560) sought Aristotle’s endorsement in order to legitimize Christian theology on the basis that it was grounded in divine revelation and, as such, was a science in the fullest Aristotelian sense, his appeal to the Philosopher had a precise target. By claiming that “if Aristotle lived now, he would find no other name than science to define theology,” Cano was deploying Aristotle’s definition of a “science” against those theologians who, in his view, made an improper use of the Philosopher’s teachings, overindulging in syllogisms and other subtleties of Aristotelian logic, which were based on natural reason rather than on faith.12 Whatever the case, such ventriloquizing was an effective rhetorical device that allowed a prestigious advocate to be conjured up—one who could, by virtue of his authority, bolster the statement he was summoned to support and, since he was conveniently dead, could not retract his endorsement.13 In early modern dialogic works, a way of making an argument stronger was to

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entrust it to an interlocutor of universally acknowledged intellectual prestige, even if this entailed betraying what this interlocutor actually defended in his or her work: “if Aristotle were alive” as a motif operates in a very similar way.14 Even though the appeal to his auctoritas was, by and large, the most common implication of “if Aristotle were alive,” the motif was also employed more playfully, as, for example, in the Middle High German poem Der Wa¨lsche Gast (The Italian guest) by Thomasin von Zirclaria (1186–1235).15 The poem offered an ethical code for younger members of the nobility and contained didactic reflections on religion, morality, and art. In this context Thomasin at one point bemoans the absence of generous literary patrons in his time, claiming that if Aristotle were alive he would not be able to find someone like Alexander the Great to honor and praise him.16 Similarly, the motif reappears in another, later poem: the Chemin de long estude (1403) by Christine de Pizan (1363–1431). In her allegorical dream poem, Christine meets, among others, the personification of Wealth. Wealth, a reimagining of the more traditional allegorical figure of Fortune, explains to Christine that she dominates everything to the extent that even a reborn—and wiser— Aristotle would not receive any acknowledgment if he were poor.17 As in Thomasin, this was not a proper appeal to the authority of Aristotle as a philosopher but rather a variation of the topos on the scarcity of good patrons, in which he is employed as a generic symbol of undisputed wisdom from the happy past, in order to bring out the vulgarity and moral decay of modern times. Bringing Aristotle back to life was also a useful way to denounce absurd contemporary customs, in face of which even the reborn Philosopher, the epitome of rationality, would be powerless. The best example of this version of the motif is found in the opening pages of Don Quixote: You must know then, that this gentleman aforesaid, at times when he was idle, which was most part of the year, gave himself up to the reading of books of chivalry, with so much attachment and relish, that he almost forgot all the sports of the field, and even the management of his domestic affairs; and his curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived to that pitch, that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase books of knight-errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands on of that kind. But, among them all, none pleased him so much as those composed by the famous Feliciano de Silva:

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for the glaringness of his prose, and the intricacy of his style, seemed to him so many pearls; and especially when he came to peruse those love-speeches and challenges, wherein in several places he found written: “The reason of the unreasonable treatment of my reason enfeebles my reason in such wise, that with reason I complain of your beauty”: and also when he read—“The high heavens that with your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, making you meritorious of the merit merited by your greatness.” With this kind of language the poor gentleman lost his wits, and distracted himself to comprehend and unravel their meaning; which was more than Aristotle himself could do, were he to rise again from the dead for that purpose alone.18 Cervantes, who was well acquainted with his works, evoked Aristotle throughout his novel as the wise man par excellence. Here, nonetheless, he declares that a reborn Aristotle would prove completely unable to comprehend the intricate language of the chivalric novels, implying the a fortiori argument that, even if Aristotle had been incapable of making sense of chivalric novels, the destiny of “poor” Quixote was already sealed.19 Less commonly, authors wished for Aristotle to return to life with bad intentions toward him. Thomas Bradwardine (d. 1349) was sure that a reborn Aristotle would not able to persuade modern thinkers to support his doctrine of the eternity of the world.20 The Venetian bishop and humanist Girolamo Balbi (c. 1450–1535)—famous for his bad temper—was even more aggressive. In his treatise De fortuna et providentia (c. 1500), enraged by Aristotle’s insistence on the necessity of second causes, which undermine the omnipotence of God, Balbi stated that if Aristotle were alive, he would give him a piece of his mind.21 Before we proceed, one final clarification is necessary. Aristotle was obviously not the only authoritative figure to whom this kind of counterfactual imagining was applied in the early modern period. Even if their presence was usually limited to discussions of literary imitation, motifs such as “if Cicero were alive”—to mention another significant example—were common in the sixteenth century, largely thanks to the example offered by Erasmus in his Ciceronianus.22 Nor was Aristotle the first figure to which the motif was applied. Before him this honor belonged to other illustrious authors, most notably Plato.23 In The Soul’s Dependence on the Body, Galen imagined a reborn Plato in order

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to distinguish him from his dull followers: “If Plato were alive, I would most gladly receive instruction from him on that point. But he is dead, and none of the present-day Platonists has ever shown me the cause for the soul leaving the body in the circumstances I have mentioned.”24 St. Augustine repeated the motif several times, arguing particularly in De vera religione (III, 3) and De civitate Dei (XXII, 27) that Plato and other Platonists would certainly have been Christian in his day, since they only had to correct some minor points in their writings in order to speak like followers of the true religion.25 Nevertheless, between the Middle Ages and the early modern period the motif “if Plato were alive” is found only rarely.26 The patterns used by Galen and Augustine—the contrast between the dull modern followers and their wise master capable of discerning the truth, as we already have seen with Galileo, and the reborn philosopher’s hypothetical conversion to Christianity—were destined, in subsequent centuries, to be applied almost exclusively to Aristotle. This shift can be easily explained if we consider again the fil rouge that generally characterized the employment of the motif: the appeal to the principle of authority. When Galen and Augustine composed their works, Plato was still the main reference in the pagan schools of philosophy, while Aristotle was regarded as one of his followers.27 As I have pointed out (see Chapter 1), around the twelfth century this situation was reversed in the West, where Aristotle became the backbone of university instruction, the “master of those who know,” the auctor par excellence, whereas only a handful of Plato’s works were circulating in Latin, and in any case were not considered suitable for educational purposes. Nor did Plato’s revival in the late fifteenth century alter the use of the motif, since institutions like universities still based their power and tradition on Aristotle. His role as a point of reference for the university insiders and as a target for the outsiders had a decisive influence on the continuing circulation of the motif.28 Nevertheless, “if Plato were alive” did occasionally crop up in authors like Petrarch who were self-declared opponents of Aristotle. In his De sui ipsius et aliorum ignorantia (On his own ignorance and that of many others)—an invective addressed to a group of friends who had dared to criticize him for his hostility to the Aristotelian philosophy—Petrarch reacted by exposing the stubbornness of his opponents. He argued, among other things, that if a reborn ancient philosopher, even their “god” Aristotle, were to abandon his “murky and verbose” doctrines and embrace the Christian truth, his opponents would “accuse him of boorish ignorance,” precisely as they did with Petrarch.29 Yet Petrarch envisioned for Plato a resurrection that was not just a polemical

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ploy, as it was for Aristotle, but instead had a solid pars construens. Recovering the motif directly from Augustine, he paired Plato with Cicero in a mental experiment intended to demonstrate that it was possible for a Christian to be an admirer of these two great pagans: “I feel certain that Cicero himself would have been a Christian if he had been able to see Christ or grasp his teaching. As for Plato, we find that Augustine himself does not doubt that he would have become a Christian if he had come back to live in our age or if he had foreseen the future in his lifetime.”30

Converting the Philosopher When Augustine suggested that had Plato been alive during his own time the ancient philosopher would have converted to Christianity, he was basing his statement on the essence of Platonic philosophy itself. He felt that only minor adjustments were needed to make it fully compatible with Christianity (“paucis mutatis verbis atque sententiis”). This was enough for him to claim that a reborn Plato would readily have embraced the true faith. Converting Aristotle was far more challenging and required more than slight adjustments, as we saw in the previous chapters. Still, it was not impossible and in some circumstances was even necessary. A particular tension, for example, was perceived between the Aristotelian categories and the Trinitarian doctrine. How could the Aristotelian categories account for both the unity and the trinity of God? And how could categories applied in the inferior world be applied also in the supernatural one? Some interpreters dealt with the problem by confining Aristotelian logic to the natural realm.31 But if one wanted to continue to use it in theological matters, the solution was to adapt Aristotelian logic to Christian needs.32 In some cases this entailed imagining a reborn Aristotle eager to reconsider his doctrines in light of his acceptance of Christianity. We find this rhetorical strategy deployed in some fourteenth-century logic treatises devoted to predication and Trinitarian theology.33 It is evident too in an early sixteenth-century commentary on the Categories by the French Aristotelian Jacques Lefe`vre d’E´taples (c. 1450–1536). All these writings maintained that if Aristotle were to come back to life, he would doubtless accept Christianity and its dogmas, and therefore revise or allow exceptions to his logical teachings.34 Let’s focus on Lefe`vre. In a passage from the Categories (13a30–37) Aristotle stated that “there may be a change from possession to privation, but not

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from privation to possession,” and that therefore “the man who has become blind does not regain his sight; the man who has become bald does not regain his hair; the man who has lost his teeth does not grow a new set.” When commenting on the passage, Lefe`vre limited the validity of the statement to natural reality, the only reality that Aristotle experienced. But had the Philosopher known of Christ and his miracles, he would have promptly embraced the faith and corrected his doctrines: “If someone becomes blind, he never recovers sight by nature or by the power of nature; this is, in fact, impossible. Therefore, if Aristotle had been alive and seen when the creator of nature, who took on flesh for humanity, said to those who were born blind ‘see,’ and they were immediately able to see, there is no doubt that he would have admitted right away that he was God, and he would have worshipped him as God.”35 The confident belief of Lefe`vre in Aristotle’s conversion was in line with his general assessment of the Philosopher’s doctrines (rationalis philosophia), which he regarded as decisive for attaining knowledge of the intelligible world (intellectualis philosophia) and as in substantial agreement with Christianity.36 Yet, also generally speaking, the fundamental importance of Aristotelian logic, in particular of the doctrine of predication, compelled scholars to correct those errors that made it unsuitable for theological discussion. “If Aristotle were alive” had the combined advantage of justifying the Philosopher’s paganism and enlisting him in the ranks of Christians. By a leap of faith—the expression is particularly fitting here—Aristotle’s conversion on learning of the Revelation was taken for granted, and made it possible for a logical system developed by a pagan to be adopted in a theological setting. Outside the context of logic, the same confidence in the possibility of converting Aristotle to Christianity was expressed in 1562 by Bishop Antonio Bernardi della Mirandola (1502–1565), who asserted that the Philosopher would no doubt have embraced Christianity if only he had known of it.37 In his Disputationes, a work as lengthy as it is bizarre, Bernardi discusses the nature of oracles as one of the many topics raised in relation to the legitimacy of dueling, the ostensible theme of the book.38 He attempts here to justify the position Aristotle takes on oracles, as set out in the Rhetoric (1407b1–4) and in the Problemata (954a34–36), where he describes oracles as fraudulent, or at the very least as provoked by such merely physiological factors as melancholy, reducing them, in both cases, to natural causes devoid of any supernatural influence. In order to correct this stance, Bernardi follows the same line of argument employed by Lefe`vre d’E´taples: Aristotle lived in the world of

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pure nature, and for this reason he could not acknowledge the demonic essence of oracles, which he would have considered miraculous, had he known what Christians know. Bernardi, however, adds a polemical edge to his use of the “if Aristotle” motif: as a pagan, Aristotle can be forgiven for having denied demons; but if someone raised as a Christian describes the world in puris naturalibus, without admitting the existence of separate substances, he cannot be pardoned. Bernardi is referring to Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525), whose recently published De incantationibus is a target throughout this section of the Disputationes.39 The “if Aristotle” argument of Bernardi allows him to kill many birds with one stone: as a committed Aristotelian, he can justify the omissions in Aristotle and vouch for the certainty of his conversion; but most of all, he can draw a line between the Philosopher and his unworthy follower Pomponazzi, who wrongly reduced the world to its natural causes. A few decades later, Nicolaus Taurellus, who later became a professor at the universities of Basel and Altdorf, wrote in his Philosophiae triumphus (1573) that if Aristotle had known the light of Christ, he would have repented of his errors and investigated the truth with more diligence, in order to offer a philosophy built on more solid foundations.40 Despite their different backgrounds—Bernardi was a Catholic bishop, Taurellus a Protestant—the two men make very similar use of the “if Aristotle” motif. They both think that the reborn Aristotle, after conversion, would revise his natural tenets because of his acceptance of Christ. And when Taurellus puts the accent on the errors and the atonement of Aristotle, he does so—just as Bernardi did when criticizing Pomponazzi—in order to attack the Philosopher’s modern followers. Taurellus was certain that a reborn Aristotle would convert and fully revise his natural philosophy, which was blindly followed by contemporaries of his who were not interested in physics with a Christian basis. Taurellus instead relied on a “method that made natural philosophy dependent on metaphysics,”41 and that allowed him to attack those philosophers—in particular from Catholic countries—who insisted on a distinction between philosophical and theological truths. The problem of the double truth was not just a personal obsession of Taurellus but touched a sensitive nerve within Protestant universities. A few years later the Hofmann-Streit (1598; see Chapter 3) in Helmsted, in which the use of philosophy in theological matters was debated, would bring these underlying tensions to the surface.42 In his use of the “if Aristotle” motif, Taurellus attempted to show that even Aristotle himself, if he were to be reborn and converted to Christianity, would agree that

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there should be no opposition between faith and natural philosophy, while also impugning the piety of those Christians who insisted on assigning religion and reason to separate realms. In these two final examples, the imagined conversion of a reborn Aristotle is tied to a polemic against contemporaries who adhered too strictly to his natural teachings. This two-sided strategy—praise for the ancient teacher in order to condemn his modern followers—is a recurring feature in the use of the “if Aristotle” motif. As we will now see, this condemnation emerges in more explicit formulations than those adopted by Bernardi or Taurellus, and in contexts in which Aristotle’s philosophical conversion does not presuppose a religious one. In that different framework, the “if Aristotle” card was usually played not by his supporters but by those who identified themselves as opponents of Peripateticism, revealing the ambiguous relationship of the thought experiment to the principle of authority.

Good Teacher, Bad Students Over the centuries, from Petrarch to Descartes, to be anti-Aristotelian did not necessarily imply that one was anti-Aristotle. The virtue and the wisdom of the Philosopher were not always under attack; emphasizing these qualities could, instead, make it easier to castigate the blindness, lack of integrity, and dimness of his followers, both ancient and modern.43 Aristotle was by no means a tyrant, the argument ran, but was made into one by acolytes who constantly betrayed the spirit of his thought. Drawing a distinction between Aristotle and other Peripatetics was in certain authors no more than a casual, rhetorical device, which was outnumbered by condemnations of both him and his disciples. But for other writers, it expressed an honest admiration for him and genuine regret that his thought had been defaced and perverted by his followers. Whatever the case, the distinction between Aristotle and his disciples often entailed making use of the “if Aristotle” motif. The pattern is generally consistent: a reborn Aristotle is invoked to defend freedom of inquiry, or to endorse philosophical and/or scientific novelties, and, therefore, to discredit his slavish followers.44 This would, no doubt, have been perceived by staunch Aristotelians as friendly fire. Yet the contexts and agendas at stake were different, running the gamut from a generic hostility toward AristotelianScholastic tyranny to an explicit or implicit defense of a particular author or

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alternative school of thought. Although there are exceptions, this application of the “if Aristotle” motif was very popular among authors who were outsiders to the official culture of the universities. Since early modern exponents of Peripateticism—the usual butt of the argument—had a strong corporate and professional identity as university professors, it was easy to lump them together under a single label, regardless of their individual philosophical approaches.45 The most obvious way to deploy the motif was to put Aristotle at odds with his self-declared followers, portraying him as a father who disinherits his sons. Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540) sought to rebuild a new model of knowledge from the decayed ruins of contemporary arts and education. The manifesto of his cultural program was De disciplinis (1531), the fifth book of which is devoted to the corrupt curriculum of study. In it, Vives’s ambivalent attitude toward the Aristotelian tradition is fully evident—on one hand, the good Philosopher, on the other, his disappointing followers, both philosophers and theologians—particularly in the chapter on natural philosophy. The fault of the Peripatetics, Vives claims, consists in not recognizing that other authors have also made important contributions to the knowledge of nature, and in blindly following Aristotle, even in those things that have been shown to be untenable. According to Vives, however, “certainly, Aristotle, were he alive today, even if he had been very haughty—but he was not, and indeed evidence of his modesty can be gathered from his books—yet, even if he had been very arrogant, he would still mock and punish the foolishness of these men [his dull-witted followers]. The conviction of these peers of ours has ensured that we have accepted in philosophy many things as demonstrated and verified that are by no means so: to wit, Aristoteles dixerat.”46 Vives’s outcry against those followers of Aristotle who accepted his authority as the only requirement for validating philosophical doctrines, along with his belief that Aristotle would have been the first to denounce such behavior, was the source of Pierre Gassendi’s “if Aristotle” argument in his Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos (1624).47 In this work Gassendi acknowledged his debt to Vives for giving him the courage to challenge the Aristotelian orthodoxy that still prevailed in his own day. Like Vives, he lamented that teachings that even Aristotle himself would have found dubious were regarded as indisputable truths and maintained that such blind respect would have displeased him: “Certainly Aristotle himself, if he were alive and saw his followers swearing religiously on his words, would perceive things that were once uncertain for him now accepted as entirely indubitable. O how he

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would condemn such unmanly passivity!”48 Gassendi’s agenda was directly aimed at subverting Aristotelianism in order to replace it with Epicurean atomism, which Gassendi considered better suited to Christianity. Thus, his pages overflow with accusations against Aristotle with regard to his thought and even his moral reputation. This did not, however, prevent Gassendi from resorting to a reborn Aristotle when he needed his authority to make his own attack on contemporary Peripatetics more incisive and devastating, by having the Philosopher himself refuse to be made into an indisputable authority. Another occurrence of the motif, aimed at criticizing the passive acceptance of Aristotle’s teachings by his modern followers, is found in a book that, in many ways, is akin to Gassendi’s Exercitationes, since it seeks to dethrone Peripateticism in favor of a philosophy based in Christianity. In this work, entitled Philosophia libera, Nathanael Carpenter (1589–c. 1628), a philosopher and geographer from Devonshire, criticizes those who consider antiquity the only good patent of trustworthiness, while rejecting anything they perceive as a novelty. Carpenter nonetheless expresses admiration for Aristotle, and though he notes the imperfections in his philosophy (he was, after all, a pagan), he draws a clear distinction between him and contemporary Aristotelians, who are unworthy of being named after him because they merely absorb his teachings without any discernment. Real Aristotelians would protect and preserve philosophical freedom (libertas philosophica), but “there is no place where you will find less of Aristotle than among these false Aristotelians, whom—I think—the Philosopher himself, if he were to come back to life, would disown as spurious, or at least as degenerate.”49 Aristotle would be willing to expose his philosophy to scrutiny; and those who instead enshrine his teachings betray him. Even worse, Carpenter argues, in doing so, they close down any possibility of philosophical conversation, condemning to oblivion other Greek thinkers who are even more ancient than Aristotle.50 Thus, he adds yet another fault of the modern Aristotelians to the litany of charges associated with the “if Aristotle” motif: isolating Aristotle from other ancient philosophers and schools. The importance of not isolating Aristotle from other ancient philosophers was already clear for a tradition like the philosophia perennis, which was at pains to include the Philosopher among its ranks. According to philosophia perennis, there is a single core of truths shared and expressed in different degrees by all wise men throughout history.51 Yet it was difficult to find a foothold in Aristotle’s philosophy for such doctrines as the immortality of the soul or the creation of the world without resorting to abstruse methods

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for identifying esoteric meanings in his works. So, for instance, the papal librarian Agostino Steuco (see Chapter 2) in his De perenni philosophia (1540) found clues to deciphering traces of the philosophia perennis in Aristotle in other ancient philosophers. This consideration prompted Steuco to attack the contemporary Peripatetics, who, by focusing exclusively on Aristotle, had lost the lessons of other thinkers who would be better guides to grasping the truth. Yet—in a vicious circle—modern Aristotelians could not properly understand the teachings of the Philosopher precisely because they lacked the guidance of these other authors. And how, Steuco asked, would a reborn Aristotle react to seeing his opinions defaced and misunderstood, in particular on a crucial topic such as the divine nature of the mens that would prove the affinity between men and God? For this reason, those who corrupt that opinion of Aristotle [that the mens is divinely infused], imposing on him some meaning or other, are clearly unaware of the truth, and do not know the ancient philosophy, which, though it appears at times obscure and convoluted in Aristotle, certainly becomes clear through the words of other philosophers, who spoke more openly. But this is the great disgrace of recent philosophers, who cannot see the many rays that the truth emits everywhere. Therefore, they have not only devoted themselves to Aristotle alone, but have consecrated themselves to him to such an extent that they charge into swords and fire if it is necessary to protect his dogmas, about which they have conceived so many depraved opinions that if Aristotle came back to life, I think he would be fuming.52 Though Steuco was himself imposing a distorting filter on Aristotle and his philosophy, he was right to denounce, through the reborn Philosopher, “isolationist” readings of the Aristotelian corpus. We saw in Chapter 3 how in France Francesco Vimercato proposed in the very same years to introduce Plato as part of university teaching, with the stated goal of obtaining a better understanding of Aristotle.53 We have also seen, however, that Vimercato subsequently revised his program, likely in reaction to the turmoil created by his colleague Petrus Ramus with his reform of dialectic, which affected every branch of philosophy. Central to Ramus’s program was the rebuttal of the privileged status of the Aristotelian method, or rather of the method attributed to Aristotle in the schools. Though in some posthumously published

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writings Ramus labeled Aristotle an atheist who must be rejected,54 in other works he preferred to present himself as his most faithful interpreter. Ramus supported this claim by highlighting fundamental elements of his own “single method” in Aristotle and in other ancient philosophers, such as Plato. Consequently, Ramus advocated a free approach to the text of Aristotle, as free as the Philosopher had used when discussing the doctrines of his predecessors, and the only one to which Aristotle himself, if he were alive, would give his approval.55 In the name of the philosophical freedom that he attributed to Aristotle, Ramus felt entitled to criticize commentators like Alexander of Aphrodisias, who singled out Aristotle’s philosophy and described other ancient philosophers as babbling children (“balbos et infantes”): “O philosopher, you who have interpreters so benevolent and so eager to please their master, you are blessed; but in reality you are miserable! I know for certain that if Aristotle were restored to life, he would passionately detest this sloth and passivity, because he was the freest among all the masters of philosophy, and he presented to all his followers and imitators similar laws of freedom.”56 Peripatetics, Ramus argues, have therefore betrayed their master, despite all their gestures toward honoring his teachings ad litteram. This is because the essence of Aristotelianism is precisely the opposite attitude: an openness to debate and revision. Ramus was not alone in portraying Aristotle as better than his followers. Both Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) and Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) suggested that if Aristotle were alive in their day, he would without doubt revise individual aspects of his doctrines, or might even convert to alternative philosophies that were in disagreement with his own. The usually flamboyant Cardano took an uncharacteristically low-key approach to the “if Aristotle” motif, merely imagining the reborn Philosopher as endorsing his own definition of wind, which corrected the one offered in the second book of the Meteorology.57 But he seized this argument as an opportunity to denigrate contemporary Aristotelians: if Aristotle had known what is known today, he would have changed his mind; so his followers should not despise Cardano for having corrected their master. Campanella instead exploited the “if Aristotle” motif on a larger scale. He had always been very vocal in expressing his feelings about him: we find only very rare words of appreciation for the Philosopher in his works, while he often called him tyrannical and impious. There were many theoretical reasons behind Campanella’s attitude, but also nationalistic ones. As a

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Calabrian, Campanella resented the unwillingness of Aristotelians from elsewhere in the peninsula to recognize the achievements of the local hero, Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588), whose challenges to the Peripatetic tradition had inspired him as a young man.58 In order to defend his role model Telesio, by then deceased, from the accusations of the Peripatetic Giacomo Antonio Marta (1559–1629), in 1591 Campanella decided to make an exception to his usual unmitigated hostility toward Aristotle and his followers, resorting instead to the “if Aristotle” argument: “Marta, that philosophizer, a modern know-it-all, who—so it seems—looks for glory, but obtains only shame, has not hesitated to accuse Telesio, whom Aristotle, if he were alive, would venerate as soon as he heard of his truthful teachings.”59 According to Campanella, Aristotle would be willing not just to correct his own philosophy but even to embrace the system proposed by Telesio, who had turned his cosmology upside down. In accepting the endorsement of his philosophical nemesis, Campanella is able to give more substance to his support for Telesio. It is not enough to distinguish between the Philosopher and his followers; Aristotle can be useful only if—paradoxically—he stops being an Aristotelian and becomes instead a spokesman for Telesio and Campanella’s new and different philosophy (“il diverso filosofar mio”). The idea that Aristotle would accept new philosophies that challenged his own, and in doing so defy the stubborn conservatism of his followers, was still an appealing image well into the seventeenth century, when the French polymath Charles Sorel (1602–1674) compiled an encyclopedic work in four volumes, La science universelle (1634–1644). Sorel expressly directs the book against those “esclaves et mercenaires” who submit themselves to ancient authors, and he intends it to be a full treatment of every art and science under the guidance of reason and fresh experience. With this framework in mind, he recalls an incident that occurred in Paris in 1624 that resulted in the mandatory teaching of Aristotle’s doctrines at the university and a ban on other schools of thought.60 He concludes that Aristotle had overstayed his welcome as the authority of reference: it was time to set him aside and investigate new paths. However, Sorel claims to have no personal bias against Aristotle and finds the Aristotelians much more objectionable than their hero: “We declare here that we dislike Aristotle less than the Aristotelians: it is they who have the obstinacy to oppose things which he, if he were alive, would be happy to support, so that he could benefit from the new lights [lumie`res] that he would see appearing. Nonetheless, these willfully blind men dare to

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publish that they cannot tolerate any innovation or reform in the sciences, even though these are the only ways of making them perfect.”61 Aristotle, if alive, would be able to see the light, while modern Peripatetics have stubbornly decided to remain in the dark. Sorel juxtaposes light against dark, seeking help from the reborn Philosopher to undermine those who are too dim to recognize that only a departure from the past can allow the progress of sciences, for without acknowledging mistakes there can be no advancement in learning. In order to achieve this goal, the imagined Aristotle has to collaborate in his own dethronement and willingly endorse new philosophies and philosophers. In this way, he will foil his followers and render futile their efforts to defend the Aristotelian fortress from any possible attack. In the view of the intellectuals thus far taken into consideration, a reborn Aristotle would graciously surrender to the advancement of learning. According to some, this would happen because his philosophy prescribed free investigation; for others, it was because the evidence in favor of the new doctrines would prove irresistible; while still others believed that he would be embarrassed by the modern cohort of Peripatetics. Whatever the emphasis, the “if Aristotle” argument proved to be a formidable weapon in the hands of this large and varied group, which we might label “anti-Aristotelian.” Unlike those who used the motif in a religious context, these authors did not wish to convert Aristotle to the new philosophies in order to save him so that they could continue to rely on his teachings. On the contrary, they did so while trying to overturn the primacy of his doctrines. Their aim was to challenge the authority of Aristotle’s thought by paradoxically enlisting the Philosopher himself in their struggle against his contemporary followers. The “if Aristotle” argument could also afford the new philosophers another advantage over their Aristotelian opponents: the possibility of placing their innovative doctrines and programs within a traditional setting. As Daniel Garber has recently reminded us, “new” has not always been perceived as “better.” And even during the seventeenth century novelties were regarded with suspicion.62 The endorsement of a reborn Aristotle would potentially have been advantageous for even the most cutting-edge thinkers, preventing them from seeming unduly subversive.63 All the resonances at play in the works of Ramus, Vives, Gassendi, and Campanella resurface in the employment of the motif by Galileo. Yet, as we will see, his use of it follows a consistent pattern throughout his career. There was a specific reason for this, which was intended to strike Aristotelianism at one of its vital and most sensitive points.

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Restless Heavens: From Rheticus to Galileo The “if Aristotle” motif had already appeared in an astronomical context before Galileo. As early as the thirteenth century, Albert the Great (d. 1280) quoted the Arabic philosopher Maurus Abonycer’s claim that if Aristotle were alive he would have either had to reject the new observations on the relative speed of the heavens or else embrace them and abandon his original views.64 But after Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514–1574), the student of Copernicus who made his mentor’s system public, the motif ’s use in astronomical works became almost a matter of course. Rheticus appealed to the honesty and competence of Aristotle in his Narratio prima (1540), confident that—if he were alive—he would surrender “once [he had] listened to the reasoning of the new arguments.”65 In 1596, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) reprinted the Narratio as an appendix to his Mysterium cosmographicum, and in the opening of his own work he referred to Rheticus’s repeated use of the motif.66 In the second enlarged edition of The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1640), John Wilkins (1614–1668) declared his debt to Rheticus and Kepler, who introduced him to the “if Aristotle” motif: “ ’Tis probable, that many other of the Antients would have assented unto this opinion, if they had acquainted with those experiments which later times have found out for the confirmation of it. And therefore Rheticus and Keplar [sic] doe so oten [sic] wish that Aristotle were now alive againe. Questionlesse, he was so rational and ingenious a man (not halfe so obstinate as many of his followers) that upon such probabilities as these, he would quickly have renounced his owne principles, and have come over to this side.”67 It would be reasonable to assume that Rheticus and Kepler also inspired Galileo’s use of the motif. Yet because Galileo was an avid reader of a variety of texts—not only astronomical works—it is impossible to attribute his appropriation of it to any one author. Also, his employment of the motif was not purely rhetorical, as it was for his fellow astronomers: Rheticus, Kepler, and Wilkins all invoked Aristotle to validate their positions, but without explaining why he would have done so, except to say that the truth of their theories would be enough to convince the reborn Philosopher. Galileo, however, never used words in a purely ornamental way, even when he quoted from literary sources.68 He adopted the “if Aristotle were alive” argument numerous times and always for the same purpose: to affirm the mutability of the heavens. This was not only because of his well-known habit of recycling his own material in different works.69 More important, it

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was because the mutability of the heavens was the one doctrine for which Galileo believed that he possessed valid proofs that would have been embraced by a reborn Aristotle. According to Aristotelian cosmology, the supralunar heavens were made of ether and were not subject to change. They were divided into concentric hard crystalline spheres and characterized by circular motion. Conversely, the sublunar world—which included the earth—was subject to the interaction of the four elements and, therefore, to generation and corruption. It was also characterized by linear motion. This position radically distinguishes the earth from the rest of the heavens; but at the end of the sixteenth century, the traditional view was challenged in many ways. Tycho Brahe’s observations of comets and new stars (1573–1585) played a key role in debunking the doctrine of crystalline spheres and introduced the concept of fluid heavens, which was even accepted by many Peripatetics. Fluidity, however, implied corruptibility, a proposition that met with opposition among the supporters of Aristotelian cosmology, both before and after Galileo’s 1612 telescope observation of sunspots.70 Abandoning the theory of the incorruptibility of the heavens did not raise theological issues. On the contrary, it seemed to favor the scriptures and the dogma of the Creation and would have not imposed tout court the dismissal of the Aristotelian cosmos.71 Yet it represented a point in favor of the Copernican theory— which classified the earth as just another planet—and it provoked anxiety and hostile reactions.72 In a letter to Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, Galileo noted: “If you happen to discuss my solution with learned men in that city [Rome], I would like to hear something about their opinions, and in particular of the Peripatetic philosophers, for this novelty appears to be the final judgement of their philosophy, because iam fuerunt signa in luna, stellis et sole.”73 Galileo was aware that his observations on sunspots were a serious obstacle for the supporters of the immutability of the heavens. In a letter to Federico Cesi of May 1612, he remarked that the lunar mountains he had described in the Sidereus nuncius were little more than a scratch for the Aristotelians, just a poke, compared to the scourge of the clouds, vapor, and steam he had observed on the surface of the sun.74 Furthermore, already in January 1612, he had been invited to participate in an epistolary debate on sunspots by the German banker Mark Welser, who had recently received some letters on the topic from one of his prote´ge´s, Apelles, alias the Jesuit Christoph Scheiner (1573 or 1575–d. 1650). This led to an exchange of letters between

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Galileo and Scheiner/Apelles, overseen by Welser. Though Welser’s mediation dictated the tone of the confrontation between Galileo and Scheiner, there were many harsh disagreements between them.75 Aside from quarreling over who had first observed the sunspots and other related issues, the two men offered very different interpretations of the phenomenon.76 Scheiner, in order to uphold the immutability of the heavens, claimed that the sunspots were in reality starlike bodies, until then undetected, encircling the sun, thus leaving its surface without spots and unalterable. Galileo, however, offered demonstrations that there were sunspots located on the surface of the sun.77 Galileo introduced the “if Aristotle” motif in the first of his letters on sunspots, but he removed the passage from the printed version, possibly to avoid repetition, since it figured prominently in the subsequent two epistles. In the deleted passage, Galileo had written that it was no longer possible to adjust nature to accommodate Peripatetic philosophy: the sensate esperienze have reestablished the supremacy of nature over philosophy. If Aristotle were alive, he would not be offended by this and would change his mind, appreciating the fact that it is right to correct a wrong belief and that an erroneous opinion should not be justified by introducing “thousands of other fabrications.”78 This passage is very similar to the one we find in the third letter: “I will add only this, that I think it is not the act of a true philosopher to persist—if I may say so—with such obstinacy in maintaining Peripatetic conclusions that have been found so manifestly false, believing perhaps that if Aristotle were here today he would do likewise, as if defending what is false, rather than being persuaded by the truth, were the better index of perfect judgement and the most noble system of profound doctrine.”79 It is, however, in a passage from the second letter that Galileo discloses what lies behind his use of the motif. In On the Heavens, at 270b13–17, Aristotle had presented as an argument in support of celestial immutability the fact that “no change in the heavens has ever been observed or recorded.” But change in the heavens is precisely what Galileo had observed and recorded. He is therefore able to demolish a central feature of the Aristotelian cosmology, courtesy of the Philosopher himself. Aristotle’s genuine philosophy —Galileo claims—advocates the use of senses, primarily sight, in investigating nature. Thus if experience has indicated that the heavens are mutable, this new fact must be embraced, as Aristotle would have done had he possessed the relevant information. The reason Galileo always used “if Aristotle were alive” in the same context was that he had found a key passage in the

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Aristotelian corpus that justified the adoption of the argument, while also providing implicit support for his own method and conclusions. Basing his use of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif on a passage from On the Heavens, he was evidently lobbying for a version of Aristotle fully rooted in experience and sense: Now, in order to reap some fruit from the unexpected wonders that have remained hidden until our age, it will be well that in the future we go back to lending an ear to those wise philosophers who judged differently from Aristotle about the celestial substance, and from whom even Aristotle would not have distanced himself had he had knowledge of the present sensory observations, for he not only admitted manifest experiences as one means of drawing conclusions about natural questions, but he even gave them pride of place. Hence, if he argued for the immutability of the heavens because in times past no alteration whatsoever had been seen in them, it is entirely credible that if vision had demonstrated to him the things that it makes manifest to us, he would have arrived at the opposite opinion, to which we are led by such wonderful discoveries. And I will further say that I think that I contradict Aristotle’s doctrine much less—these observations being truthful ones—with the supposition of mutable celestial matter than do those who would prefer to treat it as inalterable, because I am sure that he was never as certain of the conclusion of inalterability as he was of the notion that all human discourse must defer to evident experience.80 The endorsement by Galileo here of the “empiricist” portrait of Aristotle suggests that his use of the “if Aristotle” motif—being based on a single passage in the Aristotelian corpus—was certainly partial, and accommodated to his own needs. In other instances, indeed, he seemed to doubt the reliability of the sensory experiences reported by Aristotle, even insinuating that he had claimed to see things that he had, in fact, never seen.81 But when using the motif with regard to celestial mutability, he needed to present Aristotle as an unimpeachable master of sensory experience, in order to capitalize on what he had stated in On the Heavens at 270b13–17. In his use of the motif in the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), Galileo further insisted on the importance Aristotle attributed to sense experience:

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I declare that we do have in our age new events and observations such that if Aristotle were now alive, I have no doubt he would change his opinion. This is easily inferred from his own manner of philosophizing, for when he writes of considering the heavens inalterable, etc., because no new thing is seen to be generated there or any old one dissolved, he seems implicitly to let us understand that if he had seen any such event he would have reversed his opinion, and properly preferred the sensible experience to natural reason. Unless he had taken the senses into account, he would not have argued immutability from sensible mutations not being seen.82 If Aristotle denied the celestial mutations because he did not see them, there is every reason to believe that he would have admitted them, had he seen them. But, of course, the development of adequate instruments played a decisive part in enabling Galileo to see these heavenly alterations, which would not have been visible to Aristotle, who had to rely solely on his bare senses without the aid of a telescope: Add to this that we possess a better basis for reasoning about celestial things than Aristotle did. He admitted such perceptions to be very difficult for him by reason of the distance from his senses, and conceded that one whose senses could better represent them would be able to philosophize about them with more certainty. Now we, thanks to the telescope, have brought the heavens thirty or forty times closer to us than they were to Aristotle, so that we can discern many things in them that he could not see; among other things these sunspots, which were absolutely invisible to him. Therefore, we can treat of the heavens and the sun more confidently than Aristotle could.83 The absence of scientific instruments helps to explain why Aristotle could not discern phenomena such as sunspots. Galileo, however, reported that there was a professor teaching at a famous university who went so far as to attribute the invention of the telescope to Aristotle. This unnamed scholar’s statement probably resulted from merging a passage in On Generation of Animals (780b–781a)—in which Aristotle discussed the possibility of seeing objects at a distance—with the famous anecdote about a philosopher, usually Thales, who observed the stars from the bottom of a well.84 So, if a reborn

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Aristotle had to decide whether to endorse such an obtuse follower like the unnamed professor, or new discoveries on the mutability of the heavens made using a telescope, he would certainly opt for the latter, enraged at having been made into a despot whose teachings mattered more than sensory experience and nature: Tell me, are you so credulous as not to understand that if Aristotle had been present and heard this doctor who wanted to make him inventor of the telescope, he would have been much angrier with him than with those who laughed at this doctor and his interpretations? Is it possible for you to doubt that if Aristotle should see the new discoveries in the sky he would change his opinions and correct his books and embrace the most sensible doctrines, casting away from himself those people so weak-minded as to be induced to go on abjectly maintaining everything he had ever said? Why, if Aristotle had been such a man as they imagine, he would have been a man of intractable mind, of obstinate spirit, and barbarous soul; a man of tyrannical will who, regarding all others as silly sheep, wished to have his decrees preferred over the senses, experience, and nature itself. It is the followers of Aristotle who have crowned him with authority, not he who has usurped or appropriated it to himself. And since it is handier to conceal oneself under the cloak of another than to show one’s face in open court, they dare not in their timidity get a single step away from him, and rather than put any alterations into the heavens of Aristotle, they want to deny out of hand those that they see in nature’s heaven.85 Here the “if Aristotle” motif took a decidedly polemical turn against contemporary Aristotelians, which was particularly effective precisely because it was founded on the passage from On the Heavens.86 Galileo’s reborn Aristotle is not a generic mouthpiece against the modern advocates of Aristotelianism, but he can hit these targets on the basis of real textual evidence, using a passage from one of the very books Peripatetics revered and where they looked to find every answer. For Galileo, Aristotelians are cowards who hide behind a deformed caricature of their authority, and who feel safe only inside the fortress they have built for themselves.87 But in doing this, they have invented a tyrannical philosopher whom no one would be pleased to serve and honor. Were he to see the celestial alterations, Aristotle would correct his

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doctrines and banish those “poveretti di cervello” (“weak-minded”), reuniting the Aristotelian heavens with the natural ones. This approach is precisely opposite to that of his followers, who defended not what nature was, but what Aristotle said it was. After the trial and condemnation of Galileo in 1633, the “if Aristotle” motif—with its usual pattern—appears only in his private writings, such as marginalia or letters, in which he was responding to staunch Peripatetics. In these uses of the motif, Galileo portrays himself as a more faithful disciple of Aristotle than his self-declared followers, a clever way of attacking his adversaries while also suggesting his own respect for tradition. We find this approach, for example, in his annotations to the Esercizi filosofici by Antonio Rocco (published in Venice in 1633). Rocco, a one-eyed Aristotelian, had written his work as a rebuttal of Galileo’s Dialogue, arguing for a strict adherence to the texts of the Philosopher and rejecting Galileo’s observations, including those on sunspots. In the aftermath of his condemnation, Galileo did not react publicly to Rocco’s attack but covered his own copy of the Esercizi with annotations. To Rocco, who proudly declared his Aristotelianism from the frontispiece of his work, Galileo responded by claiming that Aristotle, had he seen the celestial alterations, would have preferred to have him as a disciple than Rocco, since Galileo relied on sensate esperienze, and the self-proclaimed Aristotelian only on questionable conjectures.88 The confrontation with Rocco, however, was not the last time that Galileo invited a reborn Aristotle to observe and accept the restless mutations of the heavens. At the end of his life, Galileo intensified his correspondence with the Aristotelian professor from Padua Fortunio Liceti. Though he had a great deal of respect for Galileo, Liceti was the personification of the simpleminded Aristotelian so often evoked by Galileo in his works. In behaving more like an apologist than a commentator, Liceti showered Aristotle with unqualified praise. He considered him to be philosophically infallible and went so far—as we have seen—as to transform him into a Jew and ante litteram Christian (see Chapter 4). Despite their evident disagreements, Liceti and Galileo maintained a long and cordial relationship. Nevertheless, Liceti took the opportunity, thirty years after its appearance, to attack the Sidereus nuncius and in particular Galileo’s explanation of the nature of the moon and its light.89 He set out his criticisms in a work entitled Litheosphorus, devoted to a phosphoric stone (a kind of barite) found years before by chance near Bologna, a stone that Galileo himself had used for his experiments on light.90 Since Liceti had made an analogy between the Bolognese stone and the

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moon, both of which he believed shone by means of their own internal power, he called into question the affinities between the earth and the moon, which Galileo had repeatedly drawn on as crucial physical proof of the Copernican system, having shown that the earth and the moon were “opaque and dark bodies” and were both illuminated by the sun.91 In one of the letters they exchanged during the debate, Liceti wrote to Galileo to complain of his hostility toward Aristotle. Galileo’s answer was that masterful statement of diplomacy and irony quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Galileo turned Liceti’s accusation against him, first describing what, in his view, characterized a real follower of Aristotle—an ability to make good syllogisms and reliance on experience above all else—and then declaring that if Aristotle came back to life, he would welcome Galileo as one of his most faithful disciples and would certainly not accept as followers those who were so desperate to make him infallible that they invented things that could not be found in his works. Liceti did not recognize himself in this unflattering portrait that Galileo had evidently crafted around his persona. Nor did he react to the second instance of the “if Aristotle” motif that Galileo appended to the first one, as an explanation: “And if Aristotle were able to see the novelties recently discovered in the heavens, which he had affirmed to be inalterable and immutable—precisely because no alteration had thus far been seen in them during his time—he would undoubtedly change his mind and affirm the opposite. In fact, we can correctly conclude that while he says the heavens are inalterable—because no alteration had been seen then—he would now say they are alterable, because alterations can be seen.”92 In just a few lines, by twice employing the “if Aristotle were alive” argument, Galileo insinuated that Liceti’s philosophical hero would not have considered Liceti himself to be a good follower.93 Notably, in this passage, as in the Dialogue and in the annotations against Rocco, Galileo uses the verb “to see,” underscoring the crucial difference between his approach to nature, based on direct experience, and that of his Aristotelian adversaries, relying on bookish, unverified repetition of the doctrines of others. The use of the verb “to see” was further justified by reference to the passage from On the Heavens, which had a twofold impact on Galileo’s use of the “if Aristotle” motif. On the one hand, the connection with the passage required the expression to be deployed in a limited context, the mutability of the heavens. On the other, it elevated it from a merely declamatory or ornamental motif and gave it a persuasive force that its other applications could not parallel. That Galileo offered a sort of self-commentary on his use

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of the motif, almost always referring to Aristotle’s statement in On the Heavens, suggests that he was eager to stress the difference between his “enhanced,” textually based application of the argument and the generic, oratorical version adopted by his predecessors, including fellow astronomers.94 This restricted but enhanced use of the expression by Galileo inspired others, in particular among those who are traditionally regarded as his adversaries par excellence: the Jesuits. At the beginning of his career Galileo maintained friendly relationships with members of the order, many of whom were involved in observational astronomy and interested in the question of the celestial novelties.95 Only when he made it clear that he did not intend to save Aristotelian cosmology did his relationship with the Jesuits become strained. The reception the Jesuits gave the “if Aristotle” argument as concocted by Galileo made sense, given their shared interest in the observation of heavenly phenomena. And despite their divergent attitudes toward Aristotle, the use of the motif permitted Jesuit scientists to fend off possible criticism and even censure from within their order when they found themselves in the awkward position of criticizing Aristotle. A telling example of the internal control exercised by the leadership of the Society of Jesus occurred in 1614, when the Jesuit astronomer Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) submitted his Aristotelis loca mathematica ex universis ipsius operibus collecta et explicata to the order’s reviser for approval.96 The reviser, Giovanni Camerota, complained that Biancani displayed an irreverent attitude toward Aristotle, and that chastised him excessively. Camerota perceived the work as an attack on Aristotle, not an explanation of his thought, and proposed that Biancani mitigate his critique by introducing justifications for his shortcomings. For instance, Camerota suggested, Biancani could excuse Aristotle for not knowing things that had only come to light in recent years by way of experiments.97 Though Camerota’s report also stated that it did not seem proper for Jesuit authors to use Galileo’s writings, especially in opposition to Aristotle, paradoxically it was precisely in his works that they found a way to satisfy their rhetorical needs. The first time Galileo employed the “if Aristotle” motif was in his polemical exchange on sunspots with Christoph Scheiner/Apelles. As I explained above, Scheiner at that time considered sunspots to be starlike bodies encircling the sun because he did not want to undermine the doctrine of the inalterability of heavens. Over the years, however, Scheiner revised his opinion and presented his new findings in a monumental work subsidized by Paolo Giordano Orsini, entitled Rosa Ursina (1626). Although Scheiner had

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not changed his views about Galileo, he had accepted and embraced a fluid, alterable sky; and this allowed him to use a Christian re-elaboration of Galileo’s “if Aristotle” argument: From what has been said, it follows in the first place that if Aristotle, after having embraced faith in God, had believed that the heavens are made by God in time, he would have said, according to his doctrine, that they are simpliciter corruptible, and at some point in time will be corrupted; second, had he known about sunspots, he would certainly not have considered the heavens incorruptible; and third, those who, in spite of the Holy Scriptures, of the Christian Faith, and of many other phenomena, nevertheless want the incorruptibility of the heavens as a safe shelter, and want that Aristotle thought and affirmed it, are as remote from Aristotle and from the truth as eternity is from temporality.98 Scheiner intertwined two different types of argument about the reborn Aristotle, theological and scientific. He suggested that religion would play a more important role than scientific observations in making Aristotle a supporter of the alterability of the heavens. The conversion of Aristotle to Christianity, implying his acceptance of such concepts as the Creation and the end of the world, would be decisive in convincing him to embrace the mutability of the heavens. Scheiner built on this point, bringing together the positions demanded by scripture and faith with a passage in On the Heavens (283a3) in which Aristotle says that what is generated is corruptible. If according to scripture the heavens are generated and according to Aristotle what is generated is corruptible, it therefore follows that Christian philosophers must affirm the corruptibility of the heavens. It is only after having reconciled Aristotle with faith that Scheiner introduced sunspots as a physical proof of the mutability of the heavens, which would have led Aristotle to recognize that they were corruptible, an implicit reference to On the Heavens (270b13– 17). The experimental arguments that drove Galileo to dismiss the mutability of the heavens are subordinated to the scriptures by Scheiner, whose reborn Aristotle would first have to become a Christian before accepting the physical proofs that correct his doctrine. If faith is the crucial factor in establishing the mutability of the heavens, Scheiner affirms, those who deny it are therefore sinning not only against Aristotle but above all against religion. This conclusion can be read as an attack on certain libertine uses of Aristotelianism

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intended to emancipate it from theology and to undermine religion. Yet it can also be read as a reproach, like that of Galileo, but from a Christian perspective, of those who passively accepted Aristotle’s teachings.99 Melchior Cornaeus was another a Jesuit scientist, and, in his Curriculum philosophiae peripateticae, printed in 1657, he too defended celestial alterability with an appeal to a reborn Aristotle: “If Aristotle were alive today, and he saw the alterations and conflagrations that we perceive in the sun, he would without any doubt change his opinion and join us. Surely the same could be said about the planets, of which the Philosopher knew no more than seven; but in our time, by means of the telescope, which he did not have, we know for certain that there are more.”100 Like Scheiner, Cornaeus held that the creationist view of scripture was in agreement with Aristotelian doctrines about the corruptibility of the generated, although Aristotle himself had no understanding of this connection.101 Nonetheless, Cornaeus pragmatically focused on Aristotle’s lack of scientific instruments, which prevented the Philosopher from observing the sunspots and knowing the correct number of planets. Again, implied in the passage is the quotation from On the Heavens (270b13–17) as used by Galileo. But the most interesting aspect of Cornaeus’s use of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif is that, as we saw in Chapter 4, Cornaeus made it concrete by introducing a reborn Aristotle as a character in a series of texts of Catholic propaganda. It is intriguing to consider whether there was a link between the “if Aristotle” motif—as found in the scientific context of the Curriculum—and Cornaeus’s portrayal of the reborn Philosopher as an apologist for Catholicism. And this link actually exists. In both the apologetic pamphlets and the Curriculum, the distance between Aristotle and modernity is symbolized by the telescope (figure 6), a metonymy of the new science. In the second volume of the Aristoteles redivivus series, the reborn Aristotle praises the telescope highly when holding it in his hands for the first time, as a tool that would have improved his sight both qualitatively (as proven by the reference to the lynx) and quantitatively (as proven by the reference to the multi-eyed Argus).102 In the Curriculum the telescope is described as the instrument that would have allowed him to understand the true nature of heavens, but that he never had the opportunity to use. The telescope is therefore the connection between the Aristoteles redivivus series and the passage in the Curriculum, suggesting that it was the Christian faith and the possession of such a powerful instrument that separated Aristotle from his seventeenth-century successors.

Figure 6. Melchior Cornaeus, Perspicillum intellectuale Joan-Conrado Dahnavvero ab Aristotele redivivo et minime` recidivo dono datum. Wu¨rzburg: Zinck, 1656. Courtesy of the Kislak Collection, University of Pennsylvania. The telescope was a recurring presence in the Aristoteles redivivus series, as proved by the title of this booklet against Dannhauer.

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Aristotle Reads Aristotle One of the most intriguing uses of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif is found in philological and exegetical discussions, where the Philosopher’s privileged knowledge of his own writings is invoked. The image of a deceased author coming to the rescue of his or her “orphan” works and ideas is already present in Plato (Teetetus 164 d–e, with reference to Protagoras), and was common among Alexandrine grammarians. Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Aristotle was one of the typical subjects of the expression, which was employed polemically and at times methodologically with regard to the philological correctness of the emendations to Aristotle’s works and to the fidelity of various translations and readings of his treatises. The assumption that lies behind this use of the motif is that texts are vulnerable and can be easily distorted. The author is the only one capable of legitimately evaluating the state of his writings, of detecting misreadings and misinterpretations of his work, and of restoring their authentic intentio. Like Marshall McLuhan in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, Aristotle was called on to avenge “in person” perceived abuses of his works. Some commentators reflected at length on the toll that centuries of copying, editing, and translation had inflicted on Aristotle’s writings. Leonardo Bruni did so in his Dialogues, in which his fictional Niccolo` Niccoli complains that Aristotle’s works “have suffered such a great transformation that were anyone to bring them to Aristotle himself, he would not recognize them as his own any more than his own dogs recognized Actaeon.”103 Directly engaged in the recovery of Aristotle’s lost eloquence through a program of translations, Bruni was honestly concerned with the quality of the Aristotelian texts circulating in his time. Enea Silvio Piccolomini, in his Asia (1461), was instead less sympathetic to Aristotle, while offering a full historical account of the vicissitudes of the Aristotelian corpus, defaced by poor transcriptions and consequently poor translations right from the time of the Philosopher’s death. He remarked that if Aristotle were to come back to life, he would not recognize many of the works we attribute to him. Piccolomini drew a moral from this situation, recognizing in the ill fate that had befallen Aristotle’s writings a sort of contrappasso: “It is better that this happened to him than to others, whose works were lost entirely, for he is the reason many authors have been lost, since he appropriated to himself the glory of others.” But most of all Piccolomini used the example of Aristotle in order to proclaim an inconvenient truth: everything dies, and texts are not spared this

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fate, though some survive better than others; time triumphs over everything, and all human effort perishes with the passage of time.104 By contrast, Galeotto Marzio (1427–1497) did not believe that Aristotle’s works had been irremediably distorted in the past. The real danger, in his eyes, was in the present, due to an excess of philological zeal. Though Marzio had a precise target in mind—his nemesis, the humanist Giorgio Merula—he argued for a general principle of susceptibility, identifying such texts as the Gospels, notary documents, and philosophical writings as particularly vulnerable to corruption. He denounced the practice of prava emendatio (“bad emendation”), which even by slightly altering a word, expression, or sentence can overturn the true meaning of a text.105 If we change texts in the Aristotelian corpus, he argued, even its illustrious interpreters like Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus would need to go to school again. Indeed, it would be enough to introduce a negation where Aristotle was instead making an affirmation, and even a reborn Aristotle would not be able to recognize or endorse his own writings.106 Incidentally, we find often similar claims in the paratexts of printed editions of classical authors, in order to denounce the risks of the ars impressoria.107 Juan Luis Vives, on the other hand, had a specific adversary in mind when invoking the authorial expertise of the Philosopher on his own works: Averroes. Vives was annoyed that his contemporaries praised Averroes as much as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas when, in his opinion, the Arabic commentator was an unskilled interpreter, as shown by his treatment of Aristotle’s works. We have seen that Vives’s attitude toward Aristotle implied a clear distinction between him and his modern followers and commentators. From this perspective, knowledge of Greek and Latin was a decisive benchmark for interpreting Aristotle and his thought. Without mastery of the original Greek text, Vives believed, an interpreter could not attain a full understanding of Aristotle, and that is what discredited Averroes in his eyes. Because of his ignorance of the classical languages (“linguarum expers”), Averroes had to depend on flawed Arabic versions of the original Greek texts. Comparing the Arabic translation of a passage of Metaphysics with the original Greek, Vives demonstrated how much the text that was read and commented on by Averroes differed from the Aristotelian one, and therefore how unreliable he was as a guide to Aristotle’s philosophy.108 At this point, Vives inflicted a coup de graˆce, bringing down on Averroes the judgment of Aristotle himself: “I ask you, what person in his right mind would say that this and that are the same? If Aristotle came back to life, would he understand these things,

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or could he emend them by conjectures? O, you people have very strong stomachs if you have the guts to devour and digest these things! And you blindly pay heed to the things invented by Averroes the Commentator that are so different from the view and the opinion of Aristotle.”109 The use Vives made of the “if Aristotle” argument was part of his own well-defined pedagogical and cultural program. He made expertise in the classical languages the cornerstone for understanding philosophy and sought to free Aristotle from the blemishes caused by awkward, illiterate interpreters; in short, this enabled him to move ex Aristotele contra Aristotelicos.110 Correctly interpreting an author, however, implies not only grammatical knowledge but also an appropriate understanding of his doctrines. This was what Martin Luther had in mind when he protested against an inaccurate use of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in a theological debate on the Eucharist in the aftermath of the colloquy of Regensburg (1541). Luther—as is well known— was not an admirer of Aristotle, but he did not hesitate to turn him into an ally against what he perceived as attacks on both true Christian doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy itself: “But if Aristotle, while alive, had had to listen to such things, he would have said: ‘Which devil has driven such an uncouth ass and fool to my book? In fact, that chump does not know what I mean by saying substantia, subiectum or praedicatum.’ ”111 Luther was clearly delighted to catch exponents of Scholasticism in conflict with their favorite auctor, and he made the most of this opportunity by drawing on the “if Aristotle” motif. Erroneous doctrinal statements spring from philosophical misreadings, so the author himself—that same Aristotle so often called an ass by Luther112—has to intervene in order to restore the true meaning of his terms, of which he is the ultimate guarantor and custodian. The reborn author became the touchstone against which translators or commentators had to measure themselves—an inescapable litmus test for the exegesis not just of Aristotle but of any writer or thinker, ancient or modern. Among the moderns, an apt example is Petrarch. In 1554 the Ferrarese dramatist Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio (1504–1573) complained that certain commentators had so drastically departed from the true meaning of works by Petrarch that were he to see their interpretations, he would no longer approve of his own writings.113 In a variant of a similar protest found in Pietro Aretino, the English dramatist Thomas Nashe (1567–c. 1601) referred to those “upstart Commenters,” who, “with their Annotations and glosses, had extorted that sense and Morall out of Petrarch, which if Petrarch were alive a hundred of Strappadoes might not make him confesse or subscribe too.”114

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This pattern of use of the motif has some analogies with the eidolopoeia, an oration given after death, often employed in ghost stories and dream visions but also in prefaces when it was used to legitimize the translation or the edition of a work by a deceased writer.115 In these cases of eidolopoeia, the reborn author appears in character to give a speech in praise and endorsement of the editorial choices—at times a radical departure from the original intention of the text—made in the new edition. While eidolopoeia was used to legitimize the personal imprint of editors and translators on classic texts, the instances discussed above show that in the philological context counterfactual imagining of Aristotle advocated, by contrast, absolute fidelity to him, an imperative that was made into a methodological principle by a philosophy professor from Altdorf, Michael Piccart (1574–1620). In his Oratio de ratione interpretandi (1605), which accompanied a handbook of Aristotelian philosophy, Piccart stated: “We do not impose the meaning on a writer from our brain, but we look for it in the writer himself. In expounding his texts, we must not import anything that he would not recognize as his own, were he to come back to life.”116 The mental experiment of imagining a dead author, if not Aristotle himself, redivivus therefore represents a hermeneutical limit for any interpreter. If that author were alive, he would need to recognize his text after the interpreter’s treatment of it, and this places a duty on the exegete to gain complete mastery of the author’s work.117 In the other uses of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif examined above, he is transported to the modern world and placed before its novelties, so that he can say that the best way to honor his teachings is to abandon blind devotion to his writings. In the philologicalexegetical application of the motif, by contrast, he is called on, not to admit that his doctrines need to be corrected in light of new discoveries, but rather to verify the fidelity of the translations and the interpretations of his works, from the standpoint of his own original context and times. By restoring the pristine meaning of his text, the author, whether Aristotle or another writer, could actually live again.118

Bringing Down the Curtain The decline of Aristotelianism in the seventeenth century caused the “if Aristotle were alive” motif to lose its force, and in the eighteenth century it no longer turned up in scientific and religious texts. The reborn Aristotle

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nevertheless continued to appear in works belonging to a different genre: literary theory—more specifically, theater. The motif arrived relatively late in this context: after all, it was not until the second half of the sixteenth century that Aristotle’s Poetics significantly began to influence the composition and criticism of literary works around Europe, in a climate that favored the search for norms and rules, such as that which followed the Council of Trent. The recovery of the Poetics and its later fortuna was, however, anything but faithful to the original treatise. The emphasis placed on the so-called three unities (of time, space, and action), which many commentators considered essential for the composition of tragedy, is one example.119 This rule was purportedly derived from the Poetics yet appears nowhere in the text, which says little about unity of action, barely hints at unity of time, and never mentions unity of place. By forcibly underscoring the prescriptive character of the treatise by means of rules like this one, the revival of the Poetics caused Aristotle to be perceived as a tyrannical authority by those who preferred a less normative approach to literature. This polemical reaction and subsequent debates were instrumental in triggering a surge in the use of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif in literary contexts. The reborn Philosopher was called on to reject the modern abuse of his Poetics and to denounce its inappropriate transformation into a set of inflexible prescriptions. A Jesuit dramatist offers an interesting example of how the subject of a play could affect the application of the Aristotelian rules and, consequently, the reaction to them. In 1622 Vincenzo Guiniggi (1588–1653) staged his drama Ignatius in Monte Serrato arma mutans at the Collegio Romano, the Jesuit order’s most prestigious institute of higher learning. Here dramatic productions were common, since the Jesuit curriculum favored the use of theater for didactic purposes.120 When he published the play fifteen years later, Guiniggi added a preface in which he explained why he had decided to deviate partially from the Aristotelian rules for the composition of the Ignatius. The reasons were of a historical nature: Guiniggi stated, first of all, that it was hard to understand what Aristotle really thought, and that at times those eager to defend him end up in conflict with him. But most of all, Guiniggi invited his readers to consider the inadequacy of the Aristotelian prescriptions in the age of Christianity. The Poetics had worked well in the dark days of paganism, but if since that time God has clothed himself in humanity, and human nature has put on divinity, why should human action, which poetry imitates, not put on something above and beyond the

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human, and above the laws and opinions of Aristotle? . . . Had Aristotle known the state of human lowliness as raised up by divine grace and borne aloft to participation in divinity, he would have stretched his genius to loftier heights, carried to a higher level the imitation of human action and dignity, thought more magnificently and divinely about dramatic poetry; finally, he would have legislated differently and more splendidly than he did about poetry in general.121 Thus, if Aristotle had known Christianity, he would have adapted his Poetics to the new nature of humanity, transformed by the coming of Christ. His original prescriptions were in fact written for a lower kind of man, and a subject like Ignatius of Loyola—in Guiniggi’s view—makes evident the limits of the Aristotelian norms. It was the glorious developments of humanity after the coming of Christ that allowed Guiniggi to invoke Aristotle in order to criticize his Poetics. Jacopo Badoer (1602–1654), however, had a different kind of historical progress in mind, when in the preface to his libretto for the opera L’Ulisse errante (set to music by Francesco Sacrati), he offered a detailed rationale for abandoning the unity of place: I did not want to abandon the practice, or decency, which I deem very necessary in such composition. Instead, I wanted, by diverting from rules, not out of invention or caprice, but under the guidance of the first poet of Greece, to walk a path that no one has walked before. I am certain that if Aristotle were alive in our time, he would adjust his poetics to the inclinations of our century: when he says that there is no other judge of similar actions than applause, he is speaking for me, because it is very true that it is impossible to have such applause, if we are not happily in tune with the universal genius of the audience.122 According to Badoer, it is therefore not the general improvement of humanity in a Christian worldview that would lead Aristotle to revise his Poetics but rather the more prosaic need to please modern audiences. This necessity was emphasized in many libretti written around the time of Ulisse errante, in which departure from the rules of Aristotle’s Poetics was justified precisely by the need to please the public.123 Even though Badoer points out that we do

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not possess the Poetics in its entirety, and therefore could be missing a part of the text in which a greater degree of freedom was advocated, he ultimately invokes the “if Aristotle” motif in order to scale down the utility of the Philosopher’s rules for modern literature. The Poetics is time-bound to the period in which it was originally composed, and if Aristotle were alive in the seventeenth century, he would certainly have written it according to the exigencies of this new era. Just as he had then taken inspiration from the works of Homer and Sophocles in order to develop his theories, he would rely on modern authors today. The battle over the Poetics was not yet over, however. A protest against the tyrannical employment of the treatise, with recourse to the “if Aristotle” motif, was made again in Venice a century later, in defense of even more radical departures from tradition. In 1750 Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) entered into an agreement with the Medebach company to compose sixteen comedies for the following theatrical season. Among these plays was a piece entitled Il teatro comico that Goldoni later said he considered not merely a comedy but a poetic manifesto or, to use his own words, “a foreword to all [his] comedies.”124 When Goldoni composed it, he was engaged in a polemical exchange with his conservative colleague Pietro Chiari (1712–1785), who had harshly criticized Goldoni’s theatrical works for challenging the rules of the commedia dell’arte: a good dramatist, Chiari claimed, had to know the classics, and in particular could not neglect the precepts of Aristotle and Horace. In his Teatro comico, Goldoni replied: “Some say that what [Aristotle] said for tragedy must be understood for comedy as well, and that had he finished his treatise on comedy he would have prescribed unity of place. But it can be objected that if Aristotle were still alive, he himself would do away with an ardous rule which has begotten a thousand absurdities, a thousand improprieties and blunders.”125 Like Badoer, Goldoni emphasized the incomplete state of the Poetics; and as a comedy writer, he remarked that we do not possess Aristotle’s precepts on comedy, only hypotheses based on the parts of the Poetics that survived. To these conjectures, Goldoni reacted with another conjecture: if Aristotle were alive today, he would realize how many problems are caused by rigid prescriptions, which cause the plots of comedies to be stupid, preposterous, and unsuited to the taste of modern audiences. Once again, Goldoni underlines the gap between Aristotle—capable of correcting himself, if necessary—and his narrow-minded disciples, who turn mere inferences into laws, even in a field for which Aristotle did not leave any explicit norms.

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The extent to which the self-proclaimed followers of Aristotle’s Poetics betrayed their master’s intentions was taken up again by Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). For him, the “if Aristotle were alive” motif was no longer a mental experiment but rather a melancholy invocation (1773): “The very fact that he [Aristotle] let Thespis and Aeschylus alone and stuck to the variety of Sophocles; that he took precisely Sophocles’s innovation as his point of departure and viewed it as the essence of this new poetic genre; . . . all this shows that the great man also philosophized in the grand style of his age, and he . . . bears no blame at all for the restrictive and infantile follies that have turned him into the paper scaffolding of our stage. . . . Oh if Aristotle were alive today and could witness the false, preposterous application of his rules in dramas of a quite different kind!”126 Although the tone is different, the motif conveys the usual meaning, framed by Herder’s own theory of interpretation, which was founded on what Michael Forster calls the “principle of radical difference.”127 What lies behind Herder’s use of the motif is primarily that Aristotle’s Poetics has been interpreted in an ahistorical way, without taking into consideration that genres—like tragedy—are not monolithic. When Aristotle wrote, he did so with the theater of Sophocles in mind; but Sophocles’s tragedies are not comparable to those of Shakespeare, and the two can hardly be regarded as examples of the same genre, even though notionally they are. Furthermore, the Aristotelian genres, though still in use at that time among French authors, do not do justice to the empirical conception of genres proposed by Herder, according to whom distinctions need to be drawn not just between centuries but even between individuals. Accordingly, the validity of the Aristotelian rules, wrongly believed to have universal and timeless legitimacy, clashes with limitations that are imposed not only by the undeniable historicity of works of art such as tragedies but also by the peculiarities of artistic genius. To judge Shakespeare by the Poetics is to apply rules that are totally unsuitable for interpreting and evaluating his plays. In these uses of the motif, Aristotle, although carefully distinguished from his supposed followers, is as historically limited as his own Poetics. It does not matter which philosophy of history is at play here, whether the Christian one invoked by Guiniggi or the radical-difference paradigm supported by Herder, because Aristotle’s teachings have been in any case outdated and overtaken by new social needs and artistic models. This was clear also to Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret (1742–1823) in his two-volume De l’art du the´aˆtre en ge´ne´ral (1769). Despite the comprehensive title, Nougaret focused on comic opera (Ope´ra-Bouffon), which he defines as a low genre,

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but currently a` la mode. Ironically attempting to give a noble lineage to his subject, he claimed that if Aristotle were alive, he would certainly have written about comic opera, because authors always write according to the taste of their times.128 In short, the meanings implied by the motif in this literary context are remarkably similar to those we have already encountered in different settings. Yet what makes peculiar the literary use of the “if Aristotle” is the chronological span during which it was employed—appearing later, but stretching almost into the nineteenth century—when in other contexts it had been long abandoned. It is precisely from these diverging paths of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif that we can draw some broader conclusions.

Conclusions The “if Aristotle were alive” argument generally appealed—in a more or less contradictory way—to the principle of authority. The Philosopher is invoked to correct himself and to admit his own errors, often in order to legitimize positions opposed to his own original teachings and beliefs. When those sympathetic to Aristotle invoked the reborn Philosopher, it was usually in order to postulate his conversion to Christianity, which allowed them to continue to employ him as a valuable source of theoretical support. When his opponents did so, they used the motif to promote their own agendas and undermine the Aristotelian tradition and its modern exponents. While in most cases the motif was merely deployed as a generic rhetorical device, it received special treatment in the hands of Galileo. Supporting the argument with a textual justification from On the Heavens, Galileo systematically applied it to a single topic—celestial mutability—but was also able to give it a profundity and a solidity lacking in other authors who used the motif. Nevertheless, in the case of Galileo, as in those of Ramus, Gassendi, Carpenter, and Campanella, the final result was identical. It was, paradoxically, the authority Aristotle exerted that made his recanting of his own doctrines and his surrender to new paradigms credible. And even though invocations of his name ensured his status as an authority, he was ultimately used to advocate for libertas philosophica, becoming a great ally of the opponents of his school. When its more polemical implications—such as the attacks on modern Peripatetics—were subdued or absent, the motif could even work as bait, useful to make commentators reconsider the opposition between traditional

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knowledge and philosophical and scientific novelties; as one of the novatores might have argued: “If we both respect Aristotle, and he would have approved of my doctrines, why are we fighting?” Such a novator would have had every interest in presenting himself as a follower of Aristotle, using him as a decoy to present ideas that were potentially iconoclastic as uncontroversial and firmly rooted in tradition. Yet, generally, the motif was intended not to convert die-hard Aristotelians but instead to reveal their ineptitude. Religious or nationalistic biases did not have much influence on the different uses of the motif; its patterns of application appear quite standardized across Europe throughout the early modern period. Anti-Aristotelian scientists and philosophers from Italy, France, England, Germany, and Spain—hardly a homogenous group but united by their shared rejection of contemporary Peripatetics—repeated the argument according to recurring models. One anti-Aristotelian could therefore borrow verbatim a version of the motif from a fellow opponent of the Peripatetic school—as Gassendi did with Vives. Sometimes, however, as in the case of Galileo and the Jesuits, it could even have been advantageous to adopt an adversary’s distinctive application of the motif. Nevertheless, the Jesuits did not take the motif over passively from Galileo but gave it their own apologetic spin. While in science and philosophy Aristotle was the institutional authority of reference, and therefore in those disciplines he was the author to revive par excellence, in the philological applications of the motif “if Aristotle were alive” was obviously limited. In that context, the Philosopher was invoked to legitimize or reject translations and editions only of his own works, just as many other authors, such as Cicero and Petrarch, were invoked in support of their works. Here Aristotle was not called upon to recant anything of what he wrote. On the contrary he had to verify the fidelity of modern interpreters to the letter of his text. The literary context, finally, is significant because it reveals to us something more about the trajectory of the “if Aristotle were alive” expression over time. As seen, the motif was employed in philosophical and scientific fields until the second half of the seventeenth century, after which it resurfaced almost exclusively in debates on poetics.129 Indeed, the prolonged use of the motif in the literary context reflects the delayed impact of the Poetics, in contrast to the other works of the Aristotelian corpus, which had already lost their stamina after centuries of domination. More generally, the history of the “if Aristotle were alive” motif can be seen as a pan-European mirror of the parallel histories of early modern Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism. Bringing the Philosopher back to

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life in order to obtain his approval was useful as long as he was considered the most important authority, and particularly if one wanted his prestige to survive or even more to shatter. Not by chance, the circulation of the motif had its apogee during those decades—in the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth—in which Aristotle was under scrutiny because of new scientific discoveries. When new philosophies, new visions of nature, new paradigms prevailed, also at an institutional level, there was no longer any need to resurrect him in order to defend his tradition or to invoke him in order to demolish his doctrines and his school and endorse novel ones.130 At that point, Aristotle could finally be allowed to rest in peace.

Epilogue

Comparationes, legends, proverbs, fictions, and counterfactual imaginings involving Aristotle—the subject of this book—disappeared almost entirely by the end of the seventeenth century. By that time, the supremacy of Peripateticism, in theological, scientific, and philosophical contexts, had been fatally weakened by internal conflicts among its followers and challenged from the exterior by new paradigms, better suited to serve both religion and recent observations. It was therefore inevitable that the sunset of Aristotelianism also meant that the comparatio genre, the legends, and the other applications of Aristotle’s authority were abandoned, since their utility depended entirely on his status: the loss of his privileged position enabled the uses and abuses of his persona to be exposed, while rhetorical devices that made sense only as long as Aristotle maintained his centrality in philosophy, science, and theology lost their purpose.1 Throughout this book I have emphasized the flexibility of Aristotle as an authority, and the ease with which his authority was manipulated to serve agendas that were often in direct contrast to one another, at times in conflict with the very tenets of Peripatetic philosophy. This insight helps to further clarify the vitality of schools of thought like early modern Aristotelianism (and Platonism), which, far from being the residue of a monolithic authority of reference, were on the contrary extremely fertile and inventive. Working in the footsteps of an ancient philosopher was not necessarily a blind retreat to the worship of authority but could open the way to reshaping it, exploiting it, and calling it into question. Early modern philosophers took advantage of the developments in the philological approach to the ancient texts and of the circulation of new texts and commentators to adapt Aristotle to the theoretical needs of their time. This active approach to the authority was certainly alive and well in the medieval period. Yet the fifteenth-century rediscovery of Plato and of ancient commentators provided new material both to use Aristotle in different ways and to expand philosophical discourse in novel directions. Even when

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apologetic or polemical concerns were absent, Aristotle’s philosophy was seen by his modern interpreters as a continuous work in progress, that could be unceasingly improved and made more coherent, as the cases of Pietro Pomponazzi and Simone Porzio (1496–1554) aptly demonstrate.2 More generally, Aristotle offered early modern thinkers solid theoretical frameworks that could be used to pour new wine into old wineskins; in some instances it was enough to simply invoke his name as the trademark of an established philosophical tradition while actually demolishing the tenets of his thought. Moreover, in a world that had been changed and enlarged through explorations, discoveries, and inventions, it was no longer possible to find all the answers in Aristotle’s works, and these absences in the writings of the ancient philosopher represented fertile heuristic starting points for early moderns without them openly having to reject ancient authority.3 For all these reasons, even those early modern thinkers who confidently described themselves as Aristotelians were on the contrary, unwittingly or not, working to undermine Aristotle’s authority. And in fact, called on to serve on different sides in too many battles, Aristotle’s authority was stretched thin and eventually wore out. From the eighteenth century onward, with few exceptions, Aristotle was nothing more than a symbol of ancient wisdom, too remote and outdated to be evoked and exploited in any way relevant to contemporary debates: comparationes were at that point historiographical exercises; legends about his life were exposed as inventions; proverbs that listed him as a protagonist had purely anodyne implications; and while he would have not been considered an appealing spokesman in apologetic fictions, mental experiments to bring him back to life were limited to the restricted context of literary debates. The trajectory followed by Plato was somewhat different, since he was not compromised like his pupil by official allegiances to the faltering traditional curriculum. This allowed him to maintain at least a religious aura as a pious thinker, in spite of his association with antitrinitarianism in certain circles.4 For example, Plato was invoked as late as 1770 by the Franciscan preacher Bernardo Baffo (1712–1776) against the “Epicurean” libertine philosophers in Aforismi del divino Platone ad arrestare il morbo epicureo.5 In truth, Baffo’s use of the label “libertine” was very inclusive, encompassing Montaigne and Bayle as well as Hobbes and John Toland. Baffo extracted twentyfour aphorisms taken from Plato’s works, which he duly tailored to his needs, identifying in them solid foundations for Christian dogmas and taking profit—as suggested by St. Basil—from anything of use that can be found in

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pagan authors.6 Plato’s superiority to modern thinkers was reemphasized after the French Revolution in the anonymous Ragionamento sulla filosofia tenuto alla presenza delle dignita` piu` eminenti della Chiesa e dell’Impero, published in 1800, in which the interlocutors are a Christian philosopher, a freethinker, and the ghost of Plato.7 For the anonymous author, Christianity perfected the philosophy of pagan antiquity. Plato is listed as the best example of ancient pagan philosophy, and therefore as its most apt spokesperson. As in the case of Baffo, Plato’s religious reputation was customized to support a retrogressive agenda. And yet, in the very same period, perpetuating a line of argument already used by Giuseppe Valletta, which matched hostility toward the traditional curriculum with a celebration of the wisdom of Magna Graecia, Plato was also used to legitimize very different perspectives. The Jacobin Vincenzo Cuoco (1770–1823), for instance, in his novel Platone in Italia (1806) celebrates the ancient Italic wisdom as the foundation for a political agenda of renewal, opposed to the ancien re´gime, while asserting the cultural superiority of the Italians.8 Aristotle obviously did not disappear: the logical and theoretical structure of his philosophy still influenced thinkers like Kant and Hegel. He also managed to maintain a role as the forefather of empiricism, figuring as such in several genealogies in historiae philosophicae, but that honor did not disguise the fact that saving or destroying his authority was no longer the focus of debates. Yet the decline of his authority should not cause us to lose sight of the fact that thinkers, writers, and scientists had been vying with one another for at least five centuries to obtain his stamp of approval. As Johan Leemans and Brigitte Meijns have argued, intellectual and religious history is a continuous process of “rise and demise of auctoritates.”9 The persistence of Aristotle’s authoritative status from the late Middle Ages until the end of the seventeenth century can be seen as marking a centuries-long period of intellectual history, as I hope the cases discussed in this book have helped demonstrate, when both those who enthusiastically supported Aristotelianism, mainly from inside the universities, and those who were its harshest critics needed to engage creatively with Aristotle in order either to enhance, exploit, or destroy his authority. But when Peripateticism ceased to occupy a central position in philosophical, theological, and scientific discourse, appealing to his authority became irrelevant. At that point, Aristotle was no longer an ally to flaunt, let alone an enemy to destroy. He ceased to be a tool that could “perform different—and sometimes contradictory—tasks” in the hands of early modern writers.10

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This kind of tailored customizing of Aristotle’s doctrines to the needs of the person citing him is not lost today, but it is boxed in memes or in random endorsements of the Philosopher as a symbol of reason and moderation. His works can be seen as repertories for inspirational quotes of self-help, the most famous case probably being the basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who referred to himself as the Big Aristotle after reading that in the Nicomachean Ethics “Aristotle . . . said excellence is not a singular act, but a habit.”11 No one today would feel the need, like the authors discussed in this book, to defend or destroy Aristotle because of his opinions on the eternity of the world or the destiny of the human soul. And if these problems sound irrelevant, other doctrines of Aristotle, such as his vision of slavery and his biologically determined sexism, are impossible to take seriously, though this has not prevented appropriations of these ideas by alt-right commentators in ways that are as disturbing as they are superficial.12 He is no longer an inescapable presence today: it could not be otherwise, also because we live in a time in which the principle of authority, even in fields like science and medicine, is fiercely attacked on often dubious grounds. While Aristotle is occasionally referred to as an auctoritas, it is simply a casual flourish, without the connotations that it possessed in debates from the late Middle Ages until the close of the seventeenth century, when his authority—even if constantly manipulated and negotiated—was the key to philosophical discourse and to the promotion of an agenda in almost any field.13

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Appendixes

appendix a

Preface by Alfonso Pandolfi to His Comparatio Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. Lat. 6701, 180r–181v

180r / Iucundum sed arduum opus aggredior comparationem scilicet Platonis et Aristotelis cum Sacra Scriptura. Et quidem facilior est Platonem quam Aristotelem cum Sacris Litteris conciliare. Hinc Numenius Pythagoricus appellavit Platonem Moysem Atticum, non quia libros Moysis pervolutaverit, etenim nullibi legimus Platonem Hebraicae linguae gnarum fuisse, et libri Moysis primum a septuaginta interpretibus post sexaginta annos a morte Platonis in Graecum idioma translati sunt, sed quia cum Plato in Aegypto et cum Aegyptiis versatus sit, didicit ab illis ea quae a Moyse de creatione mundi potissimum traditae sunt.1 Compertissimum est etiam Platonem a Socrate, Socratem a Pythagora, et Pythagoram a quodam Hebraeo nomine Nazareo, multa hausisse, ut inter caeteros Divus Ambrosius et Clemens Alexandrinus testantur.2 Quare Platonem ex Hebreorum fontibus multa bibisse dogmata non est ambigendum. Non quia aliquando Hyeremiam Prophetam audiverit, quam opinionem sequutus divus Augustinus retractavit, libro 8 de Civitate Dei, et libro 2 de Retractationibus, sed quia ex Hebreorum dictis multa desumpsit, quae cum nostrae fidei tantam partem concordare, iure merito dixit Augustinus, Platonicos paucis mutatis, fieri posse Christianos.3 Caeterum negandum non est, a Platone multa tradita fuisse quae ipsius fautores et studiosos in gravissimos errores et haereses impulerunt. Qua propter in Apostolico dicebat Tertullianus: “Doleo, et bona fide doleo, Platonem haeresum esse condimentarium.” 4 Ex ipsius Aristotelisque doctrina Arianorum et Manicheorum fluxerunt errores, idcirco Gregorius Nazianzenus affirmavit “per Aristotelem et Platonem Aegyptias / 180v / plagas in

appendix a

Preface by Alfonso Pandolfi to His Comparatio Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. Lat. 6701, 180r–181v

I am ready for a task that is as enjoyable as difficult, that is, comparing Plato and Aristotle with the Holy Scriptures. And certainly it will be easier to conciliate Plato rather than Aristotle with the Holy Scriptures. In fact, the Pythagorean Numenius called Plato “Moses from Attica,” not because Plato had studied Moses’s books, indeed we do not read anywhere that Plato was familiar with the Hebraic language, and Moses’s books were translated by the Septuagint interpreters in Greek for the first time sixty years after Plato’s death, but because when Plato was in Egypt and spent time with Egyptians, he learned from them those doctrines—especially about the creation of the world—that have been handed down by Moses. It is also well known that Plato drew many precepts from Socrates, Socrates from Pythagoras, Pythagoras from a Jew called Nazareus, as it is reported—among many others—by St. Ambrose and Clement of Alexandria. Therefore, we do not have to doubt that Plato had drunk from Jewish sources several of his doctrines. Not because he once heard the Prophet Jeremiah, an opinion that St. Augustine first accepted, and then recanted in the eighth book of De civitate Dei, and in the second book of the Retractationes, but because he learned several things from the Jewish tenets, which are largely in agreement with our faith: rightly St. Augustine said that Platonists could be Christians, changing only a few things in their doctrines. Nonetheless we must not deny that Plato taught several things that drove his followers and supporters into terrible errors and heresies. Therefore Tertullian wrote in his Apostolic: “I am saddened, and for good reason, that Plato was the cause of so many heresies.” From Plato and Aristotle’s doctrines descended the heresies of the Arians and the Manicheans, and therefore Gregory of Nazianzus affirmed “the plagues

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Ecclesiam Dei irrepsisse.”5 Verum, ut dixi, faciliori negotio Plato quam Aristoteles inire posset gratiam et amicitiam cum sacra scriptura. Aristoteles enim multis abundat erroribus, qui nostrae fidei penitus adversantur. Affirmat enim mundum esse aeternum, et Deum agere ex necessitate naturae. Ablegat a rebus inferioribus providentiam Dei; humanas animas ex multorum peripateticorum sententia, morti obnoxias esse docet. Nullum praemium, nullamque poenam post mortem constituit, Daemones negavit, nullamque esse prophetiam, religionem artem regnandi appellavit, ita ut ex ipsius doctrina Porretani, Carpocratiani, Theodosiani, Petrus Abailardus Haeretici, teste Cardinale Baronio, emanarint.6 Hinc Divus Vincentius Ferrerius Aristotelem nuncupavit “Phialam irae Dei super aquas Ecclesiae diffusam.”7 Sed aliquis fortasse quaereret, cur tanto in pretio ac in tanta aestimatione praesertim apud Christianos habeatur Aristotelis doctrina, tot foeta erroribus impiisque dogmatibus. Cuius rei rationem affert Fonseca Tomista, in quaestione prima in Metaphysicam Aristotelis, ubi animadvertit, Aristotelis errores esse adeo patentes et claros ut facili negotio possint a Christianis evitari; Platonis vero syrtes et scopuli quodammodo latent in insidiis, propterea ipsius doctrina adeo potuit demulcere ac delinire animos sapientum, ut Platonis fautores in varias haereses lapsi sint. 8 Praeterquam quod doctrina Aristotelis clariori metodo tradita est, et magis accommodatur ad docendum. Hinc Albertus Magnus, Divus Thoma, Scotus et alii nostrae Christiane sapientiae proceres Aristotelem commentariis illustrarunt, eiusque doctrinam ad bonum sensum ac / 181r / meliorem frugem redigere conati sunt. Sed quamvis Aristotelis doctrinae tantus multis ab hinc saeculis honos exhibeatur, attamen nonnihil in supradictis pronunciatis, graviter hallucinatus est, sed etiam in iis quae ad naturam spectant a recto veritatis tramite deflexit. Decipitur enim existimans motum in instanti fieri in vacuo, Galaxiam in Aere accessam [sic] esse, Cometas sub Luna tantum inflammari, Calorem Solis et lumen ab attrito aere produci, ignem esse in concavo Lunae, zonam torridam inhabitabilem esse, et praesertim de Coelestibus corporibus eorumque motibus ea scriptis consignavit quae ab astronomica disciplina clarissime refelluntur. Deo oportet novam invenire de rebus naturalibus philosophiam, quae nullis involvatur erroribus, hancque ex sacris paginis dumtaxat possumus haurire, etenim cum Gratia perficiat naturam humanam, certe intellectus aptior erit ad veritatem indagandam, quam non ethnicus, fide et gratia destitutus. Quamobrem

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of Egypt /180v/ irrupted in the Church of God through Aristotle and Plato.” In reality, as I said, Plato could gain the favor and become the friend of the Holy Scriptures much more easily than Aristotle. Indeed, Aristotle abounds with many errors, which completely oppose our faith. In fact, he affirms that the world is eternal, and that God acts from necessity of nature. He takes away from the inferior things the providence of God; according to the opinion of several Peripatetics, he teaches that human souls are mortal. He establishes that there is no reward, no punishment after death, he denies demons, he calls prophecy unreal, and religion art of governing, so that from his doctrine—as affirmed by Cardinal Baronio—are derived the heretics Gilbert de la Porre´e, Carpocrates, Theodosianus, and Peter Abelard. Accordingly, St. Vincent Ferrer has called Aristotle “Phial of God’s anger, spread above the waters of the Church.” But someone could ask for which reason then the doctrine of Aristotle, so infected with errors and impious doctrines, is held in such great consideration and esteem, in particular among Christians. The Thomist Fonseca offers the explanation to this in the first question to the Metaphysics by Aristotle, where he notices that the errors of Aristotle are so evident and clear that Christians can easily avoid them; the errors of Plato, instead, ambush like inlets and rocks, since his doctrine can to such an extent attract and entice the minds of wise men that the followers of Plato have fallen into many different heresies. Moreover, Aristotle’s doctrine is handed down according to a better method, and more appropriate for teaching. For this reason, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and other excellent wise Christian men have written commentaries on Aristotle, and they have tried to convert his doctrine to good sense and /181r/better fruit. But even though so much honor has been displayed toward Aristotle for so many centuries, he was nonetheless badly delirious when he expressed some of the abovementioned doctrines, and even in those related to nature he walks away from the upright path of truth. In fact, he is wrong in believing that instantaneous motion happens in a void, that the Galaxy is in the Air, that the Comets are enflamed only below the Moon, that the heat and the light of the Sun are produced by the friction of the air, that there is fire in the concavity of the Moon, that the Torrid Zone is inhabitable, and he is especially wrong in those doctrines about the celestial bodies and their movements he has entrusted to his writings, doctrines that are clearly rejected by astronomy. We need, in the name of God, to find a new natural philosophy, immune from any error, and that we can say pouring out exclusively from the holy pages, and in fact since Grace brings human nature to perfection, an intellect so disposed will certainly be more prepared to investigate the truth by comparison with a pagan

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Tertullianus, qui ethnicum philosophum appellavit “animal gloriae cupidum et popularis aurae vile mancipium,”9 describens Christianum philosophum, ait: “philosophus christianus loquitur dum tacet, habitus ipsius totus sonat, et dum videtur auditur.” 10 Cum ipsius Aristotelis philosophia tot scateat erroribus, et Concilium Lateranense ultimum radices infectas idest principia scientiarum appellet, nova invenienda et cudenda est Philosophia, quae clarissimam humano ingenio pareat veritatem. Quis enim est qui nesciat humana arte et industria veritatem indagari non posse? / 181v / Propterea dicebat Ecclesiastes capitulo I, “ego Ecclesiastes fui rex in Hyerusalem, et proposui in animo meo quaerere et investigare sapienter de omnibus quae fiunt sub sole. Hanc occupationem pessimam dedit Deus filiis hominum, ut occuparentur in ea.”11 Et cap. 3 haec habet: “mundum tradidit disputationi eorum, ut non inveniat homo opus quod operatus est Deus ab initio usque ad finem.”12 Quibus consonat illud Davidicum: “naraverunt [sic] mihi iniqui fabulationes.”13 Atque illud Pauli ad Romanos primo: “quia cum cognovissent Deum, non sicut Deum glorificaverunt aut gratias agerunt, sed evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis, et obscuratum est insipiens cor eorum, dicentes enim se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt.”14 Itaque meum est consilium doctrina Platonis et Aristotelis cum Sacra Scriptura conferre, ut ex ipsa tandem veritas firma ac stabilis refulgeat. Quoniam vero universam Platonis doctrinam in rationalem, moralem et sermocinalem dividitur, nunc in rationali, seu speculativa tantum parte versatur.

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intellect deprived of faith and grace. For this reason Tertullian, who has called the pagan philosopher “animal cupid of glory and coward slave of people’s veering will,” when he instead describes the Christian philosopher says: “the Christian philosopher speaks while he is quiet, his aspect resonates entirely, and while he is seen, he is listened to.” Since Aristotle’s philosophy teems so much with errors, and the latest Lateran Council called corrupt roots the principles of sciences, we must find and mint a new Philosophy, which makes evident to human intelligence the highest truth. Who is there that does not know that the highest truth cannot be investigated by human art and activity? /181v/That is why in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes he said: “I, Ecclesiastes, have been king in Jerusalem, and I have decided to inquire and investigate wisely all the things that happen under the sun. God gave this terrible task to the sons of men, so that they spend their time doing this.” And chapter 3 has: “he has opened the world to their discussion, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” And this is in agreement with what is said by David: “the wicked have told me fables.” And also with the first chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.” Therefore, I have decided to compare the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle with the Holy Scriptures, so that the firm and stable truth might finally shine from this comparison. Nevertheless, since Plato’s doctrine is divided into the rational, moral, and dialectic, now we will focus only on the rational or speculative part.

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117r / Pendasius de differentia Platonis et Aristotelis Lectio IIII Audivistis pro declaratione propositi et scopi, primum qualis cognitio sit philosophia ipsa, quomodo in activam et contemplativam dividatur, cum ipsius contemplativae tres differentiae ponantur, distincte hoc modo, quia una considerat ea, quae concernunt materiam secundum esse et secundum rationem, altera quae considerat ea quae in materia abstrahuntur sola ratione, tertia denique, quae considerat abstracta secundum esse et secundum rationem. Audivistis etiam qualis cognitio sit naturalis ipsa philosophia, et cuius gratia, circa quod versetur, tanquam circa subiectum proprium. Contemplatur enim genus rerum variabilium, seu mobilium, ens mobile, seu naturale, seu etiam substantiam mobilem, variabilem, aut naturalem, nihil enim refert quod subiectum dicatur quidem posterius esse corpus, cum ostenditur omne mobile esse corpus, in principio tamen scientiae hoc non supponitur, propterea dicitur si vultis declarare subiectum, respiciendo ad id quod in principio scientiae est supponendum tanquam basis, non potestis dicere esse corpus, quia non supponitis omnes species consideratas a philosopho esse corpus, sed si respiciatis ad id quod posterius a ratione quaeritis, et cognoscitis, cognoscitis quidem omne mobile esse corpus. Propterea re vera potestis dicere subiectum esse corpus mobile, vel naturale. His declaratis relinquitur ut consideremus id quod fuit secundo loco propositum, quaenam ratione et methodo possit hac facultas naturalis quam optime comparari a nobis, quo in loco policitus [sic] sum collaturum viam per quam Plato

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Pendasio on the Difference Between Plato and Aristotle Lecture 4 You have heard in my declaration of purpose, first, what knowledge philosophy itself is, how it is divided into active and contemplative, the contemplative being divided into three parts, which are so distinct that the first one considers those things that concern matter according to being and according to reason, the second one considers those things that are abstracted in matter by reason only, and the third, finally, considers abstract things according to being and reason. You have also heard what knowledge this natural philosophy is, and what its goal is, in the sense of what it deals with, as well as about its proper subject. In fact, it contemplates the class of things that are variable, or mobile, that is, mobile being, either natural or substance, that is, mobile, variable, or natural[.] Indeed, it does not matter whether a subject is later said to be a body since it is shown that everything that is mobile is body, even though in the principle of science this is not supposed, and for this reason it is said that if you want to indicate a subject, considering that what is in the principle of science must be supposed as a basis, then you cannot say it is body, since you do not suppose that all species considered by the philosopher are body, but if you look back at what you search for and you know afterward, through reason, you know that every mobile being is body. For this reason, you could say truthfully that the subject [of this philosophy] is a mobile or natural body. Having established these things, it remains for us to consider what was proposed second, that is, by which reason and method this natural faculty can be obtained by us in the best possible way, and at this point I am forced to compare the method followed by Plato in the Timaeus—since in no

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incessit in Thimaeo, nullibi enim magis vel prolixius egit de naturali philosophia quam in Thimaeo, cum ea qua dicitur usque est, atque si eritis attenti, ob oculos vobis ponam rationem, et fabricam, secundum quam conscriptus fuit Thimaeus Platonis. Quae res quantum arbitror hactenus infecta est. Igitur, omisso Prohemio et occasione dialogi, Plato instituit in Thimaeo primum sermonem de universo, respiciens praecipue ad hanc divisionem per quam/117v/colligit duo membra et partes. Divisio est haec, quod eorum quae sunt in universo, quaedam sunt opera mentis, quaedam opera necessitatis. Colligitis hanc divisionem ex verbis ipsius Platonis, nam postquam egit de oculis, visu, sonibus, et vocibus, subdit hactenus considerata fuisse opera mentis nunc succedere, ut sermo habeatur de operibus necessariis.1 Ecce igitur divisionem totius tractati in has duas partes, quid autem per haec opera intelligat ipse, seipsum interpretatus est multis interiectis, nam dicebat duas esse causas in omni re quaerendas, altera necessitatis, altera divina, quae est mentis, et applicat opera necessitatis esse cum ratio sumitur ex natura, et natura quam vocavit necessitatem. Ista sunt igitur quae dicuntur opera necessitatis, opera vero mentis sunt, quorum ratio sumitur ex divino consilio illa vocamus mentis opera. Igitur primum coepit Plato de operibus mentis sermonem facere, deinde conversus est ad opera necessitatis. Ista prima pars in qua explicat opera mentis, fuit adhuc ab ipso divisa in duas partes, prima pertinet ad ea quae vocat incorruptibilia, quae quatenus divina voluntate substinentur incorruptibilia sunt, quatenus vero ad propriam ipsorum rationem referuntur, corruptibilia existunt. Altera pertinet ad ea quae corruptibilia vocant.2 Notate hic non est usus Plato his vocibus generabilis, sed corruptibilis et incorruptibilis. Nam putabat mundum universum et eius omnes partes esse genitus, sed harum partium quae sunt genitae, quasdam putavit servari divina voluntate incorruptibiles, quasdam vero esse corruptibiles. Quare hanc partem divisit in corruptibilia et in incorruptibilia. Primum sermonem habuit de incorruptibilibus. Incorruptibilia duo sunt praecipue, mundus et alia quae vocat caelestia. Coepit primum agere de mundo. Iactis his duobus primis fundamentis, alterum esse quod semper est, et caret generatione, alterum quod generatur sed numquam est, declaravit utrumque dicens id quod semper est, et caret generatione, mentis indagine apprehenditur, non sensu.3 Secundum, cum declaravit dicens quod generatur et numquam est, sensu percipitur et operatione per sensum, adiecit autem his fundamentis, hoc aliud quod quando opifex producit aliquod iuxta

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other work does he speak to such an extent of natural philosophy—with those things we have said up to now, and if you will pay attention, I will put in front of your eyes the plan and the structure of Plato’s Timaeus. I have to believe that this thing has never been done before. Therefore, leaving aside the Proem and the setting of the dialogue, Plato decided in the Timaeus that the first speech was to be about the universe, regarding mainly that division which /117v/ allows him to consider it in two sections and parts. This division is such that there are things in the universe that are produced by the mind, and others that are produced by necessity. You learn of this division from the words of Plato himself, for after he has discussed the eyes, the sight, the sounds, and the voices, he claims that the things considered up to that moment are produced by the mind and that they need to leave space for those that are produced by necessity. Therefore, you have the whole treatise divided into two parts, but he explained after other things what he meant by these productions, for he said that we need to look for two causes in each thing, one derived from necessity, the other one divine, which is the mind, and he adds that some things are produced by necessity since their essence comes from nature, that nature which he called necessity. These are, therefore, the things that are said to be produced by necessity, while the things that are produced by the mind, the essence of which comes from divine wisdom, we call them productions of the mind. Therefore first of all Plato begins to speak about the things produced by the mind, and then he devoted himself to those produced by necessity. He divides this first part in which he explains the things produced by the mind into two further parts, the first of which discusses incorruptible things, which exist incorruptible as such as long as divine will maintains them, since in their own essence they are corruptible. The other part discusses those things that are called corruptible. Note here that Plato does not use the word “generable” but uses “corruptible” and “incorruptible.” In fact, he believed the world and all its parts to have been created, but among those parts that are created, he believed some were maintained as incorruptible by the divine will, while others were corruptible. For this reason, he divided this part into corruptible and incorruptible things. First, he talks about incorruptible things: these are mainly two, the world and all the other things which he calls celestial. He begins with the world. Given these first two foundations, one that is always, and is free of generation, and another that is generated and never is, he explains both, saying that the one that always is and is free of generation, is grasped by mind, not by sense. Second, after he explains that the one that is generated and never is, is grasped by sense and by the operation of sense, he adds to these principles that when the creator produces something according to its exemplar, which will

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exemplar eius quod semper eodem modo sese habet, tunc efficit / 118r / opus pulcherrimum, sin minus non efficit opus pulcherrimum, quibus iactis fundamentis. Probat primo mundi generationem, quidem quaesitum dicit an omnia de mundo quaerendum esse, probat autem hoc modo nam dicit mundus est tangibilis, visibilis, operationeque per sensum apprehenditur, igitur est genitus, si genitus igitur habet aliquam sui causam opificem, quia nihil generatur quin ab aliquo generetur, et quia haec causa optima est, nec livore tangitur, ideo probat quod quando opifex constituit mundum respiciendo ad exemplar, quod eodem modo sese habet, fecit mundum pulcherrimum, sed dicit admodum difficile esse cognoscere hanc primam opificem causam, et primam eius originem. Propterea hac omissa se convertit ad imaginem et simulachrum ipsius, et notat quibus rationibus uti oporteat, dicit enim quod quando loquimur de firmis et stabilibus, ut est prima opifex causa, tunc debemus uti rationibus firmis et certissimis, quando vero de imagine et simulachro loquimur, sufficit si rationibus utamur probabilibus, ut quodlibet, cuilibet consonum, atque conveniens sit. Tunc addit rationem qua ostendit mundum optime constitutum fuisse, quia opifex est optimus, nec livore tangitur, sicut dicendum fuit. Propterea constituit opus perfectissimum, sibique similimum. Affert etiam modum quo fuit genitus mundus, nam inquit affuisse materiam fluctantem et inordinatam, quae deinceps redacta fuit in ordinem. Addit etiam / 118v / ut mundus esset optimus atque pulcherrimus opificem novisse ipsum indigere intellectum. Propterea ipsi eum tribuisse, et quia intellectus non potest esse sine anima, ratio intellectui animam, animam vero corpori indidit.4 Affert deinde deffinitionem [sic] ipsius, quod sit animal intelectuale divina Providentia constitutum, deinde mundum ipsum esse constitutum ostendit ex omnibus elementis integrantibus et perfectis, ut sit optime constitutus, propterea nec ullo labore posse affici, nec senio confici, ostenditque ipsum esse constitutum politum, tersum, sphericum, omniquaque perfectum, spiritum et animum habentem, carentem manibus et pedibus. Post haec, quia dixerat mundo comunicatam fuisse animam, convertit se ad explicandum quomodo anima sit genita, et reliqua, quae non repetam brevitatis studio, nam solum in praesentia reffero scopum et rationem, qua Plato incessit. Exposita anima, docuit etiam generationem orbium coelestium necnon tempus ipsius. 5 Haec de mundo. Post haec, convertit se ad alia coelestia, et ponit divisionem animalium in quatuor genera, nam inquit alia esse coelestia, alia aerea, alia aquatilia, terrestria alia. Tria

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remain always immutable, he makes /118r/ a beautiful product, and if otherwise, he does not make a beautiful product. According to these principles, he first proves the generation of the world, posing the question of whether everything of the world must be sought out, but in this way he proves that the world is tangible, visible, and grasped by the operation of sense, and therefore it is generated, and if it is then generated, it must have an efficient cause, since nothing is generated if not by something else. Moreover, since this cause is the very best and untouched by envy, he [Plato] shows that thus when the creator made the world looking at an exemplar, which is immutable, he made the world beautiful, but he [Plato] explains it is very difficult to know that first efficient cause, and its first origin. Passing over this for that reason, he goes on to discuss its image and simulacrum, and he highlights which arguments are fitting to make use of and says that when we speak about stable and firm realities, such as the first efficient cause, then we must use stable and firm arguments, and when instead we discuss its image and simulacrum, it is enough if we use probable arguments, so that each thing corresponds adequately to each other thing. Then he adds an argument through which he shows that the world has been produced in the very best way, because its creator is the very best, untouched by envy, as it must be said. Therefore, he made the most perfect of productions, very similar to himself. He [Plato] also explains how the world was made, stating that there was fluctuating and cluttered matter, which was then brought to order. He also adds /118v/ that the creator did not want the world to be deprived of intellect, in order to be perfect and most beautiful. For this reason, he gave it intellect, and since intelligence cannot be without soul, he gave soul to the intellect, and soul to the body. He [Plato] then adds its definition, that is an intellectual animal formed by divine Providence, and then he shows that the world is formed by all the elements, brought together and to perfection, so that it is formed in the very best way, and therefore cannot be damaged by any pain, nor deteriorate, to which he [Plato] adds that it is formed polished, clear, spherical, perfect in every part, provided with spirit and soul, and deprived of hands and feet. After these things, since he has said that the world has been given a soul, he goes on to explain how the soul was generated, and other things, which I do not repeat for brevity’s sake, for now I will present only the purpose and the argument by which Plato advanced. Having discussed the soul, he also explains that the generation of the celestial orbs happens outside of time. This much about the world. After this, he goes on to discuss other celestial things, and he establishes the division of animate things into four types, for he explains that some are celestial, others aerial, others aquatic, others terrestrial. He adds that the last three are corruptible, while the first type

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postrema adiecit esse corruptibilia, primum vero genus aeternum et incorruptibile, animalia coeli vocat stellas, tam spheris inherentes, quam errantes, idest planetas, et sub his etiam complectitur demones; convertit se deinde ad alia corruptibilia, et inducit primum opificem secundos deos alloquentem, dicit tria alia genera cum sint corruptibilia non posse a se ipso inmediate generari, / 119r / nefas enim esset, ut corruptibile a prima causa inmediate generaretur, igitur mandat ipsis, ut producant alia tria genera generabilia et corruptibilia, sed quia ista generabilia reperitur homo, qui est animal quoddam particeps divinae naturae, idcirco Plato dicit primum opificem tribuisse prima semina hominis tam ex parte animae, quam ex parte corporis secundis diis, qui reliqua omnia membra, ut carnem, postea consuerunt. 6 Ecce igitur primam et praecipuam Thimaei partem, quae pertinebat ad opera mentis. Expedita hac prima parte, convertit se Plato ad opera quae dicuntur necessitatis, et quia haec pendent a natura et materia, ideo reasumit se a principio usque posuisse secunda genera, unum quod semper eodem modo se habet, et caret generatione, alterum quod generatur, sed nunquam est, nunc dicit addendum esse tertium genus, et hoc esse locum nutricem generationis et esse, ut uno verbo dicam, materiam primam de qua multa disputat quae omitto, nam isthec propriis locis considerabo. 7 Convertit se deinceps ad elementa, quae generat per figuras, et docet generationem elementorum, et transmutationem ipsorum. 8 Agit etiam de motu nonnulla, et transitum etiam facit ad metalla, et ad metheorologica, de quibus nonnulla contemplatur, et tandem terminat hanc partem his verbis, inquiens se hactenus esse loquuturum de illis speciebus, quae constituuntur per figuras, et superesse ad hoc, ut explicet causas et accidentia harum specierum, tuncque agit de lenitate, mollitie, duritie, caliditate, frigiditate, et huiusmodi aliis passionibus, et cum passionibus corporis coniungit etiam passiones animae, ut dolores, voluptates, et reliquas.9 Post haec, docet modum generationis carnis, et aliarum partium,/119v/ agit deinceps de generatione corruptibili ipsius animae, quomodo subiiciatur his passionibus, quibus in sedibus reperiatur, atque ibi de femina, inde de semine verba facit. 10 Demum absolvit brevissime ea quae pertinebant ad tertia genera animalium corruptibilium. 11 Hoc est compendium. Haec est fabrica Thimaei, iam igitur in hoc tractatu observate nonnulla, neque enim omnia possum recensere, solum quaedam potiora elligam [sic], ut videamus quantum accuratius rem hanc habituri sitis ab Aristotele, quam a Platone. Primum igitur observo quando accipit Plato

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is eternal and incorruptible. He calls the animate things of the heavens stars, both those that are fixed and those that wander, that is, the planets, and under this type he includes also the demons; he then discusses other corruptible things, and he presents the first creator speaking to the second gods, and he says that since the three other types of animate beings are corruptible, they cannot be generated by him directly, /119r/ as this would of course be impious, that something corruptible was generated directly by the first cause, and he therefore entrusts to them the production of the other three generable and corruptible genres, but since among these generable is included man, who is an animate thing that shares in the divine nature, Plato explains that the first creator had given the first seeds of man, both for his soul and for his body, to the second gods, who then sewed together all the other parts as flesh. This is therefore the first and most important part of the Timaeus, which is about the things produced by the mind. Having concluded this first part, Plato turns to the things that are said to be produced by necessity, and since those depend on nature and matter, he repeats thus from the beginning that he established two classes, one which is immutable and free of generation, and the other which is generated but never is, to which he adds now a third genre, and this is the nursing place of generation and being, that is, to say it in one word, the prime matter, about which he says many things that I omit now, since I will consider them in their proper place. Then he [Plato] discusses the elements, which are produced by figures, and he lays out how they are generated and how they are transmuted. He adds some things about motion, then about metals and meteorological matters, about which he offers some reflections, and finally he closes this section with these words, saying that until then he was to discuss these species that are made up by figures, and to do so he has to explain the causes and the accidents of these species, and then he speaks about levity, softness, hardness, warmth, coldness, and other affections of this sort, and he adds to the affections of the body also the affections of the soul, such as pains, pleasures, and others. After this, he teaches the way the flesh and other parts are generated, /119v/ and then he discusses the corruptible generation of this soul, how it is subject to these affections, and in which parts [of the body] it can be found, and he makes mention of the female and then of the seed. Finally, he discusses very briefly those things that are related to the third genre of corruptible animals. This is the summary. This is the structure of the Timaeus, and so already in this presentation you could observe some things, not all of which I can review, but I will treat only those things that I deem more important to letting us see how much more accurately you will be guided in this subject by Aristotle, rather than by Plato. First therefore I observe that when Plato accepts in the first foundation

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in primo fundamento esse aliquid semper existens, generationis istae proprietates, si cui conveniunt, procul dubio conveniunt primo opifici. Itaque praesuponit iam haec quod praecipue primo opifici convenit, et tamen de primo opifice dixit posterius ipsum esse admodum difficile invenire, et ratione utitur dicens, quia mundus est genitus, si est genitus igitur ab aliquo opifice, ergo supponit quod probat, quia primum supponit esse aliquod semper manens et expers generationis. Inferius vero inquit esse maxime difficile atque dubium invenire hunc primum motorem, et addit rationem qua possit hic primus opifex inveniri, quia subdit, si mundus est genitus, est genitus ab aliquo. Notate igitur cui principio initatur ille discursus, principio initatur maxime incerto, maxime difficili atque dubio, et si dicatis per hoc voluit significare ideam, admittatur, si supponitis exemplar et ideam, non ne etiam supponitis id quod illud exemplar agit. Igitur, si supponitis exemplar multo magis opificem agentem ad illud exemplar, tamen inferius ostendet esse difficile invenire eum. Praeterea observate hoc diligenter. Accepit Plato secundum, idest illud quod generatur, sed nunquam est, accipit hoc, non apprehenditur indagine mentis, sed operatione per sensum, et tunc probat mundum esse genitum, quia sensibilis. Librate et perpendite hunc discursum qualis sit/120r/et quanti momenti est syllogismus in secunda figura ex puris affirmativis, nam dicit quod genitum est, et nunquam est, apprehenditur per sensum, igitur mundus est genitus, et nunquam est. Dicetis fortasse primam propositionem esse convertibilem, et tunc erit syllogismus in prima figura hoc modo: omne quod apprehenditur per sensum est genitum, et nunquam est; mundus per sensum apprehenditur; igitur est genitus, et nunquam est. Si igitur hoc ita intelligatis, concludetis mundum esse genitum, et nunquam esse. Nam omne quod apprehenditur per sensum genitum est, et nunquam est. Mundus est huiusmodi, ergo si res ita sese habet, tunc quaeram a vobis de prima materia, est ne primi generis, an secundi? Est ne genita, an ingenita? Haec enim sunt contradictoria, procul dubio ipse collocat iam inter genita, genitum ex Platone sensu apprehenditur, et convertit Plato hanc propositionem, igitur etiam materia prima erit huius secundi generis, quia erit genita et nunquam erit, ad quod igitur ponit tertium genus, imo omnia reducantur ad unum, igitur ipse sibi adversatur. Praeterea, peto ab ipso, quando inquit quod est genitum apprehenditur per sensum, et quod apprehenditur per sensum esse genitum, de quanam generatione loquatur, loquatur ne de vera, an de metaphorice dicta, quae

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that there is something always in existence, the features of this generation, if they are fitting for anyone, are without doubt fitting for the first creator. He therefore claims that these things are especially fitting for the first creator, and yet he says later that the first creator is very difficult to investigate, and he justifies this position by saying that, since the world is created, if it is generated by any creator, [Plato] therefore supposes what he is proving, because he at first supposed to be the first creator something that remains forever and is free of generation. He then says, however, that it is very difficult and uncertain to find this first mover, and adds the argument through which this first creator can be found, since he claims that if the world is generated, it has to be generated by something else. Please note the principle from which this argument starts, for it starts in fact from a principle that is very uncertain, very difficult, and doubtful, and if you say that in it he meant the idea, that can be admitted if you mean the exemplar and the idea, but not if you mean that which uses the exemplar. Therefore, if you mean the exemplar much more than the creator using that exemplar, he shows later that this creator is difficult to find. Moreover, observe this diligently. Plato accepts a second principle, something that is generated but never is, and he accepts this—that it is grasped not by mind, but by the operation of sense—and then he asserts that the world was generated, since it is sensible. Evaluate and weigh this argument /120r/ and of how much importance can a syllogism in the second figure from pure affirmatives be, for he says that what is generated and never is, is grasped by sense, therefore the world is generated and never is. Perhaps you will say that the first proposition is convertible, and then the syllogism will be in the first figure in this way: everything that is grasped by sense is generated and never is, so the world is grasped by sense; therefore it is generated and never is. So if you understand it in this way, you will conclude that the world is generated and never is. For everything that is grasped by sense is generated and never is. The world is such, therefore, if things are in this way, then I ask you, is prime matter of the first type or the second? Is it generated, or not? In fact, these things are in contradiction: without any doubt Plato made it generated, and according to Plato what is generated is grasped by sense, and he [Plato] turned to his proposition, and also prime matter will be of this second type, since it will be generated and never will be, and for this reason he adds a third genre—which actually combines the two—and therefore he contradicts himself. Moreover, I ask him, when he says that what is generated is grasped by sense, and that what is grasped by sense is generated, of what kind of generation is he talking about? Does he talk about the real generation, or of a so-called metaphorical one, which is called emanation by theologians, and also by those philosophers who claim that

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emanatio dicitur, sicut dicunt Theologi, nec non Philosophi asserentes primas intelligentias a Deo genitas esse, idest emanatas, si loquantur de vera generatione. Tunc falsum est, et quod accipit omne quod per sensum apprehenditur esse genitum generatione et nunquam esse, et hanc converti. Nam dicam ego mundum apprehendi per sensum, et tamen non est genitus vera generatione, seu de metaphorice dicta generatione loquatur, falsa erit haec propositio, / 120v / omne quod generatur sensu apprehenditur, propterea quia Dii caelestes geniti sunt, et sensu non apprehenduntur. Praeterea addo etiam quomodo verum sit, quod genitum est non posse apprehendi indagine mentis in eius investigatione, nam ipsemet dividit tractatum hunc in opera mentis, et opera necessitatis, dicit hoc esse opus mentis, quonam modo opus mentis non habebit rationem aliquam per quam possit apprehendi, cum presertim substantia, et quidditas mente apprehendatur, addit etiam quando opifex efficit aliquid ad eius exemplar, est perfectum, et probat mundum esse pulcherrimum, quia est factus ad eius exemplar, syllogismus est in secunda figura ex puris affirmativis, nam est ac si dicetis quando opifex respicit ad exemplar, efficit opus pulcherrimum. Mundus est opus pulcherrimum, ergo mundus factus est ad eius exemplar, si convertatis maiorem propositionem, propositio maior erit incerta, et facilime ruet, quia erit aliquis qui omnino negabit Ideas, sicut Aristoteles. Propterea convertitur Plato ad hoc quaesitum, num mundus sit genitus, et dicit hoc ante omnia esse quaerendum.12 Observate qualis sit ordo, et quale quaesitum, non possumus hoc determinare, nisi cognoscamus materiam, substantiam, et definitionem ipsius, et nisi eum resolvamus in sua principia, et in suas causas, nisi intelligamus quid sit generatio, transmutatio, quomodo fiant, et tamen dicit esse quaerendum, primo an mundus generetur, deinceps vero haec cognoscenda, praeterea quando descendit ad motum generationis, videtur declinare in veram generationem, sicut reprehenditur ab Aristotele, primo Coeli, inquit enim affuisse materiam fluitantem, sed sectatores Platonis ipsum deffendentes dicunt eum loqui de methaphorica generatione, tantum attinet ad veram declarationem huius verbi, / 121r / haud recte explicabitur.13 Praeterea descendit ad generationem animae, et declarationem sententiae ipsius, non considerans operationes corporis, nec corpora, nec partes animae. Aristoteles autem, quoniam deducit nos ad cognitionem animae, librat et perpendit operationes, ut ex operationibus cognoscamus essentiam ipsius animae, ex obiectis enim ad operationes, ex quibus ad essentiam nos deducit.

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first intelligences were generated by God, that is, emanated, if they speak about real generation? Therefore, it is false that he assumes that everything that is grasped by sense is generated by generation and never is, and pay attention to this. For if I were to say that the world is grasped by sense, and yet not generated by a real generation, or a metaphorical one, the proposition /120v/ that everything that is generated is grasped by sense would be false, since the celestial Gods are generated and are not grasped by sense. Moreover, I also add: How is it true that what is generated cannot be grasped by mind in its search? For he [Plato] himself divides this treatise into things produced by mind and things produced by necessity, and he says those things produced by the mind are those that will not have some essence through which they can be grasped, since particularly substance and quiddity are grasped by mind, and he also adds that when the creator did something according to its exemplar, that thing is perfect, and proves that the world is the very best, since it was made according to that exemplar, which is a syllogism in the second figure from pure affirmative propositions, for it is like if you say that since the creator looks at the exemplar, he makes his production the most beautiful. The world is the most beautiful production, therefore the world is made according to that exemplar, and if you convert the major premise, the major premise will be uncertain, and easily will collapse, since there will be someone who will deny the Ideas, like Aristotle. For this reason, Plato goes back to this question, if the world is generated, and he says that this must be investigated before anything else. Note here what the order is and what the question is: we cannot determine this, if we do not know the matter, the substance, and its definition, and if we do not settle its principles and causes, if we do not understand what generation and transmutation are, and how they happen, and yet he says that we must investigate first if the world is generated, then these other things, then again when he comes to talk about the motion of generation, he seems to avoid real generation, as Aristotle rebukes him for in the first book of On the Heavens, saying that fluctuating matter was present. Yet the followers of Plato defend him by saying that he spoke of metaphorical generation, and being simply treated as a matter of correctly understanding this word, /121r/ the issue will not be solved properly. Moreover, he [Plato] goes on to speak about the generation of the soul and to describe it, without considering the operations of the body, the bodies, and the parts of the soul. Aristotle, however, when he brings us to knowledge of the soul, evaluates and considers these operations, since it is from these operations that we know the essence of the soul itself, and he goes from the objects to the operations, from which he brings us to the essence. Then he [Plato] turns to celestial animate things, without demonstrating what is either

174

Appendix B

Descendit deinceps ad animalia caelestia absque demonstret causa ea esse, nec cuius sint naturae, itaque diminutae admodum illa explicat, etiam sermonem habet de aliquibus corruptibilibus, et de homine, et declarat genituram ex parte animae et corporis, non declarata mixtione, non alteratione, nec principiis, a quibus talia pendent, quae tamen antea declaranda erant. Itaque inordinate etiam loquitur deinde, cum descendit ad animalia corruptibilia. Omitto quae dicat de materia, nam haec suo quoque loco considerabuntur. Dicit se primum expositurum species quae contingunt per varietates figurarum, cum tamen sermonem de carne reiiciat posteris, cur non quando de caeteris animalium partibus loquebatur, etiam de carne non coitur, deinde confundit simul passiones animae cum corporis passionibus, et antequam declaret genus mortale ipsius animae cuius ille passiones sunt, et proprietates, debebat prius declarare passiones et proprietates ipsius animae, cum non possit declarari hoc genus mortale, nisi hae fuerint prius explicatae. Descendit deinde ad languores, et egritudinis causas, et morbos, quae excedunt procul dubio limites naturalis philosophiae. Propterea credo nos non posse ex hac declaratione effici perfectos philosophos. Ex adverso novit Aristoteles nil posse recte explicari, nisi cognitis principiis, ex quibus caetera omnia pendent, ignoratis siquidem principiis omnia labuntur. 14 Propterea coepit primum explicare / 121v / prima principia conmunissima omnium rerum naturalium, et accidentium, quae ista consequuntur, deinde se convertit ad illa quorum ista sunt principia, et quia primo nobis se offert fabrica huius universi, tanquam omnia constituens, etiam convertit se ad considerationem huius, docens ex quibus partibus integretur, dicit enim ex tribus integrari, ex his quae moventur a medio ad medium, et circa medium, atque huius gratia egit de corporibus coelestibus, de finitate, et infinitate universi, et de generatione, consideravitque partes primarias ipsius, tam caelestia quam elementa, consideravitque, inquam, elementa quatenus haec integrant universum, quatenus haec sua gravitate et levitate illud complent, atque perficiunt, deinceps transitum eum facturus ad generabilia, propterea sermonem habuit de generatione et aliis huiusmodi motibus simplicibus, ac de elementis, in quibus praecipue est generatio. Docetque quid sit generatio atque omnis transmutatio simplex, transitum deinde erat facturus ad mixta, idcirco sermonem habuit de generatione et aliis transmutationibus, quae metheorologica dicuntur. Mox descendit ad mineralia, postea ad animalia, demum ad plantas.15 Igitur Aristoteles ordinate admodum nobis

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their cause or their nature, explaining them in a very scanty way. He also discusses other corruptible things and man, and he explains their generation from the perspective of the soul and the body, without mentioning mixture and alteration—the principles on which these things depend—which he should have discussed earlier. He also talks in a disordered way when he discusses corruptible animate things. I set aside what he says about matter, as it will be discussed in its right place. He says that he is going to enumerate first the species that descend from a variety of the figures, and yet he left to his successors the discussion of the flesh, since he did not speak about flesh even when he talked about the other parts of animate things, and then he confuses the affections of the soul with the affections of the body, and before declaring to be mortal the type of that soul to which these affections and these properties belong, he should have first laid out these affections and properties of this soul, since it is not possible to label a thing mortal if these things have not been explained before. He then goes on to discuss pains, the causes of illnesses, and those diseases that clearly go beyond the limits of natural philosophy. On account of this, I believe that we cannot become perfect philosophers following this kind of reasoning. On the contrary, Aristotle knew very well that nothing can be adequately explained if we do not know the principles on which all the other things depend, since if we ignore the principles, everything collapses. For this reason, he begins, in the first place, /121v/ to explain the first principle common to all natural things and to the accidents that follow them, discussing next those things of which these are the principles, and since the fabric of this universe is the first to offer itself to us, of which everything consists, he considers it next, teaching from which parts it is made up. He explains, in fact, that it is made up of three, by which things are moved from center to center, and around the center, and thanks to this, he can then discuss the celestial bodies, the finitude and the infinitude of the universe, and generation, and he considers its primary parts, the celestial as much as the elemental, and he considers, I say, to what extent the elements make up the universe and how much they fill and bring to perfection its weight and lightness, and then moving on to generable things, he therefore discusses generation and other simple motions of the same kind, and the elements, in which generation primarily takes place. And he teaches what generation and any simple mutation are, then he moves on to discussing mixed transmutations, and on account of this, he spoke about generation and other mutations, which are called meteorological. Then he goes on to speak about minerals, then about animate things, and finally about plants. And thus Aristotle has illustrated natural philosophy for us in a fully orderly way, according to that method which is said to be “compositive,” proceeding always from principles to

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exposuit naturalem philosophiam, et methodo illa quae dicitur compotiva [sic], a principiis procedens semper ad principiata. Qua in parte volo vos observare, quia corrupte libri dividuntur in partem de principiis, et in partem de principiatis, nam si hoc intelligatur, hoc modo quod in una parte coniiciantur omnia pertinentia ad principia, et in alia omnia pertinentia ad principiata, est falsissimum, nam quando dico Aristoteles considerat omnes res naturales, considerat earum proprias causas et propria principia, ut quando de metheorologicis, animalibus et huiusmodi agit, ergo hic non est sensus, ut in una parte congerantur omnia pertinentia ad principia, in alia vero omnia pertinentia ad principiata, sed Aristoteles cum considerat / 122r / ipsa principia et causas rerum naturalium, novit esse quasdam causas communissimas, et universalissimas rerum naturalium, esse alias proprias, et pecculiares [sic]. Illae ergo causae, quae sunt universalissimae, particularium habent rationem principii, quia non possumus descendere ad cognitionem particularium, nisi cognitis universalibus. Igitur primum exposuit Aristoteles omnia pertinentia ad illa universalissima, quae habentur in his libris, et ita hoc poterit simpliciter appellari de principiis, quae praesenti anno exponam si Deo placuerit, non quia in aliis partibus non explicentur principia, sed quia in hac parte explicantur quaedam comunissima, quae sunt principia aliarum rerum particularium, deinde descendit ad propria, et particularia.16 Primum occurrebat totum universum, quia totum est notius sua parte. Igitur, in libris de Coelo, egit de universa, et explicat sua principia. Ergo, ex his quae audivistis, potestis facillime cognoscere methodum composificiam eam esse, quam Aristoteles secutus est, et per quam deduxit nos a confusis ad perfectam et distinctam rerum naturalium cognitionem. At si Platonem adeatis periculum, habebitis ne confusi relinquamini.

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the things governed by those principles. I want you here to observe that books are wrongly divided into principles and things that are governed by those principles, and if it is understood in this way—that all the things about principles are located in one part and everything related to the things that are governed by these principles in another—this is absolutely false, for when I say that Aristotle considers all natural things, he considers their causes and their principles, such as when he speaks about meteorological matters, animate things, and such. Therefore, this does not mean that in one part we find everything related to the principles, and in another everything about the things that are governed by them, since when Aristotle considers /122r/ the principles themselves and the causes of the natural things, he knows that there are causes of the natural things that are very common and universal, and others that are typical and particular. Therefore, those causes that are universal have an essence of principle for the particulars, because we cannot pass on to the knowledge of the particulars if we do not first recognize the universals. Aristotle thus first laid out everything pertaining to those which are the most universal that are contained in these books [the Physics], and so this part –which I will teach this present year, God willing– can simply be referred to as the one on principles, not because in other parts he does not speak about principles, but because in this part he explains those that are common and those that are the principles of the other particular things, before moving on to those that are specific and particular. The universe in its entirety is the first to come forward, because the whole is more known than its part. For this reason, in the books On the Heavens, he discusses the universe, and explains its principles. Therefore, from these things that you have heard, you can very easily recognize what the compositive method is, the method followed by Aristotle, through which he brings us out of confusion to a perfect and distinct knowledge of the natural things. But if you will venture to follow Plato, pay attention so that you are not left confused.

appendix c

Skeptical Attitudes Toward Philosophical Concordiae

Comparationes intended to prove the harmony between Plato and Aristotle could become the target of skeptical attacks. Favored by the rediscovery of Diogenes Laertius and then of Sextus Empiricus, along with the increased circulation of Cicero’s Academica, skepticism, starting in the fifteenth century, was used to cultivate fideistic programs that challenged rationality and philosophy, but also to advocate a freer, more eclectic way of philosophizing.1 A concordist approach was rejected both by fideists, eager to highlight the uncertainty of human knowledge in contrast to the certainty of divine revelation, and by eclectic thinkers opposed to leveling the differences between the philosophical schools. The first position is famously represented by the Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et veritatis Christianae disciplinae (1520) by Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533), nephew to Giovanni Pico. As he wrote in the opening of the Examen, his uncle Giovanni could not complete the almost impossible task of reconciling Plato and Aristotle. Gianfrancesco believed that it would be more useful to do the opposite, and show the disagreements between pagan philosophers.2 Gianfrancesco—like his uncle Giovanni in his final years—was a follower of Savonarola, and this religious impetus made him eager to purify theology from all philosophical— above all, Aristotelian—influences. For this reason, the Examen is primarily an anti-Aristotelian work, aimed at discrediting the Philosopher’s reputation. The occasional appreciation of Platonism expressed by Gianfrancesco was prompted by Plato’s representing a philosophical alternative to Aristotle, one that had the further merit of having been praised by the church fathers.3 Yet

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he made it clear in other writings that Platonism was no less detrimental to the Christian faith, particularly in its more mystical versions.4 The Examen was a manifesto of Gianfrancesco’s conviction that religion would benefit greatly from severing all contact with pagan wisdom; he thus rejected the view characterizing virtually all apologetic comparationes of Plato and Aristotle, particularly those centered on their concordia, that pagan authors could provide external aids to Christianity. The French scholar Arnaud Le Ferron (1515–1563) also opposed any sort of philosophical concordism; but unlike Gianfrancesco, he did not view the disagreements between the philosophers in a negative light.5 On the contrary, in a volume that appeared in 1557, he argued to see in these conflicts an opportunity to investigate the highest good and claimed that those, like Bessarion, who had tried to impose harmony on conflicting doctrines were damaging the mission of philosophy and the search for virtue.6 Le Ferron was obviously reacting to the turbulent times in France at the start of the religious wars, and taking cues from Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre he regarded concordism as inhibiting philosophical pluralism and ultimately the attainment of truth. The poet Torquato Tasso in his dialogue Malpiglio secondo, o del fuggir la moltitudine (1584) was instead looking for a philosophical concord able to defeat the skeptical temptations that tormented him. Tasso’s dialogue is silently built on a passage from Proclus’s De anima et daemone, in which the ancient philosopher invited to flee from all multitudes, including the interior one represented by the emotions, senses, images, and opinions.7 The two interlocutors in the dialogue discuss how to reach this goal, and whether Plato or Aristotle would provide a safer haven from the turmoil of the multitude. They conclude that neither philosopher would foster tranquility, which could only be attained by demonstrating the concord between them and reconciling their apparent conflicts. But the concordia between Plato and Aristotle is still under construction, because no one has thus far been able to establish the agreement between the two philosophers.8 So, according to Tasso, this concord was the only antidote to skepticism, making it as valuable as it was hard to achieve. Skepticism therefore provoked different reactions to concordist experiments. When imbued with fundamentalist faith, the result was Gianfrancesco Pico’s view that the lack of agreement between philosophers was proof of the superiority of Christianity; Le Ferron, instead, rejected concordism, not on religious grounds, but by calling for tolerance and praising philosophical pluralism. For Tasso, who saw skepticism as an illness, demonstrating the agreement between Plato and Aristotle could ultimately be the remedy to this disease.

appendix d

Francesco Vimercato’s De Dogmatibus

De dogmatibus is preserved in two manuscripts at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan. One of them (S169 inf.)—which has many fascicles misplaced but is nevertheless complete—is the authograph by Vimercato.1 This manuscript was his working copy, as is evident from the numerous corrections and additions. It even contains two versions of the third book, and re-elaborations of sections of others (I, II).2 For the most part these rewritings concern the beginning and the conclusion of books, in which Vimercato highlights the superior truth of faith over Aristotle’s doctrines. This was, no doubt, a prudent move, possibly dictated by Vimercato’s plan to circulate the work.3 The other manuscript (S12 inf.) contains only five out of ten books (I–III, VI, and VIII) and was presumably a fair copy, made by a scribe who was not acquainted with Greek, and who often left blank spaces where in S169 inf. we find Greek quotations. All of the five chapters in S12 inf. are revised according to the rewritten sections in S169 inf.4 S169 inf. is decisive in identifying both manuscripts with Vimercato’s supposedly lost De dogmatibus. Yet even though neither of the two Ambrosiana manuscripts is signed, further evidence for their identification can be added: their title (De Aristotelis et Platonis dogmatibus), which is used by Vimercato when referring to this work in other writings of his; the way in which the comparatio is conducted, first presenting Plato’s arguments on a topic, then Aristotle’s, and only at that point comparing their views, as in De placitis; and the doctrinal content of the manuscripts, which corresponds to another late writing of Vimercato, De rerum naturalium principiis. This internal evidence is strengthened by the fact that at least S169 inf. was part of the bequest left to the Ambrosiana by Cesare Rovida (1549–1592), largely

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composed of books formerly owned by his teacher Ottaviano Ferrari (1508– 1586).5 This provenance is significant, because it was precisely to Ferrari, a respected professor of philosophy in Padua, that Vimercato seems to have entrusted the task of publishing and revising his works once he returned to Italy, suggesting that he left his manuscripts, including those of De dogmatibus, in Ferrari’s hands.6 Since we know that Rovida obtained from Ferrari at least two other manuscripts by Vimercato, we can reasonably presume that he received S169 inf. through this channel.7

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notes

introduction 1. See, e.g., the Open University handbook The Renaissance in Europe. 2. See, e.g., Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 48. But about the Scientific Revolution as a discontinuity see, more recently, Wootton, The Invention of Science. 3. Watt, Authority, 4. 4. See, e.g., Arendt, Between Past and Future; Kojeve, The Notion of Authority. 5. See, e.g., texts like Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Kant, Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufkla¨rung? (I quote from the translation [What Is Enlightenment?] by Mary J. McGregor, in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 17); Mill, On Liberty. 6. Agamben, The Remnants of Auschwitz, 148–150. On the complex history of the word see also Chenu, “Auctor, actor, autor.” 7. See Zagzebski, Epistemic Authority. See also Raz, The Morality of Freedom. 8. See, e.g., the reflections on the work of ancient commentators in Shaping Authority, 21–46. 9. See, e.g., Bizer, Homer and the Politics of Authority; Griffiths, Diverting Authorities; the studies in On Good Authority, spanning from late antiquity to the sixteenth century, and again those in Shaping Authority. 10. See the essays in Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. 11. Martin, Subverting Aristotle. 12. Levitin, Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science. 13. Palmer, “Humanist Lives of Classical Philosophers and the Idea of Renaissance Secularization.” 14. On Aristotle as an authority in the Middle Ages see Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben, 2:63–102. See also Munk Olsen, I classici nel canone scolastico medievale. On Aristotle as a scientific authority see Ducos, “Progre`s scientifique et autorite´s,” in Progre`s, re´action, de´cadence dans l’Occident me´die´val, 185–198. More generally on pagans as authorites in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, see Paganism in the Middle Ages: Threat and Fascination; Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers. 15. Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science; Kessler, “Metaphysics or Empirical Science?”; Del Soldato, “Natural Philosophy in the Renaissance.” 16. On ventriloquizing dead authorities, see the specific case of the eidolopoeia studied by Roush, Speaking Spirits.

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Notes to Pages 4–11

17. The obvious reference is to the studies by Quentin Skinner, in particular The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. Against the custom of tailoring ancient authorities, see e.g., Michel de Montaigne in his Essays, II.12, with regard to Plato (“Voyez de´mener et agiter Platon. Chacun s’honorant de l’appliquer a` soy, le couche du coste´ qu’il le veut. . . . On faict desadvou¨er a` son sens les mœurs licites en son siecle, d’autant qu’elles sont illicites au nostre”). 18. See the works by Bruno Nardi, Charles B. Schmitt, Jill Kraye, Charles H. Lohr, John Monfasani, David A. Lines, and Luca Bianchi. 19. Petrarch knew, however, Calcidius’s commentary on the Timaeus and Apuleius. See Zintzen, “Il platonismo del Petrarca,” and Gentile, “Le postille del Petrarca al ‘Timeo’ latino.” 20. See, e.g., Gross, The Rhetoric of Science. 21. Garber, “Why the Scientific Revolution Wasn’t a Scientific Revolution.” 22. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance. 23. Ginzburg, Miti, emblemi, spie: Morfologia e storia and “Our Words, and Theirs: A Reflection on the Historian’s Craft, Today.” 24. On Warburg’s method see Ginzburg, “Le forbici di Warburg,” in Tre figure: Achille, Meleagro, Cristo, 109–132 (and see also the other essays in the volume); and Ginzburg, Paura, reverenza, terrore. For its analogies with the perspective later elaborated by Lovejoy see Lovejoy, The History of Ideas, 1–70. On the absence of diachronicity in Lovejoy’s approach see Rambaldi, “Storiografia crociana e storia delle idee.” 25. See, e.g., Campanale, “La dialettica delle auctoritates: Da Aristotele ad Alberto Magno.” 26. Purnell Jr., “Jacopo Mazzoni and His Comparison.” 27. According to Purnell (“Jacopo Mazzoni and His Comparison,” 87), after Mazzoni comparationes became mainly historiographical exercises. While this tendency is certainly present, it does not include all the comparationes composed in the seventeenth century. See, in any case, Gaudenzi, De philosophiae apud Romanos, 435–454. 28. See also Bizzocchi, Geneaologie incredibili. 29. See, e.g., Schmitt, “Aristotle as a Cuttlefish”; Bianchi, Studi sull’Aristotelismo del Rinascimento.

chapter 1 1. See, e.g., the debate on the so-called paragone delle arti: Mendelsohn, Paragoni; Farago, “The Classification of the Visual Arts During the Renaissance”; Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone; Azzolini, “In Praise of Art: Text and Context of Leonardo’s ‘Paragone.’ ” Lorenzo Valla famously composed a now lost comparatio between Cicero and Quintilian (see Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla, 89–100), in which he likely compared their respective pedagogical value. For later examples of comparisons, like those between Racine and Corneille, or Corneille and Shakespeare appeared in publications such as the Journal encyclope´dique and Gentleman’s Magazine, see the debates between Voltaire and his British interlocutors, see, e.g., Barnwell, The Tragic Drama of Corneille and Racine; Rhodes, Shakespeare and the Origins of English, 216. 2. On comparationes see Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni; Moreau, “De la concordance d’Aristote avec Platon”; Monfasani, George of Trebizond; Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance; Garin, Il ritorno dei filosofi antichi, 79–96. 3. A peculiar example of this second typology is the short political tract by Foglietta, De nonnullis in quibus Plato ab Aristotele reprehenditur in Opuscula nonnulla, 99–105.

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4. Boethius, In librum De interpretatione editio secunda, PL 64, 433D. See Zambon, “ ‘Aristotelis Platonisque sententias in unam revocare concordiam.’ ” 5. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, CCCM 98, 83. 6. For the text (in its two different versions) and a commentary, see Normann, “Disputatio Platonis et Aristotelis.” 7. See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, In libros De anima expositio I, viii, 1 (Bessarion will manipulates the passage in Plato’s favor in his In calumniatorem Platonis); In libros De coelo expositio I, x, 22. See Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism; Weishepl, “Thomas’ Evaluation of Plato and Aristotle”; Brock, “La ‘conciliazione’ di Platone e Aristotele nel commento di Tommaso d’Aquino al ‘De hebdomadibus.’ ” 8. See in particular Petrarch, In sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia, in Invectives, 222–363. 9. Bruni, Vita Aristotelis, in Opere letterarie e politiche, 518. See Ianziti, “Leonardo Bruni and Biography: The ‘Vita Aristotelis.’ ” 10. Dutton, “Material Remains of the Study of the ‘Timaeus’ in the Later Middle Ages.” 11. Always useful is Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition; see also The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages; Somfai, “The Eleventh-Century Shift in the Reception of Plato’s Timaeus and Calcidius’ Commentary.” See also the studies by Calma, Gersh, Steel, and Sturlese. More specifically on Augustine in the Middle Ages, see Aquinas the Augustinian. 12. See in particular Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance. 13. Bianchi and Randi, Le verita` dissonanti; Dutton, “Material Remains.” 14. Falcon, Aristotelismo, vii. 15. Cicero, Academica II, 15. 16. Cicero, Academica I, 17; De finibus V, 7. 17. See Chiaradonna, “Platonist Approaches to Aristotle.” 18. An English version is in Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism. 19. See Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement. 20. For a modern appreciation of Aristotle as a Platonist see Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists, 290. For different modern treatments of Aristotle’s attitude toward Plato see Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development; Owen, Logic, Science, and Dialectic, 200–220. 21. Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement; Falcon, Aristotelismo, 79. 22. On the motif see Monfasani, “Aristotle as the Scribe of Nature.” 23. See, e.g., Simplicius, In Aristotelis de Coelo, ed. Ludwig Heiberg, in Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca 7, 106, 5–6; In Aristotelis Categorias, ed. Karl Kalbfleish, in Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca 8, 7, 30–32; Aristotelis Physicorum libros quattuor posteriores, ed. Hermann Diels, in Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca 10, 1359, 5–10. Suggestively, a similar distinction was later appropriated in Christian Scholastic circles, to differentiate the divinus Thomas Aquinas and the physicus Albert the Great. See Paravicini Bagliani, “La le´gende me´die´vale d’Albert le Grand.” 24. See Atticus, fr. 3.82 and fr. 7.46 (Des Places). See also Karamanolis, “The Platonism of Eusebius of Caesarea.” 25. Sorabji, “The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle,” 5. 26. On the debate see Rashed, “On the Authorship of the Treatise On the Harmonization of the Opinions of the Two Sages”; Genequand, “The´ologie et philosophie: La providence chez al-Faˆraˆbıˆ et l’authenticite´ de l’Harmonie des opinions des deux sages”; Butterworth, “How to Read Alfarabi.” 27. Karamanolis, “Early Christian Philosophers on Aristotle.”

186

Notes to Pages 15–20

28. Theodorus Metochites, Miscellanea philosophica et historica; Nicephoros Gregoras, Fiorenzo o intorno alla Sapienza. On these works see Karamanolis, “Plethon and Scholarios on Aristotle”; Byde´n, “The Criticism of Aristotle in Nikephoros Gregoras’ Florentius” and “ ‘No Prince of Perfection’: Byzantine Anti-Aristotelianism from the Patristic Period to Plethon.” 29. See Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement, 254–255. 30. See the preface by M. Ficino to his translation of Plotinus (1492) (in Opera omnia, 2:1537). 31. Monfasani, “Marsilio Ficino and the Plato-Aristotle Controversy.” 32. The “harmony” was regarded at times an independent genre. See, e.g., Possevino, Bibliotheca selecta, 2nd ed., 2:38. 33. I quote from the translation in Piccolomini, Europe (c. 1400–1458), 236. 34. On Ugo see Lockwood, Ugo Benzi: Medieval Philosopher and Physician; Lawn, The Rise and Decline of the Scholastic “Quaestio Disputata,” 77–80. 35. Gill, The Council of Florence, 227. 36. See on the debate Masai, Ple´thon et le platonisme de Mistra; Kristeller, Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays, 86–109: 97; Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 1:197– 205; Monfasani, “Platonic Paganism in the Fifteenth Century”; Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon; Hladcky, The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon. 37. Byde´n, “ ‘No Prince of Perfection.’ ” 38. Gass, Gennadius und Pletho: Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der griechischen Kirche, 2:113; Robin, Filelfo in Milan: Writings 1451–1477, 144–146. 39. Karamanolis, “Plethon and Scholarios on Aristotle,” 263. 40. I quote from the English translation provided in Woodhouse, George Gemistos Plethon: The Last Of The Hellenes, 193 (§ 5). The original text is in Lagarde, “Le De differentiis de Ple´thon d’apre`s l’autographe de la Marcienne.” See also Byde´n, “ ‘No Prince of Perfection.’ ” 41. See Du¨ring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, 318–321. 42. Pletho, De differentiis in Woodhouse, George Gemistos Plethon, 213–214 (§ 55). 43. Ibid., 198 (§ 20). 44. Ibid., 193 (§ 4). 45. See also ibid., 211 (§ 49), for a similar stretching of Aristotle’s words. 46. Del Soldato, “Platone, Aristotele e il cardinale: Il De natura et arte di Bessarione” See also, for another stretching of terminology, Koutras, “On the Concepts of Nature and Art in Pletho’s Treatise De differentiis.” 47. See the preface (4) by Alexander to the edition of Pletho, Traite´ de lois. 48. Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism, 411. 49. John Palaeologus also read De differentiis and contacted Pletho for a clarification on a logical passage. See Lambros, Palaiologeia kai Peloponnesiaka, 3:330. 50. See Demetracopoulos, “The Infuence of Thomas Aquinas on Late Byzantine Philosophical and Theological Thought,” on Thomas Aquinas in Greece and also for further bibliography. 51. Ed. L. Petit, XI.1–2. 52. Ibid., IV.22.10–16. 53. Ibid. IV.84.6. 54. Karamanolis, “Plethon and Scholarios on Aristotle,” 268. 55. Byde´n, “ ‘No Prince of Perfection,’ ” 147.

Notes to Pages 21–25

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56. On Quirini see Segarizzi, “Lauro Quirini: Umanista veneziano del secolo XV,” and the essays in the volume Lauro Quirini umanista; King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance; Beyer, “Lauro Quirini, ein Venezianer unter dem Einfluss Plethons”; Rashed, “L’averroı¨sme de Lauro Quirini.” On the date of his death see Monfasani, “Lauro Quirini and His Greek Manuscripts: Some Notes on His Culture.” On the possible connection between Quirini and Pletho, see Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 204–205. 57. “Aristotelem introduximus disputantem et declarantem platonicorum dogmata: non quidem omnia, sed principaliora” (in Segarizzi, “Lauro Quirini,” 17). 58. On eidolopoeia see Roush, Speaking Spirits. 59. A comparison between Aristotle and Plato’s doctrines regarding creation is present in another work by Quirini, the Dialogus (c. 1442), in which their disagreement is taken as proof of human misery. See Wilmanss and Bertalot,”Lauri Quirini Dialogus in gymnasiis florentinis: Ein Nachklang zum ‘Certame Coronario’ (1442).” 60. Segarizzi, “Lauro Quirini,” 20: “Non enim erubesco meos errores dicere.” 61. Beyer, “Lauro Quirini, ein Venezianer.” 62. Quirini also clashed with Valla and Bracciolini. Segarizzi, “Lauro Quirini,” 4. 63. But see Segarizzi, “Lauro Quirini,” 17: “In qua etiam re fidem orthodoxam christianam anteponimus digne, ut statim in principio de eternitate mundi. Non tamen rationibus aliquibus contra philosophos disputamus: hoc enim alias faciemus, si dabitur otium.” 64. Quirini obtained a doctorate “in artibus liberalibus” in 1440. In 1445 he did not obtain the aggregation to the Sacro Collegio of Paduan doctors; he then started juridical studies and obtained his second doctorate in 1448. He read philosophy publicly in Venice, after a short stint in politics. In 1452 the University of Padua offered him a position teaching moral philosophy, which he declined or held for only a very short period, as at the end of the year he moved to Crete for good. See “Cronologia della vita e delle opere di Lauro Quirini,” by Seno and Ravegnani, in Lauro Quirini umanista, 9–18. 65. Another example is the 1458 Epistola de sectis philosophorum by Bartolomeo Scala, advocating for a conciliatory reassessment of the two philosophers, sympatethic to Plato: “certo scio aliquando fore cum aut ambos recte idemque sensisse, aut certe Platonem non male sensisse in his quae ab illis, quos Aristotelicos vocant, male intellexisse insimulatur, manifestum fiet” (Scala, Essays and Dialogues, 18). 66. See Monfasani, “A Tale of Two Books: Bessarion’s In Calumniatorem Platonis and George of Trebizond’s Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis.” 67. Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 170–174, and “George of Trebizond’s Critique of Theodore Gaza’s Translation of the Aristotelian Problemata”; Del Soldato, “Illa Litteris Graecis Abdita: Bessarion, Plato and the Western World”; Linde, “Translating Aristotle in FifteenthCentury Italy: George of Trebizond and Leonardo Bruni.” 68. The 1523 printed edition is entitled Comparatio phylosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis. I have used as reference the Latin text established by John Monfasani, whom I thank. The edition of the text is forthcoming in ACMRS. 69. At times George uses arguments taken from the Franciscan tradition. See Monfasani, “A Tale of Two Books,” 14–15. 70. Monfasani, George of Trebizond; Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2:445–448. 71. Ruocco, Il “Platone Latino”: Il Parmenide: Giorgio di Trebisonda e il cardinale Cusano; the text of the first four books of the Leges is under preparation for SISMEL, in an edition by Fabio Pagani. 72. See, e.g., Labowsky, Bessarion’s Library; Monfasani, “Greek Renaissance Migrations.”

188

Notes to Pages 25–30

73. On Bessarion’s Bildungsjahren, and also for further bibliography, see Monfasani, Bessarion Scholasticus; Mariev, “Neoplatonic Philosophy in Byzantium.” On Bessarion’s translation of the Metaphysics see Mioni, “Contributo del cardinale Bessarione all’interpretazione della ‘Metafisica’ aristotelica”; Del Soldato, “Bessarion as an Aristotelian, Bessarion Among the Aristotelians.” 74. I use the traditional reference system from the edition by Mohler, though its text is not always reliable: Bessarion, In Calumniatorem Platonis Libri IV and Aus Bessarions Gelehrtenkreis: Abhandlungen, Reden, Briefe, 92–146 (book VI). A list of emendations to the text (both Mohler’s and the printed Aldine edition) in Bessarion, Contro il calunniatore di Platone, xxiii– xxiv. On the complex composition of the work see Monfasani, “Il Perotti e la controversia tra platonici ed aristotelici”; “Bessarion Latinus”; “Still More on Bessarion Latinus”; Fernando of Cordova: A Biographical and Intellectual Profile; and “Giovanni Gatti of Messina: A Profile and an Unedited Text”; Pontani, “Note sulla controversia platonico-aristotelica del quattrocento.” ¨ ber Natur und 75. This work has recently generated renewed interest: see Bessarion, U Kunst, and also the Italian edition La natura delibera—La natura e l’arte. 76. Del Soldato, “Platone, Aristotele e il cardinale.” 77. Klibansky, The Continuity, 19; Tigerstedt, The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato, 21–31; Monfasani, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in MidQuattrocento Rome.” 78. Monfasani, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.” 79. See Del Soldato, “The Letter of Lysis to Hipparchus in the Renaissance.” 80. Bessarion, In calumniatorem II.3, 1 (85): “Nos enim de Aristotele quoque semper honestissime loquimur, absitque a nobis tam prava atque insolens cogitatio, ut dum Platonem tuemur, detrahere illi velimus. Utrumque enim sapientissimum fuisse arbitramur et gratias utrique pro beneficiis, quae in genus humanum contulerunt, agendas existimamus.” 81. E.g., ibid., I.3, 3 (27–29) and 5–7 (30–31). 82. Del Soldato, “Illa Litteris Graecis Abdita.” 83. See also Monfasani, “A Tale of Two Books.” 84. See, e.g., Steel, “Name and Shame? Invective against Clodius and Others in the PostExile Speeches.” The only exceptions are in book VI, which was composed years before the rest of the In calumniatorem. 85. See the letters in Aus Bessarions Gelehrtenkreis, 597–601, and in Strobl, “Ein griechischer Brief eines Veroneser Humanisten anla¨ßlich Bessarions Schrift ‘In calumniatorem Platonis,’ ” 222. Only John Argyropoulos (for his letter see Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion, 3:601), not by chance a Byzantine, and more acquainted with the genre, praised Bessarion’s attempt at demonstrating the agreement between Plato and Aristotle (i.e., the fact Aristotle is really criticizing not Plato but common opinions attributed to him by some of his followers), adopting himself this tactic in some of his own lectures. On Argyropoulos’s general attitude toward the relationship between Plato and Aristotle see Field, The Origins of the Platonic Academy of Florence, 107–125. Ludovico Saccano too is shown to be receptive to the comparatio as a genre in relation to the In calumniatorem in his epistle published in Albanese, “Lo storico Ludovico Saccano e la sua biblioteca: Umanesimo meridionale e ritorno dei classici,” 46. 86. Bessarion, In calumniatorem Platonis, I.1, 1 (3): “Incidit nuper in manus nostras liber quidam, qui Platonis atque Aristotelis comparationem pollicebatur. . . . Hoc enim veteres plerique tum Graeci tum Latini fecere, Platonis alii, alii Aristotelis rationibus faventes, et haec quidem probantes, illa refellentes. Fuerunt etiam, qui convenire inter sese duos philosophos . . . nixi sunt ostendere. Existimabam itaque auctorem huius libri . . . hoc idem fecisse et vel

Notes to Pages 31–34

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conciliasse inter sese duorum philosophorum opiniones vel alteri inhaerentem, quibus ad id rationibus duceretur, explicasse, quodsi praeferrendas Aristotelis opiniones, Platonis vero contemnendas existimaret, causam eius rei demonstratione, ut par erat, ac necessariis rationibus exposuisse. . . . Iam vero, ubi perlecto libro pro thesauris quos sperabam carbones, ut dici solet, inveni et desiderio frustratus nihil animadverti praeter convitia et contumelias et iurgia in Platonem, his enim dumtaxat erat liber ille refertus instar veteris comoediae, immo ut plane omnes, quae unquam fuerunt, comoedias excederet, obstupui vehementer tantae rei novitate attonitus.” 87. Monfasani, “Bessarion’s Own Translation of the In Calumniatorem Platonis”; “Niccolo‘ Perotti and Bessarion’s In Calumniatorem Platonis”; and “The Pre- and Post-History of Cardinal Bessarion’s 1469 In Calumniatorem Platonis.” 88. See Feld, “Sweynheim and Pannartz, Cardinal Bessarion, Neoplatonism: Renaissance Humanism and Two Early Printers’ Choice of Texts.” 89. Del Soldato, “Sulle tracce di Bessarione: Appunti per una ricerca.” 90. Monfasani, “Bessarion Latinus”; “Still More on Bessarion Latinus”; and “A Tale of Two Books.” 91. Kraye, “Francesco Filelfo’s Lost Letter De ideis”; Bianca, “Auctoritas e veritas: Il Filelfo e le dispute tra platonici e aristotelici;” Robin, Filelfo in Milan, 145–152; de Keyser, “Perotti and Friends: Generating Rave Reviews for Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis.” 92. See in particular Ficino’s letter on the harmony between Plato and Moses, Opera omnia, 1:866–867. On the letter see Allen, Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation; Robichaud, “Marsilio Ficino’s ‘Si Deus Fiat Homo’ and Augustine’s ‘Non Ibi Legi’: The Incarnation and Plato’s Persona in the Scholia to the Laws.” 93. On Ficino and Simplicius see Nardi, Saggi sull’Aristotelismo padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI, 365–442; Monfasani, “Ficino in the Plato-Aristotle Controversy.” See also Purnell Jr., “The Theme of Philosophic Concord and the Sources of Ficino’s Platonism.” 94. Ficino, Opera omnia, 1:858. See also 1:982 and 2:116–118. 95. See, e.g., Pico della Mirandola, Opera, 368–369. 96. On concordia in a wider context see Borghesi, “For the good of All. Notes on the Idea of Concordia During the Late Middle Ages.” 97. Translation in Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones nongentae, in Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486). The original text reads: “Nullum est quaesitum naturale aut divinum in quo Aristoteles et Plato sensu et re non conveniant, quamvis verbis dissentire videantur.” This thesis, Pico commented on in the Oratio (Opera, 331), could have easily been drawn out into more than six hundred headings. See also Opera, 326. Pico left traces of his obsession for the agreement of Plato and Aristotle, also reading the Timaeus; see Hankins, “The Study of the ‘Timaeus,’ ” 85. 98. This is what Pico’s nephew Gian Francesco suggests in his Ioannis Pici Mirandulanae . . . vita, 50–52. In the De ente et uno Pico mentions the Concordia as at least partially written. I quote from Dell’ente e dell’uno, 242. 99. Pico, Dell’ente e dell’uno, 202. 100. See Allen, “The Second Ficino-Pico Controversy: Parmenidean Poetry, Eristic, and the One”; Ebgi, “Saggio introduttivo,” in Dell’ente e dell’uno, 135. 101. Tigerstedt, The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato, 20–21. 102. See Allen, “The Second Ficino-Pico Controversy”; Vanhaelen, “The Pico-Ficino Controversy: New Evidence in Ficino’s Commentary on the Parmenides.”

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Notes to Pages 34–40

103. See Fellina, Alla scuola di Marsilio Ficino: Il pensiero filosofico di Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. 104. See, e.g., Cattani, Opera omnia, 69, 73, 330–331. See Kristeller, “Francesco da Diacceto and Florentine Platonism in the Sixteenth Century,” 286–288. 105. See, e.g., in the Paraphrasis De coelo (Opera omnia, 180–181, 261–262) and in De pulchro (Opera omnia, 14–18). 106. Del Soldato, “The E´litist Vernacular of Francesco Cattani da Diacceto”; Fellina, Alla scuola di Marsilio Ficino, 337. 107. Cattani, Opera omnia, 332–337 (letter to Germain de Ganay, “Argumentum: Christianae religionis cum platonica philosophia convenientia et discordia”). See also his letter to Vincenzo Quirini, “Argumentum: Studium suum erga Platonem declarat et contra Pseudoperipateticos Platonicam philosophiam se defensurum pollicetur” (Opera omnia, 329–330); and Fellina, Alla scuola di Marsilio Ficino, 337–338. 108. A brief comparatio, based nonetheless on conventional motifs, was instead offered by the editor of Cattani’s Opera omnia, Theodore Zwinger, in his introduction to the volume. See Cattani, Opera omnia, *2r–*4r.

chapter 2 1. On Ficino and Pletho see Monfasani, “Prisca Theologia in the Plato-Aristotle Controversy.” 2. Monfasani, Nicolaus Scutellius, 3–4. 3. On the council see Gilbert, “Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la Bolla Apostolici Regiminis del 1513”; Monfasani, “Aristotelians, Platonists, and the Missing Ockhamists: Philosophical Liberty in Pre-Reformation Italy”; Constant, “A Reinterpretation of the Fifth Lateran Council Decree Apostolici Regiminis (1513)”; Monfasani, “Humanism and the Fifth Lateran Council.” 4. O’Malley, Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform, 40–49. On Giles’s antiAristotelianism see also Monfasani, “Giles of Viterbo and the Errors of Aristotle.” Giles’s annotated incunable of the In calumniatorem is today conserved at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome (Inc. 1227). The annotations are dated (1504) and still focus on the agreement between Plato and Aristotle (see in particular 56r, 109v). 5. Monfasani, Nicolaus Scutellius, 22, 68, 92. 6. Ibid., 71. 7. Perrone Compagni, “Introduzione”, in Pomponazzi, Trattato sull’immortalita` dell’anima; Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul.” 8. See Monfasani, “The Augustinian Platonists.” 9. Interestingly, the 1523 edition of George’s Comparatio was also edited by an Augustianian, Agostino Chiaravalle (or di Montefeltro), at the suggestion of another Augustinian, Benedetto Moncetti. On the possible anti-Lutheran strategy behind the publication of the text see Monfasani, “A Tale of Two Books,” 12–15. On Fiandino see Monfasani, “The Augustinian Platonists,” 329–332, and Del Soldato, “Sulle tracce,” 323–324. 10. See, e.g., his Enarrationes Evangeliorum a septuagesima usque ad octavam Paschae. 11. Donato, De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae philosophiae differentia, libellus, 3–8. Polycarpus is described as having recently returned from France and as an associate of Rodolfo Pio and a former associate of Ettore de’ Rossi, brother of the bishop of Pavia, Gian Girolamo. 12. Ibid., 51–53.

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13. Ibid., 64. 14. Chariander, Praefatio, in Pletho, De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae philosophiae differentia libellus, *2r–b2r. Further bibliography in Blum, “Plethon the First Philhellene: Reenacting the Antiquity,” 403. 15. Luther in particular rejected Pico’s conciliatory attempts and wanted Aristotle to be depicted in his true colors. See Luther, Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute, in Werke, 1:618. The position of Philipp Melanchton was more moderate, rejecting an excessive preference for either Plato or Aristotle: see Orations on Philosophy and Education, 201. 16. Henric-Petri expressed the identical concern when introducing the edition of Ficino’s Opera omnia, and Zwinger (1561) did the same opening his edition of Cattani da Diacceto’s Opera (1563). See Gilly, “Theodor Zwinger e la crisi culturale della seconda meta` del cinquecento.” 17. Pletho, De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae, g3r–v. 18. See, e.g., Zierold, Historia philosophica. 19. The focus of Stefani, Hippocratis Coi theologia, in qua Platonis, Aristotelis, et Galeni placita Christianae religioni consentanea exponuntur, is different, and it cannot be considered a comparatio. 20. Champier, Symphonia Platonis cum Aristotele: & Galeni cum Hippocrate, Iiibr; see Roger, “La situation d’Aristote dans l’œuvre de Symphorien Champier,” 46–47. Champier also published around 1528 a Symphonia Galeni ad Hippocratem, Cornelii Celsi ad Avicennam. 21. Cutting and pasting was a normal modus operandi for Champier: see Walker, The Ancient Theology, 63–131; Del Soldato, “Bessarion as an Aristotelian;” Giglioni “Symphorien Champier on Medicine, Theology, and Politics.” 22. First published as Hecatonomia in Lefe`vre d’E´taples, Politicorum libri octo commentarii (1506). 23. See, e.g., Lefe`vre d’E´taples, Prefatory Epistles and Related Texts; see also Rice Jr., “Humanist Aristotelianism in France: Jacques Lefe`vre d’E´taples.” 24. Walker, The Ancient Theology, 83–85; Tigerstedt, The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato, 26–28. 25. Champier, Duellum epistolare Galliae et Italiae, Aviiir–Bir. 26. Schmitt, “Andreas Camutius on the Concord of Plato and Aristotle with Scripture.” 27. Ibid., 184. Camuzio quotes Pico also in other writings of his, including De amore et de felicitate libri novem (1574). On Camuzio’s preference for Platonism, displayed also in subsequent debates, see the forthcoming study by Maude Vanhaelen. 28. Fox-Morcillo, De naturae philosophiae, seu de Platonis et Aristotelis consensione. 29. See also the epistle to his brother on the study of philosophy, which closes the work, ibid., 391: “Sunt enim in Philosophia permulta pro veris, atque exploratis asserta, quae si quis mordicus retinere velit, superstitione aut impietate necessario obligetur. Huius generis sunt disputationes illae . . . quae nisi ad nostrae religionis normam dirigantur et diligentissime perpendantur inficere piorum animos possint.” 30. See, e.g., ibid., 45. 31. Ibid., 20. 32. Ibid., 30. 33. Ibid., 251: “Quorum numero est Augustinus, et alii, quorum ego minime sententiam approbo tanquam omnino Platonicam et sacrarum literarum testimonio non congruentem.” 34. Buratelli, Praecipuarum controversiarum Aristotelis et Platonis conciliatio. On this work see Muccillo, “Plotino nel tardo Rinascimento: Annibale Rosselli nel quadro della filosofia platonizzante del XVI secolo.”

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Notes to Pages 45–49

35. Steuco, De perenni philosophia libri X. 36. Ibid., 619. 37. Conventi, La prima parte de’ discorsi peripatetici, et platonici, 16–17. See Kraye, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian ‘Theology’ in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe.” 38. Aquario, Disputatio pulcherrima de ideis, in qua ostenditur Aristotelem non adversari Divino Platoni, in Quaestiones eruditissimae in tres libros De anima Aristotelis Stagiritae. Aquario nonetheless labels Plato “divinus” in all of his writings. De ideis was reprinted several times, in 1577, 1593, and 1619. On Aquario see Blum, “Giordano Bruno, Mattias Aquarius und die eklektische Scholastik.” 39. Aquario reaffirmed his opinion in his 1589 Annotationes super quatuor libros Sententiarum Iohannis Capreoli. On Thomism and Platonism in the Renaissance see Kristeller, “Il tomismo e il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento.” 40. Agnello, Disceptationes de ideis in tres libros distributae. 41. Evoli, De divinis attributis quae Sephirot nuncupantur. 42. Ortensio Lando, in his Paradossi, N5v, seems to mock the pretenses of Platonists about the superior virtue of their philosopher against Aristotle, possibly referencing the practice of comparationes (“e dove hai tu appreso sı` malavagia e diabolica dottrina? Halla tu forsi appresa da Platone, il quale non fu pero` molto miglior di te, e gracchino pur quanto vogliono li platonici moderni?”). Lando is here discussing homosexual love. 43. Fuligatti, Vita del cardinale Roberto Bellarmino, 116–117: “[Clement VIII] volle consultare con esso lui [Bellarmino], se fosse bene il legger nella Sapienza di Roma publicamente la filosofia di Platone; alla qual lezione, se bene vidde il papa molto inclinato, non lascio` egli pertanto di dirgli liberamente il suo pensiero, discorrendo che assai piu` pericoloso era su le scuole Platone di quello che fosse Aristotele, per essere quello piu` vicino a’ nostri dogmi, in quella guisa che tutto dı` s’esperimenta maggior danno dalla lezione de’ libri eretici che di quelli de’ Gentili.” A similar hostility characterized the early Church; see Hankins, “Plato’s Psychogony in the Later Renaissance: Changing Attitudes to the Christianization of Pagan Philosophy,” 395–396. 44. See, e.g., de Fonseca, Commentarii in primum librum Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, 19–23. 45. Crispo, De ethnicis philosophis caute legendis disputationum quinarius primus. On Crispo see Kraye, “Ficino in the Firing Line: A Renaissance Platonist and His Critics”; Hankins, “Plato’s Psychogony”; Muccillo, “Le ‘cautiones’ antificiniane di Giovanni Battista Crispo di Gallipoli.” 46. Kraye, “Ficino in the Firing Line.” 47. Pereira, De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis, 130–143. 48. See, e.g., the allusions to other comparationes focused on Plato’s piety in de Fonseca, Commentarii in primum librum, 10–14. 49. Pansa, De osculo ethnicae et Christianae philosophiae. 50. Hunter, “The University Philosopher in Early Modern Germany”; Wilson, The Death of Socrates, 162. 51. Beni, In Platonis Timaeum sive in naturalem omnem atque divinam Platonis et Aristotelis philosophiam decades tres. On the composition of the work see Kraye, “Ficino in the Firing Line”; Bartocci, “L’ ‘In Platonis Timaeum’ e le altre opere inedite di Paolo Beni da Gubbio.” Of the thirty books, Beni published only the first twelve. 52. Kraye, “Ficino in the Firing Line”; von Perger, “Paolo Benis ‘Timaios-Kommentar’: Eine christliche Kritik an aristotelischen und neuplatonischen Interpretationen;” Bartocci, “Il Platonismo di Paolo Beni da Gubbio e la critica della tradizione Neoplatonica.”

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53. Bartocci, “L’ ‘In Platonis Timaeum,’ ” 196. 54. Rotondo`, “Cultura umanistica e difficolta` di censori: Censura ecclesiastica e discussioni cinquecentesche sul platonismo,” 41; Bartocci, “L’ ‘In Platonis Timaeum,’ ” 99. 55. Beni, In Timaeum, 696–697. 56. Bartocci, “L’ ‘In Platonis Timaeum,’ ” 101–102; on Beni’s work as a reaction to Patrizi, see Rotondo`, “Cultura umanistica e difficolta` di censori,” 39. 57. Beni, In Timaeum, 18, 35, 46. For Beni’s 1619 proposal of curriculum reform in Padua see Sangalli, “Between Church, University and Academies: Paolo Beni in Padua, 1599–1623”; for Beni’s cosmology see Bartocci, “Paolo Beni and Galileo Galilei: The Classical Tradition and the Reception of the Astronomical Revolution.” 58. Beni, In Timaeum, 115–118. 59. E.g., ibid., 117, 151. 60. Another earlier example is Calanna’s Philosophia seniorum sacerdotia et platonica a iunioribus et laicis neglecta philosophis (1599). According to Calanna (232–233) Plato’s philosophy helps men to upgrade from the sensorial sphere in which they are born, which pertains to Aristotle’s philosophy, to the celestial realm. On Galante see Hankins, “Plato’s Psychogony.” 61. Galante’s note of caution is made clear already in the frontispiece of the work, in which we read: “Ac demum Cautiones adhibentur, quibus haereses et cognoscere, et evitare, et praeterea Theologiam Ethnicam inoffenso decurrere pede, Catholicus Christicola poterit.” 62. Galante, Christianae theologiae cum Platonica comparatio, 35 and 96. 63. Ibid., 19. 64. See Hankins, “Plato’s Psychogony.” 65. Published in Saggi accademici dati in Roma nell’Accademia del Sereniss. Prencipe Cardinal di Savoia, 131–143. 66. E.g., Pandolfi, Disputationes de fine mundi, 165. 67. Ibid., 133: “Platone, non tanto per l’Egitto col corpo, quanto coll’ingegno per li Campi della Sacra Scrittura peregrino`, e beve` ne’ fonti di Moise´, e d’altri profeti ancora quegl’insegnamenti, che poscia in fiumi d’oro d’eloquenza ne’ suoi libri diffuse.” 68. BAV, Lat. 6701, 180r–214v. The manuscript collects other writings on Plato, including a treatise on Ideas (1r–179v) by another member of the Accademia dei Desiosi, Gianfilippo Roccabella, and a piece on Plato’s Republic by the Jesuit Vincenzo Serughi (218r–239r). 69. Ibid., 180v: “Verum, ut dixi, faciliori negotio Plato quam Aristoteles inire posset gratiam et amicitiam cum sacra scriptura. Aristoteles enim multis abundat erroribus, qui nostrae fidei penitus adversantur. Affirmat enim mundum esse aeternum, et Deum agere ex necessitate naturae. Ablegat a rebus inferioribus providentiam Dei; humanas animas ex multorum Peripateticorum sententia, morti obnoxias esse docet. Nullum praemium, nullamque poenam post mortem constituit, Daemones negavit, nullamque esse prophetiam, religionem artem regnandi appellavit.” 70. Ibid., 181r: “Deo oportet novam invenire de rebus naturalibus philosophiam, quae nullis involvatur erroribus, hancque ex sacris paginis dumtaxat possumus haurire, etenim cum Gratia perficiat naturam humanam, certe intellectus aptior erit ad veritatem indagandam, quam non ethnicus, fide et gratia destitutus.” 71. Ibid., 181v: “Itaque meum est consilium doctrina Platonis et Aristotelis cum Sacra Scriptura conferre, ut ex ipsa tandem veritas firma ac stabilis refulgeat.” 72. See, e.g., Blair, “Mosaic Physics and the Search for a Pious Natural Philosophy in the Late Renaissance.”

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Notes to Pages 52–55

73. See, e.g., on providence, Vat. Lat. 6701, 192v: “Ex dictis patet error Platonis, qui existimans Deum ab omni munere vacare, praeter quasi munere intelligendi putavit Deum totam providentiam demandasse menti creatae, quare cum ex sacra scriptura liquido constet Deum immediate ordinare omnia ad suos fines, ac de omnibus providentiam habere apparet quod graviter hallucinatus sit Plato. Sed turpius deceptus est Aristoteles, qui ex eo ademit providentiam rerum inferiorum.” 74. Pandolfi, Disputationes, 88–89. 75. Bucciantini, “Teologia e nuova filosofia.” 76. Tigerstedt, The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato; Hankins, “Plato’s Psychogony.” 77. On the relation between Plato and Origenes see for example Gaudenzi, De dogmatum Origenis. 78. Although he did not compose a proper comparatio, Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558) made his contribution to the question if either Plato or Aristotle was more suitable for the Christian faith, favoring the Philosopher. Particularly in the Exotericae Exercitationes Scaliger affirmed that Aristotle was adequately aware of Trinity and creation, unlike Plato, whose philosophy he deemed defective in theological terms. See Scaliger, Exotericarum exercitationum, 4r–v and 93v–95v, 472v–473r, and Sakamoto, “Creation, the Trinity and prisca theologia in Julius Caesar Scaliger.” 79. Martin, Subverting Aristotle.

chapter 3 1. See Gilbert, “Francesco Vimercato of Milan”; see also Busson, Le rationalisme dans la litte´rature franc¸aise (Busson occasionally confuses two different individuals named Vimercato); Nardi, Saggi sull’aristotelismo padovano, 404–408; Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana, 2:577; Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance, 79–81; Hasse, “Aufstieg und Niedergang des Averroismus in der Renaissance” and Success and Suppression. 2. See Sharratt, “Nicolaus Nancelius, Petri Rami Vita,” 254–256; Del Soldato, “Sulle tracce.” 3. Vimercato, De placitis naturalibus Platonis et Aristotelis, ac inter eos de illis consensione et dissensione (BNF, Paris, Lat. 6330). The work is edited in Del Soldato, “Francesco Vimercato’s ‘De placitis naturalibus Platonis et Aristotelis, ac inter eos de illis consensione et dissensione.’ ” See Gilbert, “Francesco Vimercato,” 190; Matton, “Le face a` face Charpentier-La Rame´e,” 71–72 and “Quelques figures de l’antiplatonisme de la Renaissance a` l’aˆge classique.” 4. Plato was somehow present in the medieval curriculum (see Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition, 61; Dutton, “Material Remains”). Marsilio Ficino delivered a few public lectures on Plato, while Francesco Cattani, at least in 1502, supplemented his regular lectures on Aristotle with a course on Platonic moral philosophy. Also, around 1515, Cornelius Agrippa taught Platonic works in Pavia. Yet even decades later, a member of the circle of Ludovico Boccadiferro (d. 1545) complained that Plato was taught neither publicly in the universities nor privately. See Schmitt, “L’introduction de la philosophie platonicienne dans l’enseignement des universite´s a` la Renaissance”; Fellina, Alla scuola di Marsilio Ficino, 21–22; Hankins, “The Study of the ‘Timaeus,’ ” 89. 5. For the references see Mahoney, Two Aristotelians of the Italian Renaissance, 81–101.

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6. Vimercato, De placitis, 2r: “Mutarunt autem amici sententiam iam mihi animo infixam, et me, cum Regem adventare intellexissent, ad placita Aristotelis et Platonis naturalia, atque mutuam inter eos consensionem, dissensionemve, quam interdum a me legente audiverant, conscribendam . . . adegerunt.” 7. See Schmidt, E´tudes sur le XVIe sie`cle, 17–44. 8. For other examples see Schmitt, “L’introduction de la philosophie platonicienne,” 96–98. 9. It is nevertheless clear that Vimercato composed the work in the hope of obtaining a chair at the Colle`ge Royale: see De placitis, 2r and 3r. 10. Vimercato, De placitis, 2v: “Neque enim fieri potest ut quid sibi velit Aristoteles multis in locis, ubi in Platone invehitur, cognoscamus adeo breviter et concise illius opinionem ponit, nisi illam apud eundem Platonem latius fusiusque explicatam viderimus, id quod omnibus per otium non licet.” On Lefe`vre d’E´taples, see his Prefatory Epistles and Related Texts, 156. 11. Ibid., 3r: “Omnibus tamen pernecessarium, qui Aristotelis libros versare atque intelligere cupiunt et volunt.” 12. This order is unusual: see Lines, “Teaching Physics in Louvain and Bologna,” 185. 13. Vimercato, Commentarii in tertium librum Aristotelis De anima, 113–114. 14. Respectively, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, S169 inf. and S12 inf. 15. An approximate date of composition is suggested in the dedicatory epistle. Vimercato, De principiis rerum naturalium, *3v: “Nam tametsi eiusdem argumenti commentationes a claris philosophis postea sunt editae, quam harum fuerat, annis ab hinc quadraginta, aut eo amplius, concitata expectatio, suum tamen his ipsis locum apud veritatis, quam contentionis amantiores relictum nihilo secius esse confidimus.” The Biblioteca Ambrosiana possesses the manuscript copy used to print De principiis, under the signature G 284 inf. At 92v, at the end of the seventh chapter of the second book, there is the annotation “Hucusque ab authore visum fuit.” 16. De dogmatibus is often mentioned in the De principiis: 8r, 10r, 11v, 15r, 27r, 48v, 54v, 66r, 81v, 82r, 84r, 89r, 90r, 98r, 105v, 108r, 115v, 118v, 123v, 135r. Generally, the references are to books I, II, II, and VI of De dogmatibus: books I and II focus on the creation and the eternity of the world, book III on Plato’s definition of nature, book VI on the animation of the heavens. 17. Vimercato, De principiis, 1r: “Earumque principiis et causis disserere . . . et quae ab aliis tum veteribus, tum recentioribus (Platone potissimum et Aristotele) de eisdem tradita sunt, disquirere, quod non semel sumus polliciti, instituimus. Nam horum philosophorum dogmata, quemadmodum quidem intelligi oporteret, quaeve eorum esset inter se aut consensio, aut dissensio, alibi separatim, quam maxime fieri a nobis potuit accurate, explicavimus [this a reference to De dogmatibus]. Sed quae eorum dogmatum esset veritas, et uter eorum rectius sensisset . . . minime disquisivimus: quod quidem nunc facere propositum est.” 18. Vimercato, In quatuor libros Aristotelis Meteorologicorum commentarii, Aiir: “Itaque institui, illam partem, quae de natura est, . . . ordine quodam meo imprimis pertractare, veterumque Philosophorum, Aristotelis potissimum, et Platonis, qui principes inter caeteros extiterunt, . . . dogmata expendere, inter se conferre, in quibus consentirent, dissentirentve, examinare, denique ad veritatis amussim revocare. . . . Huc autem pertinere iudicavi, si Aristotelis primum et Platonis libros eos, in quibus ea philosophiae pars traditur, Latinos redderem, et commentariis, quammaxime facere possem, illustrarem.” 19. It is significant that when mentioning here (S169 inf., 485r) Ficino’s interpretation of the Platonic doctrine of matter, Vimercato originally referred to Ficino as “maximus Platonicus,” but he then crossed this out and he opted instead for “non ignobilis Platonicus,” that appeared in the final version of S12 inf., 37r. See also De principiis, 48v.

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Notes to Pages 57–62

20. S169 inf., 485r (S12 inf., 36v–37r): “Sed illud primus explicabitur, Platonem quamque cum Mosi et religionis nostrae dogmate magis quam Aristoteles consenserit, non plane tamen consensisse, imo utraque in quaestionis parte non parum discordasse, ut medium quodammodo locum inter naturae ac religionis veritatem dogma illius habere videatur.” On Plato’s only partial agreement with faith see also De dogmatibus, 493r (S12 inf., 102v). 21. Vimercato, In eam partem duodecimi libri metaphysices Aristotelis, aivr. 22. Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 111–113. For more in general on Ramus and Aristotle, see Ong, Ramus: Method and the Decay of Dialogue. 23. De placitis, 13r–v. Both De dogmatibus, 28v (“quamquam eius non esse existimatur,” 33r in S12 inf.) and De principiis, 107r (“Itaque fingit author libelli De mundo ad Alexandrum, seu Aristoteles, seu alius quivis”) refer to a passage in chapter 7 of the De mundo, quoted also in De placitis: “Itaque vetus fama est, et quidem hereditaria mortalium omnium, universa a Deo, et per Deum nobis esse constituta, nec vero ulla natura per se sufficit orbata salute, qua ille ferat.” On De mundo, see Kraye, “Daniel Heinsius and the Author of De mundo”; Kraye, “Aristotle’s God and the Authenticity of De mundo: An Early Modern Controversy”; and Kraye, “Disputes over the Authorship of De mundo Between Humanism and Altertumswissenschaft.” On Vimercato’s hostility to theological interference in philosophy see Hasse, “Aufstieg und Niedergang,” 463; Bianchi, Pour une histoire de la “double ve´rite´,” 135–136. 24. Bessarion, In calumniatorem Platonis, II.11, 2 (201). 25. See Du¨ring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, 318–321. 26. Vimercato, De placitis, 20r: “Aut falsum assumunt, aut contra Ideas non Platonicas, sed ab eo ipso excogitatas colligunt.” The argument is also adduced in Martino, Dialogus de entelechia, 9–10, and in Vimercato, In eam partem duodecimi libri, 14–17. 27. Vimercato, De principiis, 95r: “Videntur autem Aristotelis rationes firmiores, et quae minus possint refelli.” 28. Ibid., 94v: “Aristoteles autem naturalis magis, utpote suum de mundi aeternitate decretum secutus, nam qui mundum aeternum, et nullo umquam tempore procreatum statuit, nullam idearum seu exemplaris causae, ad cuius similitudinem res fiant, necessitatem habet.” See also De dogmatibus, 21v, 300v. 29. See Bianchi, L’errore di Aristotele: La polemica contro l’eternita` del mondo nel XIII secolo and id., L’inizio dei tempi. Antichita` e novita` del mondo da Bonaventura a Newton. 30. De dogmatibus, 199r (in S12 inf., 105r): “Platonis et Aristotelis de mundi aeternitate et eiusdem ex elementis suis, seu principibus partibus constitutione dogmata eorumque inter se dissensionem hactenus explanavimus, quinetiam Aristotelem ad naturae veritatem propius accessisse sententiamque suam firmioribus ac magis cogentibus rationibus confirmasse docuimus.” On the conflict between Plato and Aristotle on the eternity of the world see also, e.g., 27r (31v in S12 inf.) (“nullo modo inter se conciliari queant”) and 405v. 31. Charpentier, Platonis cum Aristotele in universa philosophia comparatio. See Matton, “Le face a` face Charpentier-La Rame´e.” 32. See Kraye, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian ‘Theology.’ ” 33. Raffar, Platonicae et Aristotelicae Philosophiae coniunctione oratio in Alcinoum philosophum De Platonis praefatrix. 34. Ibid., 4. 35. Ibid., 31–32. 36. See Del Soldato, “Francesco Vimercato’s ‘De placitis naturalibus Platonis et Aristotelis, ac inter eos de illis consensione et dissensione,’ ” 120–121.

Notes to Pages 62–65

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37. La Mothe le Vayer, Petit discours Chre´tien de l’immortalite´ de l’aˆme, 28. On Platonism in French education see Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 339–340. 38. A significant example of this change of attitude is represented by Marcantonio and Teofilo Zimara, father and son. Marcantonio (c. 1470–1532 or 1537) was a professor in Padua and regarded Plato’s philosophy with contempt. His son Teofilo (1515–1589), a physician in Lecce, published a commentary on De anima (1584), in which he stated that it was impossible to understand Aristotle without an adequate knowledge of Plato’s philosophy: In tres Aristotelis libros De anima, 305v. See Nardi, Saggi sull’aristotelismo, 321–363; Blackwell, “Neo-Platonic Modes of Concordism Versus Definitions of Difference,” 321–432. 39. See Piccolomini, Universa philosophia de moribus, 274. I owe this reference to David A. Lines. See also Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 68. 40. Piccolomini also listed theologians who held the same view: in addition to Tommaso Pellegrini, who taught “humana sapientia” in Padua, he named Filippo Mocenigo, Agostino Valier, Cesare de Nores, and Claudio Burghesio, who combined human with divine wisdom. Piccolomini, Universa philosophia, 274–75. There was also widespread interest in Platonism among Venetian patricians in those years: see Benzoni, “La cultura,” 520–524. 41. Piccolomini, Universa philosophia, 163. On Piccolomini’s attitude toward Plato and Aristotle see also Plastina, “Concordia discors: Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der Philosophie des Francesco Piccolomini.” 42. Piccolomini, Universa philosophia, 174: “Nam qui Aristotelem cum Platone de rebus altissimis continenter disputantem interpretantur, nec exacte quid re vera senserit Plato praenoverunt, non audita parte iudicium proferunt, et tamquam caeci eorum asseclas in foveas tenebrarum detrudunt.” 43. Ibid., 274: “Sic itaque Aristoteles exactius vires humani ingenii periclitatus est, Plato magis in superno lumine est confisus; Aristoteles pro explicandis his, quae apparent, magis valuit, Plato pro novis indagandis, formandisque sublimioribus abstractionibus; Aristoteles in tradenda Arte Rhetorica refulsit, Plato in usu; Aristoteles firmius haeret mortalibus, Plato liberiore spiritu nos elevat ad supera; Aristoteles nos exactissime format pro degenda hac mortali vita, Plato sublimius nos dirigit ad futuram.” 44. Piccolomini, Librorum ad scientiam de natura attinentium partes quinque, 1216–1327. See Spruit, Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, 2:239. 45. On Piccolomini see Carotti, “Piccolomini, Francesco,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. On Lollino and Pellegrini see Gaetano, Renaissance Thomism at the University of Padua, 1465–1583. 46. See, e.g., Tiepolo, Academicarum contemplationum libri X, 12. 47. It is the biography of Piccolomini by Luigi Lollino (ms. 505, Biblioteca Civica, Belluno), cited by Baldini, “Per la biografia di Francesco Piccolomini.” 48. Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 78. On the authorship of the work, aside from Baldini, see Garin, “Note e notizie”; Poppi, L’etica del Rinascimento tra Platone ed Aristotele, 78–82; Claessens, “A Sixteenth-Century Neoplatonic Synthesis: Francesco Piccolomini’s Theory of Mathematics and Imagination in the Academicae contemplationes.” 49. Tiepolo, Academicae contemplationes, 383. 50. Ibid., 14. 51. Ibid., 13: “Propterea longe satius esse duxi in utriusque disciplina accurate versari, ita tamen, ut primo ab Aristotele methodum, ordinem, scientiarumque gradus addiscamus; mox ita parati, ad Platonis uberrimos fontes accedamus; ex eisque tantum hauriamus aquae, ut

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Notes to Pages 65–68

Peripatetica disciplina ex se angustior, reddatur latior, ac inde quosdam quasi salutares recipiens spiritus, per eos reddatur vivacior, fulgeat magis, ac foeliciter ad superna deducat.” 52. Ibid., 56–57. 53. Ibid., 114. 54. Nardi, Saggi sull’Aristotelismo, 413–417; Purnell Jr., “Iacopo Mazzoni as a Student of Philosophy at Padua.” 55. See, e.g., Pendasio, Physicae auditionis texturae libri octo, 232: “Ut autem posita principia perspectiora reddantur, distinguit Aristoteles, quae de his statuit, a Platonis positione, ipsum enim innuit, cum dicit, ‘aliquos etiam hanc naturam attigisse.’ ” In the same work there are several references to Ficino. 56. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, S 87 sup., 117r–122r. Purnell Jr., in “Iacopo Mazzoni as a Student,” states that David Lachtermann was planning to edit Pendasio’s text. The manuscript was part of the collection of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, who was a disciple of Pendasio in Padua. See Nuovo, “The Creation and Dispersal of the Library of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli.” 57. For the debates on method and their precedents see Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method; Edwards, “Niccolo` Leoniceno and the Origins of Humanist Discussion on Method”; Vasoli, “De Pierre de la Rame´e a` Franc¸ois Patrizi: The`mes et raison de la pole´mique autour d’Aristote”; Fellina, “Platone a scuola: L’insegnamento di Francesco de’Vieri detto il Verino Secondo”; Vanhaelen, “What Is the Best Method to Study Philosophy? Sebastiano Erizzo and the ‘Revival’ of Plato in Sixteenth-Century Venice.” 58. On da Monte and Lando see Ferretto, Maestri per il metodo di trattar le cose: Bassiano Lando, Giovan Battista da Monte e la scienza della medicina del XVI secolo; Vanhaelen, “What Is the Best Method to Study Philosophy?” 59. Pendasio, De differentia, 121r: “Propterea credo nos non posse ex hac declaratione effici perfectos philosophos. Ex adverso novit Aristoteles nil posse recte explicari, nisi cognitis principiis, ex quibus caetera omnia pendent, ignoratis siquidem principiis omnia labuntur.” 60. Ibid., 122r: “Ergo, ex his quae audivistis, potestis facillime cognoscere methodum composificiam eam esse, quam Aristoteles secutus est, et per quam deduxit nos a confusis ad perfectam et distinctam rerum naturalium cognitionem. At si Platonem adeatis periculum, habebitis ne confusi relinquamini.” 61. See the discussion below. More generally see Fellina, “Platone a scuola,” 97–121. 62. On Montecatini see Spruit, Species intelligibilis, 2:192–195, and Palumbo, “Montecatini, Antonio,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. 63. See, e.g., the document cited by Grendler, The Jesuits and Italian Universities, 1548– 1773, 394. 64. Montecatini, In eam partem III libri Aristotelis De anima, quae est mente humana, lectura. 65. Ibid., 179: “Tres de Doctrina Peripatetica Auctor noster [Montecatini] libros meditabatur. . . . , secundum, quae hic citat Auctor, Concordiae eorum, quae ab Aristotele dicuntur, cum iis, quae a Platone, et ab aliis antiquis Philosophis dicta sunt . . . , horum cuiusque librorum nos sylvam quandam vidimus.” 66. See Tasso, Il Cataneo, in Dialoghi, II.2:798: “Antonio Montecatino, valorosissimo tra i Peripatetici e tra i Platonici filosofanti.” 67. The authorship of this commentary on De anima, edited by Michael Hayduck in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 15 (1897), is nonetheless still object of debate. 68. Montecatini, In eam partem, 194: “Non sic autem ego in Concordia Aristotelem Platoni, caeterisque priscis Philosophi conciliare studeo, ut confundantur, et corrumpantur placita

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eorum, sed sat mihi est in radicibus et causis opinionum illos concordes, consonosque, ut sic dixerim, ostendere, licet frondibus varios edant sonos; quod si aliquis trahendus sit, non certe Aristoteles, qui simpliciter loquitur, trahi poterit, sed alii potius, qui figurate, ac symbolice loquuntur.” On the topic see also ibid, 253; on the need to use plain words to explain Plato see ibid., 261. 69. Particularly relevant for us, among the four volumes, are the second and the third: Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus secundus: Aristotelis et veterum philosophorum concordiam continens and Discussionum peripateticarum tomus tertius: Aristotelis et veterum philosophorum discordiam continens. 70. On Patrizi’s peculiar use of the concordia philosophica, see Muccillo, “La vita e le opere di Aristotele nelle ‘Discussiones Peripateticae’ di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso,” 58; Vasoli, “Aristotele e i filosofi ‘antiquiores’ nelle ‘Discussiones Peripateticae’ di Francesco Patrizi.” 71. Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele. 72. Rotondo`, “Cultura umanistica e difficolta` di censori”; Baldini, “Aristotelismo e platonismo nelle dispute romane sulla ragion di stato di fine cinquecento.” 73. Muccillo, “Il platonismo all’Universita` di Roma.” 74. Rotondo`, “Cultura umanistica e difficolta` di censori”; Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 155–157. 75. Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus tertius, 359: “Itaque . . . miror . . . Aristotelem tam gravem philosophum, qui veritatem potiorem amicis, potiorem sui ipsius scriptis habere profiteatur, falsas manifesto, ac futiles reprehensiones ubique in Platonem invexisse, cuius si interissent libri, uti caeterorum veterum, quos carpit, Aristotelis indubia veritas haberetur.” Also modern scholarship has famously emphasized the willful unreliability of Aristotle as a source on the ideas of Pre-Socratic philosophers and Plato, see in particular Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy and Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy. 76. Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus secundus, 273. 77. Ibid., 228, and Discussionum peripateticarum tomus tertius, 298–300. 78. Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus secundus, 267–268. See also Patrizi’s edition of the Theologia Aristotelis: Mystica Aegyptiorum et Caldaeorum a Platone voce tradita, ab Aristotele excepta et conscripta philosophia. According to Patrizi, Aristotle composed the work late in his life, recovering his notes from Plato’s lecture courses. See Kraye, “The PseudoAristotelian Theology.” 79. See, e.g., Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus secundus, 221. 80. See Bottin, “Francesco Patrizi e l’aristotelismo padovano” (accessed July 11, 2017). 81. Patrizi, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus primus, 163. See Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 114. 82. The Dell’ordine is published in Patrizi, Lettere ed opuscoli inediti, 178. See also Malusa, “Renaissance Antecedents to the Historiography of Philosophy,” 24–25. 83. Interestingly, a student of Montecatini’s, who became a professor in the Studio of Ferrara, Tommaso Giannini (1556–1638), argued instead for an Aristotle no less pious than Plato, in his Aristotelicae doctrinae de mundi unitate ac sempiternitate defensio (conserved in ms. Chig. E.VII.231, 29r–36r at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). Giannini closes his work invoking for his position no less than the endorsement of St. Augustine, while holding his distance from the anti-Platonic excesses of George of Trebizond (36r): “Atque hactenus sit demonstratum Aristotelis doctrinam ab omni flagitio esse remota, tantumque abesse, non sit adversa

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Christianae Theologiae, ut cum hac magnopere consentiat, magnumque huic praebeat utilitatem; idque perspicuit declarandum omnes scholasticae theologiae magistri, qui decretis Aristoteleis muniti gravissimas quaestiones tractarunt dogmata Christiana confirmarunt et contraria refutarunt. Videant igitur Aristotelicae philosophiae calumniatores quam iniqui de hac sentiant, et considerent Platonis amatores num quid ipsorum praeceptus, an Aristoteles huius auditor propius accedat ad Christianae theologiae dogmata. Equidem Sanctus Augustinus in libro De vera religione scripsit Platonem et Platonicos paucis verbis et sententiis mutatis Christianos esse evasuros, verum si tantumoperae, quantum tribuit Platoni, in Aristotele posuisset, non dubito, quin fuisset scripturus Aristotelem fore Christianum additis paucis quae, quod fidei essent mandata, ab eo philosophiae literis tradente non iniuria fuerunt praetermissa. Quapropter in ediscenda et explananda Aristotelis doctrina, si legitime explicatur, nulla est opus cautione, quam maxime desiderari in Platonis lectione et eius amasii non differentur, et ego demonstrarem, nisi viri clarissimi id praestitissent, meumque consilium esset dumtaxat Aristotelis Philosophiam a calumniis vendicare, minime vero Platonis doctrinam, quam plurimi facio, ex sapientiae et veritatis campo exterminare; id Georgius Trapezuntius cum fuisset aggressus invenit Cardinalem Bessarionem, virum eruditissimum, qui iure ac merito ipsum castigavit, ac Platonem, eius morsibus laceratum sanavit, in intengendum restituit.” 84. Patrizi, Nova de universis philosophia. For the dedication see A2r, for the attack against Aristotle see A3r. See also Vasoli, “Il proemio di Francesco Patrizi alla ‘Nova de universis philosophia.’ ” 85. Patrizi, Lettere e opuscoli, 178: “E di poco meno che christiani.” 86. In 1594 Patrizi praised Beni’s In Platonis Timaeum, emphasizing the fact that it reduced “the entire philosophy of Plato to the service of the Holy Roman Church.” See Gregory, “ ‘L’Apologia’ e le ‘Declarationes’ di F. Patrizi,” 389. 87. Vasoli, “Platone allo studio fiorentino-pisano.” 88. I quote from the 1590 edition of the work. On Verino’s teaching in Pisa see Davies, Culture and Power: Tuscany and Its Universities, 1537–1609, 124–126 and 226–270. 89. Vieri alludes to his conflict with Borri in Vere conclusioni, 4. On Borri see Schmitt, “Girolamo Borro’s Multae sunt nostrarum ignorationum causae (Ms. Vat. Ross. 1009).” 90. On the evolution of Vieri’s position on method see Fellina, “Platone a scuola,” 108–111. 91. Schmitt, “Girolamo Borro,” 470 and 475. 92. Vieri told this to Baccio Valori in a letter published by Verde, “Il ‘Parere’ del 1587 di Francesco Verino sullo Studio pisano,” 92. On the preparation of the courses see Pintaudi, “Il Platone di Francesco Verino secondo”; Fellina, “Platone a scuola,” 155–173. 93. Vieri, Vere conclusioni, 90. 94. Ibid.: “Il secondo anno vorrei che quel medesimo scrittore si confrontasse con Aristotile in quelle conclusioni nelle quali (senza storcere i testi) e’son d’accordo, perche´ cosı` la peripatetica filosofia sarebbe piu` credibile e piu` sicura.” 95. Vieri, Conclusione del libro della natura dell’universo, BNC, Florence, ms. Magliab. XII 11, 2r: “In difesa dell’antica peripatetica verita`, contro a moderni eretici in filosofia.” 96. Vieri, Compendio della dottrina di Platone, in quello che ella ´e conforme con la fede nostra, a7r–a8v. On the recovery of the passage from the commentary on Plotinus see Hankins, “The Invention of the Platonic Academy in Florence,” 37. 97. Fellina, “Platone a scuola,” 143–144. 98. Vieri, Compendio, 20–21.

Notes to Pages 73–77

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99. Ibid., 62; Vieri, Vere conclusioni, 103; cf. Bessarion, In calumniatorem Platonis, III. 4, 3 (231). 100. For his biography see Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 1–31. 101. Mazzoni, De triplici hominum vita, activa nempe`, contemplativa, et religiosa methodi tres, quaestionibus quinque millibus, centum et nonagintaseptem distinctae. In quibus omnes Platonis, et Aristotelis, multae vero aliorum Graecorum, Arabum et Latinorum in universo scientiarum orbe discordiae componuntur. 102. Segni, Orazione recitata per la morte di m. Iacopo Mazzoni, 17. 103. Mazzoni, In universam Platonis, et Aristotelis philosophiam praeludia, sive de comparatione Platonis, et Aristotelis. Liber primus. 104. Mazzoni, Praeludia, 2. 105. Ibid., 1. 106. Ibid., 119–120. 107. Ibid., 174. 108. Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 87. 109. Mazzoni, Praeludia, 293. 110. The topic was in fact discussed in Averroes’s prohemium to the Physics. 111. Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 337. See also his article “Jacopo Mazzoni and Galileo.” 112. Mazzoni, Praeludia, 204–214. See Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 128–131. 113. Letter by Asdrubale Barbolani to Belisario Vinta, August 28, 1604, Archivio di Stato, Florence, Mediceo del Principato 2998, 507. 114. Vallone, “Progresso o dicasi processo della disputa sopra la ‘Commedia’ di Dante,” 370. 115. See his letter to Isaac Casaubon, December 12, 1603, BL, London, Burney 366 (Casaubon Papers), 7r. On his correspondence with Lipsius see Masi, “Alcune famiglie di mercanti ragusei fra XVI e XVII secolo: De Stefanis–Scoccibucca (Stjepovic´–Skocˇibuha) e Faccenda (Facˇenda),” 197. 116. On Sagri’s death see Orano, Liberi pensatori bruciati in Roma dal XVI al XVIII secolo, 97 (where he is listed as Sagni, in a paleographic error), and Breyer, “Iz zˇivota i o tragicˇnoj smrti dubrovcˇanina Frana Marije Sagri-Sagroevic´a (1577–1616).” Less reliable is the information in Sˇepicˇ, “Arcula Felicitatis.” I am grateful to Stevan Glinticˇ and Peter Lesˇnik for providing me with translations of these articles. 117. I wish to thank Simone Fellina for sharing with me material from his forthcoming book Platone allo Studium fiorentino-pisano (1576–1635): l’insegnamento di Francesco de’ Vieri, Jacopo Mazzoni, Carlo Tomasi, Cosimo Boscagli, Girolamo Bardi. 118. In Germany comparationes were also used as a way to advertise and promote a more extensive use of Plato in university teaching even in 1627, as demonstrated by the orations by Andreas Rivinus (or Bachmann, 1601–1656), a professor from Leipzig: see Aequilibrium an superpondium Divini Platonis cum Aristotele parallelo, which contains Osculum cum mollibus morsiunculis Platonis et Aristotelis and Philosophia et constitutio Academico-Lycei . . . utque ad illius ductum adolescentes non minus in theologicis, mathematicis et philologicis platonicis, quam philosophicis aliis Aristotelicis manuducere conveniat. 119. On the wider context see De Jean, Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Sie`cle. 120. Rapin, La Comparaison de Platon et d’Aristote, avec les sentimens des Pe`res sur leur doctrine, 269: “Un simple Villageois qui a de la souˆmission et de la docilite´ pour les choses de la Religion, est preferable a` Platon et a` Aristote.” In the text I quote from the English translation

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of Rapin’s work, The Comparison of Plato and Aristotle, 214. Rapin’s treatise was also translated into Spanish; it is preserved in a manuscript in Salamanca (Biblioteca de la Universidad, cod. 377). 121. Ibid., 251: “La raison humaine n’a paru dans toute sa force naturelle, plus que dans Platon et dans Aristote” (English translation, 201). 122. For the background to Rapin’s philosophical position see Popkin, “The Traditionalism, Modernism, and Scepticism of Rene´ Rapin.” 123. Du Hamel, De consensu veteris et novae philosophiae, 2–3, 73–74. On du Hamel’s position between ancients and moderns see Mercer, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development, 105–106. 124. On Digby, Weigel, De Raey, and Leibniz (who in 1669 published a letter to Thomasius entitled De Aristotele recentioribus reconciliabili attached to his edition of Nizolio’s De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi) see Mercer, Leibniz’s Metaphysics, 99–102. 125. See Purnell Jr., Jacopo Mazzoni, 81. 126. On the trial see Osbat, L’Inquisizione a Napoli: Il processo agli ateisti, 1688–1697. 127. See Comparato, Giuseppe Valletta: Un intellettuale napoletano alla fine del seicento. 128. Valletta was acquainted with the works of both du Hamel and Rapin, which were reviewed in the Giornale de’ letterati. See Comparato, Giuseppe Valletta, 127. 129. See Casini, L’antica sapienza italica: Cronistoria di un mito. 130. On Moses and atomism see Sailor, “Moses and Atomism.” On Valletta and Moses, see Valletta, Istoria philosophica, in Opere filosofiche, 217–386. 131. Valletta, Lettera, 46. The source is Tommaso Campanella, Prodromus philosophiae instaurandae, printed in 1617. For the attacks on this front see Comparato, Giuseppe Valletta, 214–215. 132. See Antoine-Mahut, L’autorite´ d’un canon philosophique. 133. Bru¨cker, Historia critica philosophiae, 5:557.

chapter 4 1. On Farissol and Aristotle see Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham Ben Mordecai Farissol, 49 and 73. 2. On the different versions of the legend in the Jewish world see Samter, “Der ‘Jude’ Aristoteles”; Wirszubski, Ben Ha-Shitin: Kabalah, Kabalah Notsrit, Shabtaut, 4–6; Shavit, Athens in Jerusalem: Classical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern Secular Jew; Zonta, “Sapienza straniera: La cultura greca nella tradizione ebraica.” See also Marchetti, “ ‘Aristoteles utrum fuerit Iudaeus’: Sulla degiudaizzazione della filosofia in eta` moderna”; Veltri, Renaissance Philosophy in a Jewish Garb; Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 45 and 194. On Jewish appropriation of Greek philosophy, see especially Flavius Josephus, Contra Apionem 1.162–165; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.15.72, 4; Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 8.12.1. On Judaism and Aristotelian philosophy, see also Berns, The Bible and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Italy: Jewish and Christian Physicians in Search of Truth. 3. See Walker, The Ancient Theology, 2. 4. Rico, “Aristoteles Hispanus: En torno a Gil de Zamora, Petrarca y Juan de Mena.” 5. Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon mundi, in Schott, Hispania illustrata, 3:21. 6. Gil de Zamora, De preconiis Hispaniae, 175–176.

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7. In other manuscripts we find the lectio facilior “plurium” in place of “Plinium.” See Rico, “Aristoteles Hispanus,” 149. 8. On Avicenna Hispanus see Schipperges, “Zur Typologie eines ‘Avicenna Hispanus.’ ” 9. De la Mena, Coronacio´n del Marques de Santillana. 10. Petrarch, Invectiva contra eum qui maledixit Italiam, in Invectives, 450–453: “Legi librum fraterculi cuiusdam, cui nomen est Prosodion. In hoc ille grammaticali opuscolo impertinentissime evagatus, et patrie sue vano ebrius amore, hispanum fuisse ait Arisotilem, quem fortassis hunc iste freneticus Gallum fecit. Quid enim aliud sonant verba Tullio, italo ac romano, quid nisi ut Gallum obiciat illum, qui Galliam nunquam videt—credo equidem—nec audivit, natione Grecus aut Macedo, patria Stagirites?” 11. Rico, “Aristoteles Hispanus,” 153–155. 12. Ibid., 162–164. 13. On nationalist legends of appropriations see also Verkholantsev, The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome. 14. On the meeting between Aristotle and the wise Jew see also Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, I, 15. 15. See Lewy, “Aristotle and the Jewish Sage According to Clearchus of Soli”; Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period, 40–89. 16. Eusebius, De evangelica præparatione, 86r. 17. Ficino, De Christiana religione, in Opera omnia, 1:30: “Clearchus Peripatheticus scribit Aristotelem fuisse Iudaeum” (on Ficino as a reader of George of Trebizond’s translation of Eusebius see Monfasani, “Marsilio Ficino and Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio evangelica”); Ge´ne´brard, Chronographiae libri quatuor, 31. See also Dall’Asta, “Ju¨dische Brahmanen.” For the wider context see Marchetti, “ ‘Aristoteles utrum fuerit Iudaeus’ ”; Veltri, Renaissance Philosophy; Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 45 and 194. 18. De’ Rossi, The Light of the Eyes, 354–355. 19. Once again in the Sefer Shalshelet ha-K.abbalah, 102, Gedaliah even affirmed that Aristotle was a member of the tribe of Benjamin. See David, “Gedalia Ibn Yahia, auteur de Shalshelet ha-Qabbalah.” 20. On Liceti, see Ongaro, “Atomismo e aristotelismo nel pensiero medico-biologico di Fortunio Liceti”; Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750, 200–212; Trabucco, “Colleghi e avversari padovani di Galileo”; De Angelis, “Zwischen Generatio und Creatio: Zum Problem der Genese der Seele um 1600: Rudolph Goclenius, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Fortunio Liceti”; Del Soldato, Simone Porzio, 77–79; Guerrini, Galileo e gli aristotelici: Storia di una disputa; Guerrini, La scienza infedele: Il giovane Galileo e l’aristotelismo; Hirai, Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy, 123–150; Trabucco, “Fortunio Liceti: Un aristotelico nella Repubblica delle Lettere.” 21. Liceti, De quaesitis per epistolas a claris viris responsa, 87–96. On Naude´ and Liceti, see Mirandola, “Naude´ a Padova: Contributo allo studio del mito italiano nel secolo XVII”; Favino, “Un episodio di dissenso tra novatores: Gabriel Naude´ a Paganino Gaudenzi (14 dicembre 1641).” 22. Liceti, De pietate Aristotelis erga Deum et homines. On the work see Del Soldato, “Saving the Philosopher’s Soul: The De pietate Aristotelis by Fortunio Liceti.” 23. E.g., Liceti, De pietate, 1. 24. See The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah, 32–33.

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25. Liceti, De pietate, 88–89: “Libros Hebraeorum sacros, qui prostabant Aristotelis aevo, lectos ab Aristotele fuisse, satis ostendimus in superioribus. Summum vero philosophum veritatem in iis descriptam agnovisse, verumque Deum, coluisse comprobari maxime videtur ab eo fragmento veteris Hebraei Iudaico idiomate scripto, quod mihi non ita pridem communicavit disertissimus vir, ac Hebraicarum rerum studiosissimus Iacobus Gafarellus, ita scribens: “Ha ragion di lamentarsi, se non le ho inviato quella Notarella Ebraica intorno alla Fede d’Aristotile. . . . La confusione di quei manuscritti, gia` da me in Mantova comprati, ed hora da me ordinati, erano in parte causa di quello mio silentio. . . . Ecco detta notarella, cavata da un Rabbino Spagnuolo chiamato Iactilia Ben Joseph nella sua Catena Cabbalistica [the Hebrew quotation follows], ‘et vidi in Praefatione explicationis libri Morum Rabbini Iosephi Scem Tob, quod observaverit in Aegypto librum in quo scriptum erat Aristotelem in fine dierum suorum, ea confessum fuisse omni, quae reperiuntur scripta in libro legis Mosis, transiisseque ad partes Peregrinorum Iustorum, seu Iudeorum, hoc enim legitur in libro Maquen, hoc est Clypei, cuius Autor est Abraham Sapienza Perissol.” 26. Gassendi, Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos, 56: “Principio ille non Iudaeus, non Christianus fuit, sed professionis Ethnicae.” For a reaction to Gassendi see Frey, Cribrum philosophorum qui Aristotelem superiore et hac aetate oppugnarunt (1628), in Opuscula varia, 67–68: “Patricius . . . , Gassendus . . . dicunt nec fuit Iudaeus, nec Christianus Aristoteles, ergo de divinis veritatem theologicam non potuit docere. Errat uterque, imo impius est uterque, nam Paulus Apostolus docet Philosophos Deum cognovisse, ergo potissimum princeps Philosophorum eum cognovit. Deinde quid ad rem fuerit ne Iudaeus an Christianus? Non enim veritatem revelatam credimus sed naturalem quae nulli religioni addicta est. Nemo Christianus aut Iudaeus rectiorem adhuc attulit demonstrationem Deum existere quam Aristoteles ex illo axiomate. . . . Aristoteles unum esse Deum docuit, 12 Metaph., cum ait unus Dominus rex unicus est, loquendo de Deo. Sibyllae nec Christianae nec Iudaeae fuerunt, et tamen pulcherrima de Deo Christo protulerunt, ut constat ex sanctis patribus.” 27. On the different ways of challenging tradition in seventeenth-century Europe, see Garber, “Descartes Among the Novatores”; Garber, “Historicizing Novelty”; Garber, “Why the Scientific Revolution Wasn’t a Scientific Revolution.” On the complexities of traditionalist Aristotelianism, see Mercer, “The Vitality and Importance of Early Modern Aristotelianism”; Edwards, “Aristotelianism, Descartes, and Hobbes.” 28. On Ferchio see Rossetti, “L’ultima opera di Fortunio Liceti in un manoscritto inedito della Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile di Padova”; Poppi, “Il ‘De caelesti substantia’ di Matteo Ferchio fra tradizione e innovazione”; Poppi, Ricerche sulla teologia e la scienza nella Scuola padovana del cinque e seicento; Forlivesi, Scotistarum princeps: Bartolomeo Maestri (1602– 1673) e il suo tempo, 160; Sˇifler-Premec, Matthaeus Ferchius Veglensis. 29. Ferchio, Observationes super epistola prima libri de septimo-quaesitis, 17–26. 30. See, e.g., Wirszubski, “L’ancien et le nouveau dans la confirmation kabbalistique du Christianisme par Pic”; Ocker, “German Theologians and the Jews in the Fifteenth Century”; Campanini, “I cabbalisti cristiani del Rinascimento”; Grafton and Weinberg, “I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue”: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship, 103. 31. Ferchio, Observationes, 18: “Hoc existimem esse iudaicam fabulam in gratiam Iudaeorum a Liceto receptam et a quodam Iudaeo confictam contra historiarum fidem.” 32. S. Piccinardi, Philosophiae dogmaticae Peripateticae Christianae libri nouem in patrocinium Aristotelis ac in osores suis, 113. On Piccinardi and Bessarion see Del Soldato, “Sulle tracce.”

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33. Cottunio, Commentarii in octo libros Aristotelis De physico audita. On Giovanni Cottunio, see Fyrigos, “Joannes Cottunius di Verria e il neoaristotelismo padovano”; Karamanolis, “Was There a Stream of Greek Humanists in the Late Renaissance?”; Harun Ku¨c¸u¨k, “Natural Philosophy and Politics in the Eighteenth Century: Esad of Ioannina and Greek Aristotelianism at the Ottoman Court.” 34. Cottunio, Commentarii, 17: “Quae opiniones admittendae non sunt. . . . Non posterior, tum quia sacrae paginae luculenter contestantur, Deum in tempore creavisse omnia, tum qui Aristoteles non petiit eas regiones, in quibus Hebraeorum vigerent res, ut inde illorum doctrinam haurire posset, quemadmodum fecit Plato, aut Pythagoras. Adde, quod si ille sacra volumina legit, profecto iis non eam adhibuit animi assensionem, quam illa venerabiliter merebantur.” 35. See, e.g., Ferchio, Istri seu Danubii ortus aliorumque fluminum ab Aristotele in primo Meteoro inductorum: Accessit lacus Asphaltitis confirmatio. 36. On some of these attempts to Christianize pagan philosophers in the seventeenth century, see Tenenti, “La polemica sulla religione di Epicuro nella prima meta` del seicento”; Grafton, Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800, 17–21. See also the essays in the first part of Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. 37. On Cardoso see Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso. 38. Cardoso, Las excelencias de los hebreos, 362–363: “En todas les edades no han faltado sabios de las gentes que se hizieron proselitos de los judios, y fueron grandes sabios en la ley, y eminentes letrados. . . . De Aristoteles se dize lo mismo, y que en la fin de sus dias se covirtio` a` la Ley de los Judios, como largamente prueva el Lyceto en un libro particular desta materia, que intitula de Pietate Aristotelis erga Deum.” See also Cardoso, Philosophia libera in septem libros distributa, a4r–v. 39. Bayle, “Aristote,” in Dictionnaire historique et critique, 1:324. 40. Bartolocci, Bibliotheca magna Rabbinica de scriptoribus & scriptis Hebraicis, 1:471–484. 41. Ibid., 473: “Qua arte vult callidus et fraudulentus Iudaeus ex hoc loco eruere, et concludere Aristotelem fuisse Iudaeum? Aristoteles loquitur non de seipso, sed de alio tertio. Sed indoctus Iudaeus, et linguae Latinae non intelligens phrasim, et male interpungens periodum illam, inepte et insulse ita legit.” 42. Ibid., 477: “Quod Aristoteles disputans cum Israelita ab eo convictus, et Verpus effectus fuerit, transeat. Sed, quod illius cor attractum in verba Legis Mosaicae fuisset, eo quia signa et prodigia in nominibus sanctitatis vere et manifeste viderit a Iudaeo Cabalista effecta, prorsus fabulosum est.” 43. Bollhagen and Bo¨ttiger, Aristoteles utrum fuerit judæus? 44. See, e.g., Levitin, Ancient Wisdom. 45. See, e.g., Mayerus and Bandeco, Pythagoras utrum fuerit iudaeus monacusve carmelita. There were other analogous works: Buddeus and Borsch, Dissertatio historica de peregrinationibus Pythagorae; Enbelken and Leppin, Dissertatio ex historia literaria: Curiosum ze¯te¯ma: ‘An Pythagoras proselytus factus et consequenter salvatus sit; Schraderus and Hilliger, Dissertatio prima de Pythagora. 46. Aristotle, Meteorology 359a17–19. On the use of the passage in the early modern period see Del Soldato, “What’s In a Verb? The Story of a Word in Translation in Meteorology II.” 47. Bollhagen and Bo¨ttiger, Aristoteles, 19: “Quicunque autem hodierno tempore omnem Aristotelis Philosophiam rejiciunt id secum perpendant, quantae jam libertate Philosophandi concessa exortae fuerint Sectae, quas florente adhuc Philosophia Aristotelica ignoravimus.

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Interim tamen non in verba ejus juramus, sed uti omnibus Philosophis sic et Aristoteli credimus, nimirum omnia quaecunque cum ratione recta conveniunt retinemus.” 48. For the context of these discussions see the studies by Mulsow, “Eclecticism or Skepticism? A Problem of the Early Enlightenment,” and “Practices of Unmasking: Polyhistors, Correspondence and the Birth of Dictionaries of Pseudonymity in Seventeenth-Century Germany.” 49. Arroy, Le prince instruit en la philosophie. On Arroy see Bertrand, ”Be´sian Arroy: The´ologal de l’E´glise de Lyon.” 50. Arroy, Le prince instruit, 143: “Moyse est plus ancien de beaucoup que tous le vieux philosophes qui se sont me´lez d’examiner ce qui estoit de la Nature, il n’y en qu’un entre eux le plus huppe´, qui est Platon, lequel ayant leu l’histoire de Moyse dit insultant contre ce grand homme: Ce cornu ´ecrit beaucoup, mais il ne prouve rien.” 51. Ibid.: “Si on vouloit refuter la Philosophie Morale de Socrate, opposant qu’il estoit camus, laid, mal peigne´, ses e´paules disproportionne´es et ses jambes de travers, seroit ce bien impugner ses e´crits, Moyse a e´crit en historien, or l’histoire rapporte seulement la chose faite et ne la prouve pas, pourquoy veut-il que Moyse donne des preuves de la sienne. Platon veut avec tous ces bourreaux d’anciens philosophes que l’ame de l’homme va d’un corps en un autre, et celuy du maistre en celuy du valet, d’un general d’arme´e en un mattelot, d’un philosophe dans les entrailles d’un pourceau, c’est une histoire, la preuve-t’il, le pauvre cancre?” 52. Herbet, De oratore libri quinque, 40r: “Expositio est oratio, quae solam dicentis mentem explicat nullo argumento, quo fides fiat adhibito. Expositionis proprium est, ut auditor iis, quae dicuntur, statim credat, nulla probatione requisita. . . . Expositione constant ferme historiae et sacra biblia, quae simpliciter rem frequenter ponunt, non vero argumentis probant. Hinc, ut fertur, cum Aristoteles in illud Genesis incidisset: ‘In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, contempsit inquiens: hic homo multa dicit, sed nihil probat.’ ” On Herbet see Sommervogel, Bibliothe`que de la Compagnie de Je´sus, 4:294. 53. Cabeo, In quatuor libros Meteorologicorum commentaria, 1:400: “Audivi ego aliquando, libros Moysis ad Aristotelis manus devenisse, qui Aristoteles legens initium In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, ‘Ecce,’ ferunt, dixit, ‘iste auctor multa dicit, et nihil probat’; at Moyses tunc historicum referebat, et historica erat narratio, in qua narratione, non requiritur probatio, sed simplex facti expositio. Inepte igitur Aristoteles ab historico exigit probationem. Philosophus, quae dicit, probare debet, unde optimo iure quis hic Aristoteli reponat: Multa dicis, et nihil probas.” On Cabeo see Ingegno, “Cabeo, Niccolo`,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani; Martin, Renaissance Meteorology: Pomponazzi to Descartes, 104–124, especially 121–122. 54. Cabeo, In quatuor libros Meteorologicorum, 1:397: “Et tamen sunt homines, qui dictis istis acquiescant, et putent Aristotelem omnia demonstrare, et isti sunt hostes fidei nostrae, utinam enim non essent etiam nunc, qui Aristotelem magis, quam Moysem sequuntur.” 55. For a similar case see also Jayne, Plato in Renaissance England, 39–43, on George Ashby’s Dicta et opiniones diversorum philosophorum (1470). But see also the interchangebility of Socrates and Plato described by Ducos in “Platon et Socrate dans la litte´rature me´die´vale franc¸aise.” 56. E.g., among ancient sources on Plato’s knowledge of scripture are Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, I, 22, 150, and Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, XI, 10, 14; among later sources see John of Wales, Compendiloquium, III, iv, 11, and Ficino, Theologia Platonica, in Opera omnia, 1:394. On Aristotle’s knowledge of the Genesis, see, e.g., Crivellati, Il primo libro della Fisica volgarizzato in modo di paraphrase, 56–57. 57. See, e.g., Cabeo, In quatuor libros Meteorologicorum, “Ad lectorem.”

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58. Maresius, De abusu philosophiae Cartesianae, surrepente et vitando in rebus theologicis et fidei dissertatio theologica, 30: “Jure dubitari, num fas fuerit homini Christiano eiusmodi principia excogitare de prima rerum origine, quae cum Dei verbo et fide Christianorum non consentiant et ex quibus contemptores Scripturae eam rejiciendi et naso adunco suspendendi facillimam ansam sint arrepturi, et dicturi de Mose cum profano illo Philosopho Gentili, multa dicit cornutus iste, sed nihil probat. Nam certe ex illis sequi videtur, nisi ea utcumque emollivisset, Deum nihil aliud proprie condidisse, quam motum et posito iuxta sententiam Aristotelis primo motore, et motu ab aeterno mundum necessitate quadam naturali ex particulis insensibilium coaluisse, citra Dei attentionem et liberam dispositionem, ac ipso nec dirigente, nec cogitante.” 59. Flacius, Clavis Scripturae Sacrae seu De sermone Sacrarum Literarum, 799: “Cum omnis sana mens merito quandam certitudinem in omni sermone ac institutione, etiam de minimis, nedum de maximis rebus requirat: cur Deus suam caelestem doctrinam ita nude proponi voluit sine omni probatione ac demonstratione, simplici quadam affirmatione, ut ei merito videatur obiici illud quod Aristoteles de Moyse dixisse fertur, Multa dicit, sed pauca probat. Ad haec non levia dubia ordine respondebo: et simul, quoad potero, gravissimas causas talis scriptionis aut formae doctrinae declarabo. . . . Neque tamen carent Sacrae literae suis multo potioribus ac evidentioribus demonstrationibus, quam possint ab omnibus Philosophis excogitari. Nam si ullum principium, ullave certa noticia in rerum natura est, hoc certe praecipue deberet omni rationali creaturae esse notissimum et indubitatissimum; esse unam quandam summam ac primam omnium rerum causam, nempe Deum omnium rerum creatorem, omnipotentem et omnisapientem, iustissimum et veracissimum, cui magis quam toti rerum naturae omnibusque demonstrationibus credendum sit.” 60. Calamy, The Godly Man’s Ark, or City of Refuge in the Day of His Distress, 66: “And it is reported of Plato, that when hee had read the first chapter of Genesis, hee said, Hic vir multa dicit, sed nihil probat: this man saith many things, but proveth nothing.” See Brady, “The Platonic Poems of Katherine Philips.” 61. On Plato in seventeenth-century England see Sommerville, Popular Religion in Restoration England, 66–67, who shows that whenever Plato was mentioned in best-selling religious treatises between 1650s and 1670s, it was not done with approval. 62. See John of Hildesheim, Dialogus inter directorem et detractorem de ordine carmelitarum, in Medieval Carmelite Heritage: Early Reflections on the Nature of the Order, 338; Edden, “The Debate Between Richard Maidstone and the Lollard Ashwardby (ca. 1390),” 92. In the first case the anecdote was used in reference to the problem of the alleged antiquity of the Carmelitan order, which was at center of most anti-Carmelitan writings. In the second case, instead, the anecdote is used against a Lollard. 63. Fazy, “Proce`s de Jacques Gruet,” 64. See also Berriot, “Un proce`s d’athe´isme a` Gene`ve: L’affaire Gruet (1547–1550).” 64. Lejeune, Oeuvres completes, 3:484: “C’est affaire aux philosophes paı¨ens de ne rien croire que ce qu’ils voient; c’est affaire a` Aristote ou a` Platon de dire, parlant de Moı¨se: Iste cornutus multa dicit, sed nihil probat.” 65. Zorzi, De harmonia mundi totius cantica tria, IIIv: “Sed quia aliqui non existimant posse stare philosophiam Peripateticam cum Hebraea, immo hinc ridendi sumunt occasionem, dicant ubi invenerint, immo confinxerint dictum fuisse a suo Aristotele de Mose: Iste homo multa bona dixit, sed nihil probavit?” 66. James VI and I, Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus or an Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, in Political Writings, 93.

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67. Bellarmino, Responsio ad librum inscriptum triplici nodo triplex cuneus sive Apologia pro juramento fidelitatis, 41–42: “At jam supra respondi, in brevi pontificio, non theologicam disputationem, sed paternam ac brevem admonitionem contineri, ubi nihil necesse sit probationes adjungi, sed bene habet quod haereticus de Vicario Christi dicit, quod de ipso Christo paganum dixisse constat. Certe Galenus in lib. 3 de differentiis pulsuum cap. 4 scripsit, Christum multa dixisse, sed nihil demonstrasse, quod idem de eodem Domino et Salvatore nostro Averroem dicere solitum ferunt, ac ne ipse eodem vitio laborare videatur, ut multa dicat, et nihil probet, supra scripta verba Brevis Apostolici, hac insolubili argumentatione confutat.” 68. Sua`rez, Defensio fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores, 841: “Prima [obiectio] est, quia Pontifex paucissimis verbis juramentum perstringit, et sine ulla probatione juramentum refellit. Unde subiungit rex: Huic vero vetus dictum quadrat, quod de philosopho circumfertur, multa dicit, sed pauca probat, imo vero nihil omnino probat. . . . Ad novam autem redargutionem, quia Papa dicit, et non probat, recte Bellarminus respondet, illa, quae rex allegat, non hominis fidelis et Christiani esse, sed philosophi pagani, seu infedelis, sive ille fuerit Aristoteles de Moyse loquens, ut rex indicat, sive Averroes de Christo, ut ferunt, sive Galenus, ut apud ipsum reperitur scriptum; omnes enim illi non fide, sed proprio judicio et opinione regebantur, quod in hoc haeretici imitantur, et ideo mirum non est si Pontifici objiciant, quod alii Christo vel Moysi opponebant. Pontifex autem cum loqueretur fidelibus, quibus dictum est: nisi credideritis, non intelligetis, non disputationem texuit, nec prolixam probationem adjunxit, sed simplicis veritatis propositionem sufficere judicavit. Cum enim ad orthodoxos loqueretur, qui de illius auctoritate et potestate non dubitant, et inter eos multi sunt rudes et idiotae, qui rationes et probationes theologicas assequi non valent, conveniens non erat eos rationibus et probationibus onerare, sed simplicem veritatem docere. Imo etiam pro doctioribus oportebat, non in ambiguitate opinionum et humanarum rationum rem tanti momenti constituere, sed eam pontificia auctoritate firmare, ac brevi declaratione veritatis rem expedire.” For an Anglican appropriation of Bellarmino’s argument see Poole, The Nullity of the Romish Faith or, a Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, 94. 69. For Averroes see, e.g., In Physicam VIII.4; In Metaphysicam XII.39. Averroes had already been indicated as the source of the anecdote in Fini, In Iudaeos Flagellum ex Sacris Scripturis, 497r. 70. See Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 10–16. 71. Galen, De differentia pulsuum, 657 (III.3) (in the main text, trans. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 14). 72. Ibid., 579 (II.4) (in the main text, trans. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 14). 73. Galen, De usu partium, 158 (XI.14) (in the main text, trans. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 11–12). 74. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 11. 75. See, e.g., Cardano, In Hippocratis Coi prognostica, 102: “Galenus hac in parte multa dicit, sed neque probat, neque docet”; Cardano, Commentari duo in secundum Epidemiorum Hippocratis librum, in Opuscola miscellanea, 375: “Et Galenus multa suo more de obscurissimis multa dicit, sed nihil probat.” 76. See similar examples discussed in On Good Authority, 23–139. 77. For “learned proverb” see Tara´n, “ ‘Amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas’: From Plato and Aristotle to Cervantes,” 94. For other occurrences in Latin in vernacular texts see Valerio Fulvo [Giacomo Castellani], Avviso di Parnaso, 26; Del primo Infarinato a Tasso, in Tasso, Opere, 3:20. For “saying” as a simple form see Jolles, Simple Forms, 119–35.

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78. On the problem of attribution see, in a broader context, Foucault, “What Is an Author?” 79. On Cornaeus see Sommervogel, Bibliothe`que de la Compagnie 2:1467–1471. For further bibliography on his work as a scientist see chapter 5, below. 80. Cornaeus, Quaestio, praesenti tempori opportuna: An verum sit, illud a multis fidenter assertum: Aut Papista, aut non Christianus; the other pamphlets are: Aristoteles redivivus RomanoCatholicus; Aristotelis redivivi pars altera: De communione sub utraque; Perspicillum intellectuale Joan Conrado Dahnavvero ab Aristotele redivivo et minime recidivo dono datum, in which Aristoteles redivivus and Aristotelis redivivi pars altera are reprinted as an appendix; Pilati novi, et coena morticina, Lutheristarum Erfurtensium; Ens rationis Luthero-Calvinicum ab Aristotele redivivo explicatum; Aristotelis redivivi pars III: Sive Primatus Papae; Murus papyraceus Purgatorii contra Lutheristas; Scriptum est: Esse Purgatorium: Scriptum non est: Non esse Purgatorium. 81. Cornaeus, Quaestio praesenti tempori opportuna, 50: “Verum ut res haec certa certius tamen ante oculos mentis tuae ponatur, finge animo Aristotelem Stagiraeum illum, naturae humanae genium, quo nemo homo unquam sapuit plus, si naturalem rationem spectes, finge illum, inquam ab inferis reducem, hac mente orbem obire, ut fidem et rerum supernaturalium, quam caret, veritatem nanciscatur.” 82. Ibid., 50–51: “Istuc verbum Dei? Fungus sim si creduim. In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram. Creavit? Non credo. Ex nihilo nihil sit. Quicquid fit ex aliquo fit. Quid? Nunquid hic liber narrat aedificasse Deum costam viri in faeminam? Quae stultum illa aedificatio? Uxorem Lothi vertisse in statuam salis? Insulsa fabula. Asinam articulate locutam? Asinus credat. Solem voce hominis stetisse immotum? Virginem sine viri congressu concepisse ac peperisse? Deum hominem factum? Immortale Numen in patibulo mortuum? Vah portenta! Poetarum figmen is quam verbo Dei propiora! Credat haec Iudaeus Apella, non ego.” The final sentence is a quotation from Horace, Satires, I, 5, 100. 83. Ibid., 55: “Si papistae falluntur, omnes Christiani sunt frustra. Ergo si Christianus sum, papista sum, aut si papista non sum, Christianus esse non possum.” 84. See, e.g., Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic; Mazur, Conversions to Catholicism in Early Modern Italy. 85. Cornaeus, Aristoteles redivivus Romano-Catholicus, 3 (I quote from the 1652 edition). 86. Ibid., 7. 87. Ibid., 20. 88. Cornaeus, Aristotelis redivivi pars altera: De communione sub utraque. 89. Ibid., 4: “Et quando de D. Thoma mentio incidit, quis eo unquam mihi nominique meo amicior vir extitit?” 90. Dannhauer, Aristoteles ex orco redivivus at heu! recidivus in orcum oppositus Melchiori Cornaeo Loyolitae Herbipolitano. 91. Zapf, Aristotelis epistola reprehensoria ad M. Cornaeum. Cornaeus’s reaction to Zapf is in the final chapter of the booklet Scriptum est: Esse Purgatorium. 92. Luther, Werke, 10.I.2, 8. For another denial of Aristotle’s salvation, explicitly imbued with Lutheran motifs, see Lando, Paradossi, N3r–N8v. 93. For the motif in Luther, see Rokita, “Aristotelicus, Aristotelicotatos, Aristotelskunst.” See also Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers. 94. Bianchi, Pour une histoire, 23–56; Zahnd, “Protestantische Debatten um die Einheit der Wahrheit I.” 95. Antognazza, “Hofmann-Streit: Il dibattito sul rapporto tra teologia e filosofia all’universita` di Helmstedt;” Tommasi, “Protestantische Debatten um die Wahrheit II.”

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96. On the salvation of Aristotle see Cape´ran, Le proble`me du salut des infide`les: Essai historique; Chroust, “A Contribution to the Medieval Discussion: Utrum Aristoteles sit salvatus”; Imbach, “Aristoteles in der Holle: Eine anonyme Quaestio ‘Utrum Aristotiles sit salvatus’ im Cod. Vat. Lat. 1012 (127ra–127va) zum Jenseitsschicksal des Stagiriten”; Negri, “La ‘Quaestio de Salvatione Aristotelis’ del tomista Lamberto da Monte”; Hoenen, “How the Thomists in Cologne Saved Aristotle”; van Moos, “Paı¨ens et paı¨ens: La Quaestio de Lambert du Mont sur le salut e´ternel d’Aristote”; van Moos, Heiden im Himmel? Geschichte einer Aporie zwischen Mittelalter und fru¨her Neuzeit; Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers. On reading Aristotle’s Ethics at Mass see Spanheim, Geneva Restituta, 17–18; T. Magyrus, Eponymologium Criticum 81–82. See also Bayle, “Aristote,” in Dictionnaire, 1:328. 97. Copenhaver and Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy, 74. 98. See Egilsrud, Le “Dialogue des Morts” dans les litte´ratures franc¸aise, allemande et anglaise (1644–1789); Ginzburg, Il filo e le tracce: Vero, falso, finto, 187–188.

chapter 5 1. Letter to Fortunio Liceti, September 15 1640, in Galilei, Opere, 18:249: “Voglio aggiugnere per ora questo solo: che io mi rendo sicuro che se Aristotele tornasse al mondo, egli riceverebbe me tra i suoi seguaci, in virtu` delle mie poche contradizioni, ma ben concludenti, molto piu` che moltissimi altri che, per sostenere ogni suo detto per vero, vanno espiscando da i suoi testi concetti che mai non li sariano caduti in mente.” Henceforth the edition of Galileo’s works will be cited as OGG. On the letter see Guerrini, Galileo e gli aristotelici, 238–245. 2. Danneberg, “Kontrafaktische Imaginationen in der Hermeneutik und in der Lehre des Testimoniums.” 3. Whitehead, Harvard: The Future (1936), in Whitehead’s American Essays in Social Philosophy, 173. 4. See later in this chapter the case of Vives, but already Dante, first in Convivio IV.xv.8 and then in Questio de aqua et terra, xxii, 77. On these passages see Pellegrini, “Il riso di Aristotele e l’autenticita` della Quaestio de aqua et terra di Dante.” Dante used the verb “ridere” in the Divine Comedy (Par. XXVIII, 133–135) as well, when Gregory laughs about his own mistaken views on the angelic hyerachies. 5. The same is true of expressions surrounding many other exemplary figures, from Elvis to Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Ernst Lubitsch, Theodore Roosevelt, and Jane Austen. See Shore, “WWJD? The Genealogy of a Syntactic Form.” 6. For an overview on these debates see Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. 7. De Bury, Philobiblon, 59–60: “Numquid Aristotelem de circuli quadratura syllogismus apodicticus latuisset, si libros veterum, methodos naturae totius habentium, permisissent nefanda proelia superesse? Nec enim de mundi aeternitate problema neutrum fecisset, nec de intellectuum humanorum pluralitate eorundemque perpetuitate, ut verisimiliter creditur, dubitasset ullatenus, si perfectae scientiae veterum invisorum bellorum pressuris obnoxiae non fuissent.” I quote from the English translation by E. C. Thomas, 50. Interestingly, Richard de Bury received assistance in the composition of the Philobiblon from Robert Holcot, who also employed the “if Aristotle” motif (see n. 33 below). On the collaboration between de Bury and Holcot see Goodenough Gelber, It Could Have Been Otherwise: Contingency and Necessity in Dominican Theology at Oxford, 1300–1350, 96–98.

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8. See Bianchi, Studi sull’aristotelismo, 101–132. 9. Possevino, Bibliotheca selecta, 2:95: “Itaque et errare potuisse Aristotelem intelligunt humanique angustias ingenii in eo qui erat homo (et quidem ethnicus) agnoscunt. . . . Mirandum etiam ut non sit, si interdum variaverit, ac senescenti (quod fere fit) illuxerint, quae prius obscura fuissent. . . . Quamobrem si diutius vixisset, vel si nunc revivisceret post tot saecula, quibus aliae res innumerae, ac propemodum alter orbis emersit, multa esset correcturus, quae contraria nunc experimur.” 10. A different case of what might seem a cross-over between the “Aristotle was a man and therefore fallible” and “if Aristotle were alive” is found in the commentary on De partibus animalium (BNF, Paris, Lat. 6537, 106v, edited by Perfetti in Expositio super primo et secundo “De partibus animalium,” 277) by Pietro Pomponazzi: “Debetis scire quod Aristoteles in hoc libro non habuit veram scientiam, sed credulitatem et fidem, quoniam Aristoteles non vidit ista omnia oculis suis, quoniam non vidisset si mille annis vixisset, sed fidem dedit illis qui viderunt haec.” But here, insisting that Aristotle would have not been able to see all the things he described in his books even if he had lived a thousand years, Pomponazzi is clearly putting the accent on the limitations of human life, and therefore closer to the semantic range of “Aristotle was a man and therefore fallible.” 11. For a contextualization of the expression “libertas philosophandi” see Sutton, “The Phrase ‘Libertas Philosophandi.’ ” 12. Cano, De locis theologicis, in Migne, Theologiae cursus completus, 1:554: “Ac revera, si modo Aristoteles viveret, non aliud nomen inveniret, quo theologiam . . . appellaret.” 13. Roush, Speaking Spirits. 14. Cox, The Renaissance Dialogue, 37. 15. I quote from the Ru¨ckert edition. 16. Von Zirclaria, Der Welsche Gast, vv. 6414–6417 (174–175) “Und lebt hiut Aristoteles, / im entæt dehein ander / ku¨nic daz im Alexander / ze eren tet di wil er lebt.” 17. De Pizan, Le chemin de long ´etude, vv. 3972–3976 (ed. Tarnowski, 320): “Car s’Aristote dont memoire / est ci grant ade´s, revivoit, / et plus sceust qu’il ne savoit, / se povres fust et mal vestus, / si n’yert il prisie´ deux festus.” 18. Cervantes, Don Quixote, 22. 19. On Cervantes’s familiarity with Aristotle see, e.g., Forcione, Cervantes, Aristotle and the “Persiles”; Tara´n, “ ‘Amicus Plato.’ ” 20. The sentence is in the De causa Dei. I found the reference in Campi, “Sicut dixit in ultimis diebus suis,” 257. 21. Balbi, De fortuna et providentia libri II, in Opera poetica, oratoria, ac politico-moralia, 2:428: “Si nunc viveret Aristoteles, altissima voce exclamarem: Hic, hic Aristoteles de natura divinitatis aberrasti, eique omnem vim et facultatem ademisti, cum Deum aliquid ex libertatis arbritrio agere negaveris.” 22. See Erasmus, Ciceronianus, in Collected Works of Erasmus 6:436, and Opus epistolarum, 6:361 and 436; Dolet, Dialogus de ciceroniana imitatione pro C. Longolio, 126; Sabino, In M. Actii Plauti aliorumque Latinae linguae scriptorum calumniatores apologia, 127. See also the reaction of Scaliger against Erasmus in his Oratio, 8. 23. Other examples of this kind of counterfactual imagining from late antiquity include Homer, for whom see Jerome, Vita Sancti Hilarionis, prologue in Patrologia Latina, 23, 29. 24. Galen, Selected Works, 153. 25. Augustine, De vera religione III.3–IV.7: “Illud tamen fidentissime dixerim, pace horum omnium, qui eorum libros pervicaciter diligunt, christianis temporibus quaenam religio

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potissimum tenenda sit, et quae ad veritatem ac beatitudinem via, non esse dubitandum. Si enim Plato ipse viveret, et me interrogantem non aspernaretur, vel potius, si quis eius discipulus eo ipso tempore quo vivebat, cum sibi ab illo persuaderetur, non corporeis oculis, sed pura mente veritatem videri. . . . Ita si hanc vitam illi viri nobiscum rursum agere potuissent, viderent profecto cuius auctoritate facilius consuleretur hominibus, et paucis mutatis verbis atque sententiis Christiani fierent, sicut plerique recentiorum nostrorumque temporum Platonici fecerunt.”; Augustine, De civite Dei XII.27: “Singuli quaedam dixerunt Plato atque Porphyrius, quae si inter se communicare potuissent, facti essent fortasse Christiani.” See also Cicero, De finibus IV.22, 61. 26. The rare instances in which a reborn Plato was evoked were, e.g., in linguistic discussions: according to Comenius in his Novissima linguarum methodus, 58, Plato would not understand the Greek spoken in modern times because of the mutations of languages; or with regard to the identification of the ideal city: according to Hornius, Historiae philosophicae libri VII, 309, a reborn Plato “would not wish for any other [doctrine of the Republic] than that of the Chinese”: see Weststeijn, “Vossius’s Chinese Utopia.” 27. See Falcon, Aristotelismo. See my Chapter 1, above. 28. For cases of “if Aristotle were alive,” and its superseding of “if Plato were alive,” being recovered, see some suggestions by Guerlac, “Amicus Plato and Other Friends.” If Guerlac proposed a general frame for explaining the different versions of the proverb “amicus Plato, sed magic amica veritas,” which was soon corrected by Tara´n (see his “Amicus Plato”), he also hypothisized that the variant of the proverb used by Isaac Newton—“amicus Plato, amicus Aristoteles, sed magis amica veritas”—mirrors in the addition of Aristotle “the mood of the century,” in which Aristotle was the authority to attack. 29. Petrarch, De sui ipsius, in Invectives, 334–335: “Profecto enim, de quo michi cum magnis uiris liquido conuenit, si quemcunque philosophum, qualibet famosum, si denique deum suum Aristotilem, reuixisse et cristianum factum audiant, ruditatis et inscitie arguent, et quem ante suspexerint, superbi despicient ignorantes . . . quasi dedidicerit, eo ipso quod ad sapientiam Dei patris a caliginosa et loquaci mundi huius ignorantia sit conversus!” On Petrarch’s opponents see Kristeller, “Petrarch’s ’Averroists’: A Note on the History of Averroism in Venice, Padua and Bologna.” 30. Petrarch, De sui ipsius, in Invectives, 332–333: “Quippe cum certus michi uidear, quod Cicero ipse cristianus fuisset, si uel Cristum uidere, uel Cristi doctrinam percipere potuisset. De Platone enim nulla dubitatio est apud ipsum Augustinum, si aut hoc tempore reuiuisceret aut, dum uixit, hec futura prenosceret, quin cristianus fieret; quod fecisse sua etate plerosque platonicos idem prefert, quorum ipse de numero fuisse credendus est.” Marsh translation in the text. Petrarch annotated the passage from Augustine in his copy of the De vera religione: see BNF, Paris, Lat. 2201, 24r. 31. Frede, “Les Cate´gories d’Aristote et les Pe`res de l’E´glise Grecs.” 32. Some of these solutions are described in Thom, The Logic of the Trinity: Augustine to Ockham. 33. See the anonymous treatise in Maieru`, “Logic and Trinitarian Theology”: “Et puto quod si Aristoteles adhuc viveret et proponerentur sibi illi modi, scilicet tam essendi rerum quam modificandi copularum, ipse concederet talem modum modificandi copularum necessarium ad loquendum exquisite de predicto modo essendi rerum”; and Robert Holcot, Determinatio X, in Goodenough Gelber, “Logic and the Trinity: A Clash of Values in Scholastic Thought, 1300–1335,” 68: “Unde si Aristoteles vidisset quod aliqua res fuisset tres res et tamen una, excepisset illam rem a regulis illis et consimilibus.” On the problem of Aristotle and the

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Trinity, see also Ps.-Ockham, Centiloquium, in Boehner, “The ‘Centiloquium’ attributed to Ockham: Part VI,” 269: “Sed post tempus Aristotelis sancta Trinitate divinitus revelata a summis doctoribus theologicis inventum est praedictum discursum instantiam pati, quia inveniuntur termini, in quibus non tenet, utpote termini divinae essentiae et Trinitatis.” On these debates see also Shank, Unless You Believe, You Shall Not Understand: Logic, University, and Society in Late Medieval Vienna. 34. See also the edition of Ps.-Dionysius’s works in the translation of Ambrogio Traversari, edited by Lefe`vre and entitled Theologia vivificans, cibus solidus. Renaudet, Pre´re´forme et humanisme a` Paris: Pendant les premie`res guerres d’Italie, 1494–1517, 375–376; Cavazza, “Platonismo e riforma religiosa: La ‘Theologia vivificans’ di Jacques Lefe`vre d’E´taples.” 35. Lefe`vre d’E´taples, Libri logicorum, 43r: “Nunquam quis postea quam cecus effectus est rursus natura natureque potentia vidit. Id enim impossibile est. Quare si cum nature conditor propter homines trabea carnis indutus, cecis natis dicebat respice, et protinus respiciebant, vixisset Aristoteles et vidisset, proculdubio statim confessus fuisset esse deum, et ut deum adoravisset.” 36. On the general attitude of Lef e`vre to Aristotle’s agreement with Christianity, see the prefatory letter to German de Ganay, in his Introductio in Metaphysicam Aristotelis et in eandem commentarii: “Christianae sapientiae magna concordia affinitateque consensit, atque coniuncta est”; also his prefatory letter—again to de Ganay—to the Decem librorum moralium Aristotelis, in which he describes Aristotle as “in metaphysicis sacerdos atque theologus.” For the distinction Lefe`vre makes between rational and intelligible philosophy, see his preface to de Bovelles, In artem oppositorum introductio. 37. Bernardi, Disputationes in quibus primus ex professo monomachia (quam singulare certamen Latini, recentiores duellum vocant) philosophicis rationibus astruitur, 520: “Si [Aristoteles] cognovisset ea quae nos Christiani cognovimus, in dubium venire non debet, quin eadem ipse quoque asseruisset, quae nos asseruimus.” See the essays in Antonio Bernardi della Mirandola (1502–1565): Un aristotelico umanista alla corte dei Farnese. 38. The Council of Trent condemned dueling the year after. 39. See Ossa-Richardson, The Devil’s Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought, 109–112. 40. Taurellus, Philosophiae triumphus, 21–22: “Non enim dubium est quin ipsemet Aristoteles, si Christi lumine fuisset edoctus, suos meditando revocasset errores, veritate diligentius inquisita.” 41. Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 96. 42. See in particular Antognazza, “Hofmann-Streit;” Tommasi, “Protestantische Debatten um die Wahrheit II.” 43. Mercer, “The Vitality and Importance,” 41. The same strategy was adopted also by other thinkers (see, e.g., the case of Epicurus: Robert, “E´picure et les e´picuriens au Moyen Aˆge”) and in the debates over Cicero and Ciceronianism (see Cave, The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance). 44. The strategy of Aristotle discrediting his followers was reminiscent of the idol of a deceased ancestor disowning his descendants, a common rhetorical pattern found, e.g., in Cicero. See Dufallo, The Ghosts of the Past: Latin Literature, the Dead, and Rome’s Transition to a Principate. 45. Spini, Ricerca dei libertini; Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, 236; Grendler, “Intellectual Freedom in Italian Universities: The Controversy over the Immortality of the Soul.”

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46. Vives, De disciplinis, in Opera omnia, 6:186 “Profecto Aristoteles ipse, si nunc viveret, etiam si fuisset insolentissimus, cuiusmodi non fuit, nam multa modestiae eius signa impressa sunt in illius libris, sed si arrogantissimus fuisset, istorum tamen stultitiam irrideret, ac castigaret, quae nostrorum hominum persuasio effecit, ut multa reciperemus in philosophiam pro compertis atque exploratis, quae minime essent talia; videlicet Aristoteles dixerat.” 47. Murr, “Pierre Gassendi: Lecteur de Juan Luis Vive`s et promoteur de sa de´finition de la philosophie.” 48. Gassendi, Exercitationes, 41: “Profecto si viveret ipse, videretque in verba sua ita religiose jurari, ut quae olim habuisset incerta, admitti jam cerneret tanquam prorsus indubita: O quam damnaret huiusmodi effoeminatam inertiam!” This is not the only time Gassendi adapted the “if Aristotle” motif from Vives: see also Exercitationes, 74–75, where it is recovered a passage from De disciplinis, 6: 193. That passage in Vives is discussed later in this chapter. 49. Carpenter, Philosophia libera, “Praefatio ad lectorem” (‫ن‬8v): “Siquidem Aristotelem nullibi minus inveniatis quam apud tales Aristotelicos, quos (opinor) Philosophus ipse, si revivivisceret, tanquam spurios abdicaret; aut saltem, aut degeneres, indignaretur.” 50. For a similar argument against modern Aristotelians but invoking a reborn Socrates and a reborn Plato (“e se tornassero vivi Platone e Socrate, e vedessero che tanti filosofi grandi, che furono innanzi e dopo Aristotile, sono stimati sciocchi dai moderni cervelli di tartaruga, che direbbono?”) see Tassoni, Lettere, 20–21. 51. Schmitt, “Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz”; Schmitt, “ ‘Prisca Theologia’ e ‘Philosophia Perennis’: Due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna”; Schmidt-Biggeman, Philosophia perennis: Historische Umrisse abendla¨ ndischer Spiritualita¨ t in Antike, Mittelalter und fru¨her Neuzeit; Hanegraff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture; Allen, Synoptic Art; Copenhaver, “Maimonide, Abulafia and Pico: A Secret Aristotle for the Renaissance.” 52. Steuco, De perenni philosophia, 526: “Quare quicunque testimonium illud Aristotelis depravant, ei sensum nescio quem alium coaptantes, constet eos parum veritatis esse gnaros, priscam Philosophiam nescientes, quae si obscura, clausaque interdum apud Aristotelem est, dictis certe aliorum Philosophorum, qui clarius disseruerunt, enucleatur. Sed recentiorum Philosophorum ea fere calamitas, ut radios multos, quas varia de parte veritas effundit, non cernant, propterea quod uni sese Aristoteli non dediderunt modo, sed adeo devoverunt, ut si fuerit opus pro dogmatis eius tuendis, in ferrum flammamque ruant, in cuius Philosophia, sic quasdam opiniones pravas conceperunt, ut ipsum si surgeret, ea destomachaturum putem.” 53. Del Soldato, “Francesco Vimercato’s ‘De placitis,’ ” 7. 54. Ramus, Commentariorum de religione Christiana libri quatuor. See Martin, Subverting Aristotle, 112. 55. I quote from the second edition of Ramus, Scholae in liberales artes, 828: “Verum Aristotelem non quemlibet judicem postulo, sed Aristotelem aeneae sphaerae sonitu excitatum, et experrectum, planeque attentum, et ad summas Aristotelis et justissimas leges toto animo, totaque mente conversum. Hoc enim judicio amplissime vincimus, et quidem judicio Aristoteli, si jam revivisceret, longe spectatissimo et probatissimo, cum ea philosophica industria, et libertate libros suos a nobis observari et considerari perspiceret, qua libros Thaletis, Melissi, Parmenidis, Anaxagorae, Empedoclis, Heraclitii, Democriti, Leucippi, Platonis imprimis observarit et considerarit, cum leges suas nobis tam sanctas tamque angustas esse cognosceret, cum nos denique Aristoteleae non linguae vel manus, sed mentis amantissimos et observantissimos esse perspiceret.”

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215

56. Ibid., 952: “O philosophum interpretibus tam benevolis, tamque domini sui studiosis, beatum, immo vero miserum! Hanc enim (sat scio) si revivisceret Aristoteles, ignaviam et inertiam vehementer a se detestaretur, qui ipse liberrimus in omnes philosophiae magistros extitisset, et consimiles libertatis leges omnibus suis sectatoribus et aemulis proposuisset.” For the use of “if Aristotle” in the Ramist debates see, e.g., Temple, Pro Mildapetti de unica methodo defensione contra Diplodophilum commentatio, 28. 57. Cardano, Commentarii in Hippocratis de aere, aquis et locis, 7br: “Quod si aqua maris moveatur ad motum lunae, palam est etiam solis motum aerem sequi. Est enim sol potentior luna, et aer facilius movetur quam aqua. Si igitur haec novisset Aristoteles, credidisset aerem perpetuo moveri, nec quiescere. Videant igitur Aristotelici ne nimia defendendi Aristotelem cupiditate veritatem omnium rerum dulcissimam relinquant, et ingratis me oderint.” (Cf. Aristotle, Meteorology 359b27–361b14). 58. On Telesio’s posthumous reputation as an opponent of Aristotle see Garber, “Telesio Among the ‘Novatores’: Telesio’s Reception in the Seventeenth Century.” 59. Campanella, Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, 192: “Philosophaster Marta, modernus sciolus, gloriae, ut videtur, venator et ignominiae acceptor, nil veritus est Telesium accusare, quem, si Aristoteles viveret, accepta veritate veneraretur.” 60. On the 1624 Parisian affair see Brockliss, “Aristotle, Descartes and the New Science: Natural Philosophy at the University of Paris, 1600–1740”; Garber, “Defending Aristotle/ Defending Society in Early 17th Century Paris.” 61. Sorel, La science universelle, 4:445: “Nous te´moignons icy que nous volulons moins de mal a` Aristote qu’aux Aristotelicı¨ens: ce sont eux qui ont de l’obstination pour s’opposer a` des choses, ausquelles s’il vivoit il seroit content d’adherer, pour faire son profit des nouvelles lumie`res qu’il verroit parestre. Cependant ces aveugles volontaires osent publier qu’il ne faut souffrir aucune innovation ny reformation dans les Sciences, quoy que ce soit le seul moyen de les rendre parfaites.” 62. Garber, “Descartes Among the Novatores,” and “Historicizing Novelty.” 63. See also the example of the Cartesian Jacques Rohault, Entretiens sur la philosophie, 27: “Je croy que si Aristote vivoit, il approuveroit celle que vous avez donne´e a` la Matiere physique, qui est actuellement dans chaque Estre, en disant qu’elle est une substance estendue¨: car si je ne me trompe, il asseure que, Quantitas est coœva materiae. Ce qui ne signifie ce me semble autre chose en bon Franc¸ois, si non qu’il n’y a jamais eu de Matiere sans estendue¨. Et quand mesme vous vous seriez e´carte´ en cela de son sentiment, vous ne seriez pas plus coupable que la pluspart de ses sectateurs.” 64. Albertus Magnus, De coelo II.3.11: “Et ideo, sicut dicit Maurus Abonycer, si viveret Aristoteles, oporteret vel ista improbare quae comperta sunt de motibus astrorum, vel oporteret eum suum dictum revocare.” 65. E.g., Rheticus, De libris revolutionum narratio prima, D1a: “Cum autem tum in physicis, tum in Astronomicis ab effectibus, et observationibus ut plurimum ad principia sit processus, ego quidem statuo Aristotelem, auditis novarum hypothesium rationibus, ut disputationes de gravi, levi, circulari latione, motu et quiete terrae, diligentissime excussit, ita dubio procul candide confessurum, quid a se in his demonstratum sit, et quid tanquam principium sine demonstratione assumptum. Quare et Domino Doctori praeceptori meo [Copernicus] suffragaturum crediderim.” A few lines above, D1a, Rheticus applied the same thought experiment to Ptolemy. 66. Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum de admirabili proportione orbium coelestium, 13: “Neque dubito affirmare, quicquid a posteriori Copernicus collegit, et visu demonstravit, mediantibus geometricis axiomatis, id omne vel ipso Aristotele teste, si viveret (quod frequenter

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optat Rheticus), a priori demonstrari posse nullis ambagibus.” In this work, Kepler, like Rheticus, used the motif with reference to Ptolemy (17), and he invoked an Aristoteles redivivus again in the second edition of the Mysterium (Frankfurt: Kempfer, 1621), 38. 67. The title of the work is different in this new version: Wilkins, A discourse concerning a new world & another planet, 2:19. 68. See Heilbron, Galileo, 12–23; Hall, Galileo’s Reading. 69. Bianchi, “Galileo tra Aristotele, Clavio e Scheiner.” 70. For an exemplary synthesis of the debates see Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687. See also Donahue, The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres, 1595– 1650; Lerner, Le monde des sphe`res. See, in addition, the letter from Galileo to Federico Cesi, written in September 1612, OGG 11:395. 71. Garin, “Fra ‘500 e ‘600: Scienze nuove, metodi nuovi, nuove accademie”; Bucciantini, “Teologia e nuova filosofia.” 72. Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs, 205. 73. Galilei a M. Barberini, June 2, 1612 (OGG 11:311). I cite Reeves and van Helden’s translation in On Sunspots with slight modifications. 74. OGG 11:296. 75. E.g., Galileo drew a distinction among modern Aristotelians, admitting that among them were faithful disciples of the Philosopher. See OGG 5:231. 76. Bucciantini, Camerota, and Giudice, Il telescopio di Galileo: Una storia europea. 77. Shea, “Galileo, Scheiner, and the Interpretation of the Sunspots.” 78. OGG 5:96. 79. OGG 5:235: “Questo solo soggiugnero`, paremi azione non interamente da vero filosofo il voler persistere, siami lecito dir, quasi ostinatamente in sostener conclusioni peripatetiche scoperte manifestamente false, persuadendosi forse che Aristotele, quando nell’eta` nostra si ritrovasse, fosse per far il medesimo; quasi che maggior segno di perfetto giudizio e piu` nobil effetto di profonda dottrina sia il difendere il falso, che ‘l restar persuaso dal vero” (English translation in On Sunspots, 294). See also OGG 5:231. In another fragment (OGG 8:639) related to the letters to Welser, Galileo writes: “Gli avversari tassano me per avere scritto contro ad autore non inteso da me: e pure essi medesimi cascano in questo medesimo errore, mentre contradicono a me; e tanto piu` gravemente, quanto e` dubbio se sia vero che io non abbia inteso Aristotile, e non so, se lui fusse vivo, s’ei negasse le mie interpretazioni; ma io, che vivo, dico bene di non essere stato inteso.” 80. OGG 5:138–139: “Ora, per raccor qualche frutto dalle inopinate meraviglie che sino a questa nostra eta` sono state celate, sara` bene che per l’avvenire si torni a porgere orecchio a quei saggi filosofi che della celeste sustanza diversamente da Aristotele giudicarono, e da i quali Aristotele medesimo non si sarebbe allontanato se delle presenti sensate osservazioni avesse auta contezza: poi che egli non solo ammesse le manifeste esperienze tra i mezi potenti a concludere circa i problemi naturali, ma diede loro il primo luogo. Onde se egli argomento` l’immutabilita` dei cieli dal non si esser veduta in loro ne’decorsi tempi alterazione alcuna, e` ben credibile che quando ‘l senso gli avesse mostrato cio` che a noi fa manifesto, arebbe seguita la contraria opinione, alla quale con sı` mirabili scoprimenti venghiamo chiamati noi. Anzi diro` di piu`, ch’io stimo di contrariar molto meno alla dottrina d’Aristotele col porre (stanti vere le presenti osservazioni) la materia celeste alterabile, che queli che pur la volessero sostenere inalterabile; perche´ son sicuro ch’egli non ebbe mai per tanto certa la conclusione dell’inalterabilita`, come questa, che all’evidente esperienza si deva posporre ogni umano discorso.” The original draft of the letter focused not on Aristotle but rather on the scriptures as support for the mutability of

Notes to Pages 130–132

217

the heavens; the “if Aristotle” argument was included in the subsequent version: see OGG 5:138–139. The English translation is in On Sunspots, 128–129. 81. See, e.g., Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, in OGG 8:106. For some early modern evaluations of the concept of experience in Aristotle see Schmitt, Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science, 80–138; Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern; Hessbru¨ggen-Walter, “Problems with Rhubarb: Accomodating Experience in Aristotelian Theories of Science.” 82. OGG 7:75: “Io non dubito punto che se Aristotile fusse all’eta` nostra, muterebbe oppinione. Il che manifestamente si raccoglie dal suo stesso modo di filosofare: imperrocche´ mentre egli scrive di stimare i cieli inalterabili etc., perche´ nissuna cosa nuova si e´ veduta generarvisi o dissolversi delle vecchie, viene implicitamente a lasciarsi intendere che quando egli avesse veduto uno di tali accidenti, avererebbe stimato il contrario ad anteposto, come conviene, la sensata esperienza al natural discorso, perche´ quando e’non avesse voluto fare stima de’sensi, non avrebbe, almeno dal non si vedere sensatamente mutazione alcuna, argumentata l’immutabilita`.” English translation by Drake in Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, 50. 83. OGG 7:80–81: “Aggiugnete che noi possiamo molto meglio di Aristotile discorrer delle cose del cielo, perche´, confessando egli cotal cognizione esser a lui difficile per la lontananza da i sensi, viene a concedere che quello a chi i sensi meglio lo potessero rappresentare, con sicureza maggiore potrebbe intorno ad esso filosofare: ora noi, merce´ del telescopio, ce lo siam fatto vicino trenta e quaranta volte piu´ che vicino non era ad Aristotile, sı´ che possiamo scorgere in esso cento cose che egli non potette vedere, e tra le altre queste macchie nel Sole, che assolutamente ad esso furono invisibili: adunque del cielo e del Sole piu´ sicuramente possiamo noi trattare che Aristotile.” English translation by Drake, Dialogue, 56. A different kind of counterfactual association between Aristotle and the telescope was proposed by Emanuele Tesauro in the title of his most famous work, the Cannocchiale aristotelico (1654), a text of rhetoric closely interwoven with Galileo’s observations. See Reeves, “The Rhetoric of Optics: Perspectives on Galileo and Tesauro”; Snyder, “Art and Truth in Baroque Italy, or the Case of Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico.” 84. The tale was originally recounted in Plato’s Theaetetus (174a–c). On its interpretation see Gadamer, The Beginning of Knowledge, 129–131; but also Cavarero, Nonostante Platone: Figure femminili nella filosofia antica; Blumenberg, The Laughter of the Thracian Woman: A Protohistory of Theory. On the passage in Aristotle see Reeves, Galileo’s Glassworks: The Telescope and the Mirror, 84–85. 85. OGG 7:136: “E voi, ditemi in grazia, sete cosı´ semplice che non intendiate che quando Aristotile fusse stato presente a sentir il dottor che lo voleva far autor del telescopio, si sarebbe molto piu´ alterato contro di lui che contro quelli che del dottore e delle sue interpretazioni si ridevano? Avete voi forse dubbio che quando Aristotile vedesse le novita` scoperte in cielo, e’non fusse per mutar opinione e per emendar i suoi libri e per accostarsi alle piu´ sensate dottrine, discacciando da se´ quei cosı´ poveretti di cervello che troppo pusillanimamente s’inducono a voler sostenere ogni suo detto, senza intendere che quando Aristotile fusse tale quale essi se lo figurano, sarebbe un cervello indocile, una mente ostinata, un animo pieno di barbarie, un voler tirannico, che, reputando tutti gli altri come pecore stolide, volesse che i suoi decreti fussero anteposti a i sensi, alle esperienze, alla natura istessa? Sono i suoi seguaci che hanno data l’autorita` ad Aristotile, e non esso che se la sia usurpata o presa; e perche´ e` piu´ facile il coprirsi sotto lo scudo d’un altro che’l comparire a faccia aperta, temono ne´ si ardiscono d’allontanarsi un sol passo, e piu´ tosto che mettere qualche alterazione nel cielo di Aristotile, vogliono

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Notes to Pages 132–136

impertinentemente negar quelle che veggono nel cielo della natura.” English translation by Drake, Dialogue, 110–111. 86. See instead Battistini, Galileo e i gesuiti: Miti letterari e retorica della scienza, 130, who considers the use of the argument in the Dialogo an appeal to a possible entente with the exponents of traditional Aristotelianism; and Geymonat, Galileo Galilei, 244–248, who sees in it a sincere declaration of Aristotelian militancy by Galileo. 87. A similar passage in the Second Letter on Sunspots, OGG 5:235. 88. OGG 7:714: “Ma da vero filosofo, e filosofo peripatetico, confessate, che se Aristotile vedesse queste e le altre mutazioni che si fanno in cielo, le quali ad esso furono ignote e inimaginabili, riceverebbe assai piu` volentieri me per suo scolare e seguace che voi, poiche´ io antepongo i suoi dogmi certissimi alle sue proposizioni opinabili, e voi per mantener queste refiutate quelli, cioe´ posponete le sensate esperienze alle opinabili conietture.” 89. Liceti, Litheosphorus, in OGG 8:481–486. 90. Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History, 314–322. 91. Letter of Galileo to Leopoldo de’ Medici, March 31, 1640, OGG 8:494. See CasatiStrano, “Il ‘candore lunare’ e la difesa del sistema copernicano in due lettere galileiane conservate presso la biblioteca dell’Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze”; Fabbri, “Looking at an Earth-Like Moon and Living on a Moon-Like Earth in Renaissance and Early Modern Thought.” 92. OGG 18:249–250: “E quando Aristotele vedesse le novita` scoperte novamente in cielo, dove egli affermo` quello essere inalterabile, perche´ niuna alterazione vi si era sino allora veduta, indubitatamente egli, mutando oppinione, direbbe ora il contrario; che` ben si raccoglie, che mentre ci dice il cielo esser inalterabile perche´ non vi si era veduta alterazione, direbbe ora essere alterabile, perche´ alterazioni vi si scorgono.” 93. Nonetheless, Liceti did not take any offense: on the contrary he said that he read Galileo’s letter with great pleasure (letter to Galileo, September 21, 1640; OGG 18:254). 94. On self-commentaries see Roush, Hermes’s Lyre: Italian Poetic Self-Commentary from Dante to Tommaso Campanella. 95. See Redondi, Galileo eretico, 217. On the scientific—and not merely religious— opposition of the Jesuits to Copernicanism see Graney, Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science Against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo. 96. Baldini, Legem impone subactis: Studi su filosofia e scienza dei gesuiti in Italia, 1540– 1632; De Ceglie, “ ‘Additio illa non videtur edenda’: Giuseppe Biancani, Reader of Galileo in an Unedited Censored Text.” 97. “Quem [Aristotelem] si quando confutare cogatur, faciat id modeste; quod si potest, defendat: sin minus, excuset, quod quaedam, praesertim quae ab experimento pendet, cognoscere non potuit”; quoted in Baldini, Legem impone subactis, 229. See also Dollo, “ ‘Tanquam nodi in tabula-Tanquam pisces in aqua’: Le innovazioni della cosmologia nella ‘Rosa Ursina’ di Christoph Scheiner.” 98. Scheiner, Rosa Ursina, sive, Sol ex admirando facularum & macularum suarum phoenomeno varius, 750: “Hinc sequitur primo. Si Aristoteles supposita fidem in Deum, caelum credidisset factum a Deo in tempore, secundum suam doctrinam dixisset simpliciter illud esse corruptibile, et aliquando corrumpendum. Secundo. Si cognovisset Phaenomenon Solis, utique incorruptibile non fecisset. Unde, tertio. Qui et Sacra Scriptura, et Fide Christiana, et tot tantis Phaenomenis suppositis, nihilominus caeli incorruptibilitatem sartam tectam volunt, idque ex

Notes to Pages 137–140

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mente et in gratia Aristotelis, ab Aristotele et a vero tantum aberrant, quantum aeternum a temporario distat.” 99. See Dollo, “ ‘Tanquam nodi in tabula-Tanquam pisces in aqua,’ ” 148; Ingaliso, Filosofia e cosmologia in Christoph Scheiner. 100. Cornaeus, Curriculum philosophiae Peripateticae, 503: “Si Aristoteles hodie viveret et quas modo nos in sole alterationes et conflagrationes deprehendimus videret, absque dubio mutata sententia nobiscum faceret. Idem sane est de planetis quos Philosophus septenis plures non agnoscit. At nos hoc tempore opera telescopii (quo ille caruit) plures omnino esse certo scimus.” See Grant, “The Partial Transformation of Medieval Cosmology by Jesuits in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” 127–56; Hellyer, Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy; on the Curriculum see Blum, Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism, 127–135. 101. Cornaeus, Curriculum philosophiae, 481–86. 102. Cornaeus, Aristoteles redivivus, 2: “Dii Deaeque te servent Charon cum isto invento tuo [tubum specillarem dioptricum]. Tu me adepol e talpa lyncem fecisti. Argus nunc sum. Omnia lucidissime perspicio, ut si coram praesens adstarem.” Another work, part of the Aristoteles redivivus series, is significantly entitled Perspicillum intellectuale (“intellectual telescope”). The telescope of the title is intended as a gift offered by Aristotle to the Protestant Dannhauer, who criticized the apologetic booklets by Cornaeus. See my Chapter 4, above. On the lynx and Argus, which were usually opposed, see Battistini, “Da Argo alla lince: Potere della vista e mondo naturale nella cultura del seicento,” 241–259. 103. Bruni, Dialogi ad Petrum Paulum Histrum: “Praesertim cum hi libri, quos Aristotelis esse dicunt, tam magnam transformationem passi sint, ut si quis eos ad Aristotelem ipsum deferat, non magis ille suos esse cognoscat quam Actaeonem illum, qui ex homine in cervum conversus est, canes suae cognoverint,” 246. English translation by David Thompson in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts, 69. 104. Piccolomini, Asia, in Opera geographica et historica, 145. This is the entire passage: “Quodsi greca exemplaria corrupta fuerunt, quid de his putandum est que in Latinum conversa sunt? Illa presertim priora que qui legunt non tam quod dicatur quam quod dici velit nosse laborant. Quippe si revivisceret Aristoteles multa sua esse negaret que nos illi attribuimus. Sed melior cum eo actum est quam cum aliis quorum opera funditus periere, et ipse causa extitit cur multa perirent qui aliorum gloriam ad se traxit. Ruet etiam ipse, quamvis magnus, neque enim verum est quod sibi aliqui persuadent: litterarum munimenta non interire. Omnia occidunt, nec litteris sua mors negata est, quamvis alie aliis plus vivant: atas cuncta aufert, nec hominis opus est quod in tempore non evanescat.” 105. On the rivalry between Merula and Marzio see Campanelli, Polemiche e filologia ai primordi della stampa; de Keyser, Francesco Filelfo and Francesco Sforza. 106. Marzio, De doctrina promiscua, 459–460: “Unde Magnifice Laurenti [Marzio is addressing his work to Lorenzo de’ Medici], familiae tuae hoc onus incumbit, ut quos prava emendatio invasit, tuo medicamento recipiant sanitatem, ne leges, et instituta maiorum, ne optimi mores integritasque linguae, disciplinarumque synceritas obliterentur, et obsolescant, nam si dictiones in Aristotelicis dictis mutaverimus, et beatus Thomas, et Magnus Albertus acutissimusque cum Averroide Scotus in santissiimi [sic], iterumquae [sic] ad praeceptorem remittendi putabuntur. Nam si negationem sustulero quod a philosopho affirmatur, noum [sic] dogma constituam, quod et ipse redivivus Aristoteles abhorreret, et si in Prima Philosophia, ubi ponitur omnes homines natura scire desiderant, additione syllabae emendavero, ita ut nescire desiderent dicatur, quivis iudicet quale dogma nascetur.”

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107. See, e.g., what Gerolamo Squarciafico wrote in his edition of Plutarch, Vitae, n.p.: “Praeterea, haec impressoria ars in manus quorundam illiteratorum incidit, a quibus libri fere omnes coinquinantur et corrumpuntur, ut si auctores reviviscerent suos protinus esse negarent.” 108. There is a similar argument in Ficino, Theologia platonica, in Opera omnia, 1:327. On Vives and Averroes see also Hasse, Success and Suppression, 231–39. 109. Vives, De disciplinis, 193: “Quaeso te, quis sane mentis eadem dicat esse haec et illa? Aristoteles, si revivisceret, intelligeret haec, aut posset vel conjecturis castigare? O homines valentissimis stomachis, qui haec devorare potuerunt et concoquere! et in haec tam ab Aristotelis sententia ac mente abhorrentia auscultate quae Abenrois Commentator comminiscitur.” 110. See Dannenberg, Besserverstehen: Zur Analyse und Entstehung einer hermeneutischen Maxime, 50. 111. Luther, Werke, 9:444: “Wenn aber Aristoteles solt lebendig solchs gehoret haben, wurde er gesagt haben: ‘Welcher teuffel hat solche grobe esel und narren uber mein buch gefuret? Wissen doch die tolpel nicht, was ich substantia, subiectum oder praedicatum heisse.’ ” 112. Rokita, “Aristotelicus, Aristotelicotatos, Aristotelskunst.” 113. Giraldi, Discorso intorno al comporre dei romanzi, 77. 114. Nashe, Strange Newes, Of the Intercepting Certaine Letters, B1r. The passage from Aretino occurs in the prologue to the play La cortegiana: see McPherson, “Aretino and the Harvey-Nashe Quarrel.” 115. Roush, Speaking Spirits, 36–68. 116. Piccart, Oratio de ratione interpretandi, in Isagoge in lectionem Aristotelis, B6r–v: “Sensum vero in scriptorem e cerebro nostro non inferamus, sed ab auctore petamus, nihil afferamus in ejus expositione, quod non pro suo agnosceret, si revivisceret, qui scribsit.” 117. Bianchi, Studi sull’Aristotelismo, 185–208. 118. The identification between an author and his work can operate in different ways: e.g., in a letter of 1382, Manuel II Palaeologos sent his mentor Demetrios Kydones a manuscript containing the works of Plato, and compared rescuing the manuscript to bringing the philosopher back to life: “Now, something which does not move or act or speak could never be properly called alive in any sense at all. This, in fact, has been his [Plato’s] condition for many years, since he did not fit in with the monks. . . . But you now bring him to life and make him active again”: The Letters of Manuel II Palaeologos, 122. 119. Weinberg, “Scaliger Versus Aristotle on Poetics.” 120. On Jesuit theater see the essays in The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773. 121. Guiniggi, Poesis heroica, elegiaca, lyrica, epigrammatica aucta et recensita item dramatica, 264–265: “Quod si deinde et nostram humanitatem Deus, et humana natura Divinitatem induit; cur actio humana, cuius imitatio Poe¨sis est, aliquid ultra supraque naturam, et supra Aristotelis effata leges non induat? . . . Humilitatis humanae statum, Divinae gratiae machinis erectum evectumque ad consortium communicatae Divinitatis, si cognovisset Aristoteles, erexisset ingenium, provexisset altius imitationem actionis et dignitatis humanae, de Dramatica Poe¨si magnificentius ille diviniusque sensisset, alia denique multo splendidiora quam tradidit de universa Poe¨tica sancivisset.” 122. [Badoer], L’Ulisse Errante, 15: “Io non volendo abbandonare il costume, o decoro, stimato da me necessarissimo in si fatte composizioni, ho voluto piu` tosto, staccandomi dalle regole non d’invenzione o capriccio, ma con la scorta del primo poeta della Grecia battere una strada, non da altri calcata, sicuro, che se vivesse Aristotele ne’ presenti tempi, regolerebbe anch’egli la sua poetica all’inclinazione del secolo: anzi che, quando egli dice, che di tali azioni

Notes to Pages 144–152

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non vi e` finalmente altro giudice, che l’applauso, da` la sentenza per me; poiche´ e` verissimo, che non si possono aver questi applausi, se non s’incontra felicemente nell’universal genio de’ spettatori.” 123. See, e.g., Strozzi, La Delia o sia La Sera, 7; David, L’amante eroe, 11. On these libretti see Chiarelli and Pompilio, “Or vaghi or fieri”: Cenni di poetica nei libretti veneziani (circa 1640–1740). 124. Goldoni, Il teatro comico, “L’autore a chi legge,” 31: “Prefazione puo` dirsi alle mie commedie” (English translation by John W. Miller in Goldoni, The Comic Theatre, 3). On the context of the work see Mazzali, “ ‘Il teatro comico’ e la commedia regolare.” 125. Goldoni, Il teatro comico, (II, 3), 57: “Vi e` chi dice, che quanto [Aristotle] ha detto della tragedia, si debba intendere ancora della commedia, e che, se avesse terminato il trattato della commedia, avrebbe prescritta la scena stabile. Ma a cio` rispondesi, che se Aristotile fosse vivo presentemente, cancellerebbe egli medesimo quest’arduo precetto, perche´ da questo ne nascono mille assurdi, mille improprieta` e indecenze.” (English translation in the text by John W. Miller in Goldoni, The Comic Theatre, 36–37). 126. Herder, Shakespeare (I quote from the translation by Moore), 13–14. 127. Forster, After Herder, 17. 128. Nougaret, De l’art du the´aˆtre en ge´ne´ral, 1:94–95: “Je suis persuade´ que notre Philosophe Grec composerait quelque e´crit ce´le`bre sur le Spectacle qui nous fait tant de plaisir . . . les Auteurs ne traitent que des sujets analogues au gouˆt de leur tems. Aristote n’aurait point fair une Poe`tique en faveur de la Trage´die, si lorqsu’il vivait, les Euripide et les Sophocle n’avaient e´te´ ge´ne´ralement applaudis. De nos jours il de´daignerait la Come´die et sa rivale et n’e´crirait qu’une Poe`tique sur l’Ope´ra-Bouffon.” On Nougaret see Sajous D’Oria, “L’ope´racomique selon Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret: Des Riens en musique.” 129. An exception is the later, local survival in Giuseppe Valletta, who quotes several occurrences (Possevino, Steuco, Sorel) of the “if Aristotle” motif in his Lettera, 103–104. See my Chapter 3, above. 130. I use the plural for “paradigms” according to the usage by Garber in his “Why the Scientific Revolution?” as a revision of the classic arguments of T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

epilogue 1. See Grafton, Defenders of the Text, 162–177; Del Soldato, “The Letter of Lysis to Hipparchus.” 2. On Pomponazzi see Nardi, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi, and Perrone Compagni, “Introduzione,” in Trattato sull’immortalita` dell’anima; on Porzio see Del Soldato, Simone Porzio. More generally, see Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance. 3. See, e.g., Tassoni, Dieci libri di pensieri diversi, 491. 4. E.g., Brogi, “Antiplatonismo e teologia in Jean Le Clerc”; Mulsow, Enlightenment Underground: Radical Germany, 1680–1720. 5. Quoted in Garin, “Giuseppe Valletta storico,” 222; the work met with considerable success and had three different editions (Padua: Conzatti, 1770–1772; Finale: Rossi, 1777; Venice: Gattei, 1829). 6. The reference is to the Address to Young Men on Greek Literature.

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7. Ragionamento sulla Filosofia tenuto alla presenza delle dignita` piu` eminenti della Chiesa e dell’Impero. 8. Cuoco, Platone in Italia. See also Andreoni, Omero italico: Favole antiche e identita` nazionale tra Vico e Cuoco, and “Il Platone in Italia nello sviluppo del pensiero storico-politico di Vincenzo Cuoco.” 9. Leemans and Meijns, “Why Are Some Greater Than Others? Actors and Factors Shaping the Authority of Persons from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” in Shaping Authority, 9. 10. Grafton, New Worlds, 256. 11. Kennedy, “To Hack or Not to Hack? (The Big) Aristotle, Excellence, and Moral Decision-Making.” 12. For a more optimistic approach to the applicability of Aristotle to our own times see Hall, Aristotle’s Way. How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life. For alt-right appropriations see Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misoginy in the Digital Age, 25 and 32. 13. I adapt here the paradigm suggested by Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, discussed by Grafton in New Worlds, 254–55. On goal-oriented readings see Jardine and Grafton, “ ‘Studied for Action’: How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy.”

appendix a 1. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata I.22, 150; Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica IX.6, 9. 2. Augustine, De vera religione II.43 (Augustine probably refers to a lost work by Ambrose, who connects Plato to Judaic wisdom in Sermon 18, 4); Clement, Stromata I.15, xxx. 3. Augustine, De civitate Dei VIII.11; Retractationes II. 4 (31); De vera religione IV.7. 4. In reality Tertullian, De anima, 23. 5. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio de moderatione in disputationibus servanda. 6. Baronio, Annales II. 74. 7. Seraphinus Firmanus, Super Apocalypsim. 8. Fonseca, Commentarii in primum librum Metaphysicorum, 19–23. 9. In reality, Jerome, Letter to Julianus. 10. Tertullian, De pallio 6. 11. Ecclesiastes 1:12–13. 12. Ibid., 3:11. 13. Psalms 118:85. 14. Romans 1:21–22.

appendix b 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Plato, Timaeus, 47e–48a. Ibid., 27d. Ibid., 28a. Ibid., 28c–30b. Ibid., 30b. Ibid., 41a–d. Ibid., 48e–49a. Ibid., 49b–50b; 53c–61c.

Notes to Pages 168–180

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9. Ibid., 61c–69a. 10. Ibid., 69c–90d. 11. Ibid., 90e–92c. 12. Ibid. 27c–28b. 13. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 279b18–31 and 280a 28–32 (see also Physics, 251b14–26); Plato, Timaeus, 30a; on non-literal interpretation of the Timaeus see, in the first instance, what is reported by Aristotle, On the Heavens, 279b32–280a1, and by Platonists, e.g. Plotinus, Enneads, VI.7. 14. See, e.g., Aristotle, Physics, 184a 10–15. 15. Pendasio offers a sketch of the order of the works which compose the Aristotelian corpus. 16. A reference to the Physics, which was the subject of the course.

appendix c 1. Still fundamental is Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. 2. Pico della Mirandola, Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et veritatis Christianae disciplinae, 486. 3. Schmitt, Gianfrancesco Pico Della Mirandola (1469–1533) and His Critique of Aristotle, 62–63. 4. See Soranzo, “Un’identita` religiosa nel primo Cinquecento: Gli Hymni Heroici Tres di Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.” 5. Le Ferron, Aristotelis liber nunc primum versus adversus Xenophanem, Zenonem et Gorgiam . . . Pro Aristotele adversus Bessarionem libellus. 6. Le Ferron is referring in particular to the chapters in the second book of the ICP (11 and 12) dealing with Parmenides and Melissus. 7. See Malpiglio secondo, in Dialoghi, II.2 and Residori, “ ‘Del fuggir la moltitudine’: Ne´oplatonisme et scepticisme dans le Malpiglio secondo du Tasse.” 8. This may be an allusion to the Concordia between Plato and Aristotle, promised and advertised by the Ferrarese philosopher Antonio Montecatini, with whom Tasso was on close personal terms. On Tasso and Montecatini see above Chapter 3, n. 66.

appendix d 1. I have compared S169 inf. with other manuscripts in Vimercato’s hands, which are part of the collection of the Ambrosiana: H 61 suss., L 130 suss., I 404 inf, n. 11. 5 inf. 2. In S169 inf. the first version of book III starts at f. 61r and the second at f. 405v. In S12 inf. only the second version (“Quoniam autem . . .”) was transcribed. 3. E.g., the first section of book II in S169 inf., at 319r, which was modified at 483v (modifying the version in S12 inf., 36v). See also the revised incipit of book III, S169 inf. 405v, where Vimercato adds in the margin “quamquam non verum et a religionis fide abhorrens,” in reference to the doctrine of the eternity of the world, which he claims to have demonstrated that Aristotle supports “firmioribus tunc et naturae magis consentaneis rationibus quam Platonis, qui [mundum] ortum censet.” 4. E.g., book I, which in S169 inf. runs for sixty folios (1r-60v), in S12inf. is only 36 folios (1r–36r), which correspond to the first 30 folios of S169 inf. The other thirty pages became then

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part of book VI, as found in S12 inf. 105r–141r, which is itself deeply modified from the version present in S169 inf. at 199r–247r. The rewriting of the new conclusion of book I can be found in S169 inf. 484r–483v [sic]. 5. Rozzo and Ferrari, “Un filosofo e bibliofilo milanese del ‘500: Cesare Rovida.” S12 inf. was also possibly part of Rovida’s bequest, but unfortunately we do not possess a catalog of what he gave to the Ambrosiana, which not only makes it difficult to identify the texts that were originally in Rovida’s collection, but also at times creates misunderstandings about the authorship of the works in his bequest. A nineteenth-century inscription on the cover of S 169 inf., in fact, attributes the text to Rovida; but this attribution is totally unfounded (and as Rozzo and Ferrari, “Un filosofo e bibliofilo,” 103, pointed out on the basis of paleographical evidence, the attribution to Rovida of several manuscripts in the Ambrosiana cannot be accepted). This is no doubt what happened with S.169 inf. Also Filippo Argelati, to whom we owe most of our information on Rovida, does not list among the works ascribed to Rovida a comparatio between Plato and Aristotle. See his Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, 2: 1249–1250. On Rovida as a commentator of Aristotle see Lohr, Latin Aristotle Commentaries, 3: 391–394. 6. This connection between Ferrari and Vimercato was suggested as early as in 1608 by de Thou in his Historiarum sui temporis libri VI, II.5: 232, and it was reprised in Argelati, Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, I.2: 610. 7. I 404 inf. (see Rozzo and Ferrari, “Un filosofo e un bibliofilo,” 110), and I 405 inf. (Commentarii in Aristotelem).

bibliography

manuscripts Florence, Archivio di Stato Fondo Mediceo del Principato

London, British Library Burney 366 (Casaubon Papers)

Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana G 284 inf. H 61 suss. I 404 inf. I 405 inf. L 130 suss. N 11.5 inf. S 12 inf. S 87 sup. S 169 sup.

Paris, BNF Lat. 2201 Lat. 6330

Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Codex 435

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index

Abelard, Peter, 159 Aeschylus, 146 Agnello, Scipione, 47 Agrippa, Cornelius, 194n4 Albert the Great, 127, 140, 159, 185n23 Alcinous, 13, 37, 61 Aldobrandini, Ippolito, 69 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 12, 21, 29, 40, 45, 73, 82, 124 Alexander the Great, 91, 114 Al-Farabi, 14 Alighieri, Dante, 76, 210n4 Allen, Woody, 139 Ambrose, 157 Antiochus of Ascalona, 13 Aquario, Mattia, 46–47 Aquinas, Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas Aretino, Pietro, 141 Argyropoulos, John, 188n85 Aristotle: Categories, 117; On the Soul, 18, 29, 43, 46; On the Heavens, 24, 67, 129–30, 132, 134–37, 147, 173, 177; Eudemian Ethics, 45; Metaphysics, 18, 25, 57, 59, 87, 141; Meteorology, 57, 67, 124; Nicomachean Ethics, 1, 19, 21, 40, 107, 153; On Generation and Corruption, 110; On Generation of Animals, 131; Physics, 26, 51, 57, 67, 75, 89, 177; Poetics, 9, 143–46, 148; Rhetoric, 118; Topics, 95. See also Pseudo-Aristotle Arius, 53 Arroy, Be´sian, 93–95 Ashwardby, John, 96 Atticus, 14 Augustine, 12, 37, 45, 52, 116–17, 157, 199n83 Austen, Jane, 210n5 Averroes, 19, 21, 29, 45, 52, 70, 73, 85, 98, 140–41

Avicenna, 85 Badoer, Jacopo, 144–45 Baffo, Bernardo, 151–52 Balbi, Girolamo, 27, 115 Bandeco, Daniel, 92 Barberini, Maffeo, 128 Bardi, Girolamo, 76 Baronio, Cesare, 48, 159 Bartolocci, Guido, 90–92 Basil, 17, 151 Bate, Henri, 12 Bayle, Pierre, 90, 151 Bellarmino, Roberto, 48, 97–99 Beni, Paolo, 49–50, 52, 69 Benzi, Ugo, 17–18 Bernard of Chartres, 11 Bernardi della Mirandola, Antonio, 118–20 Bessarion, Basil, 7, 23–31, 35–38, 40, 43, 48, 59, 63, 70, 79, 89, 179, 185n7, 200n83 Biancani, Giuseppe, 135 Bianchi, Luca, 9, 184n18 Bibago, Abraham ben Shem Tov, 84 Boccadiferro, Ludovico, 194n4 Boethius, 11–12, 15–16, 63 Bollhagen, Lorenz David, 91–92 Bonamico, Lazzaro, 62 Borri, Girolamo, 72 Boscagli, Cosimo, 76 Bo¨ttiger, Johann Christoph, 91–92 Bovio, Girolamo, 67–68 Bracciolini, Poggio, 187n62 Bradwardine, Thomas, 115 Brahe, Tycho, 128 Bruni, Leonardo, 12–13, 21, 139 Buratelli, Gabriele, 45

256

Index

Burghesio, Claudio, 197n40 Bury, Richard de, 111–12 Cabeo, Niccolo`, 94–95 Calamy, Edmund, 96 Calanna, Pietro, 193n60 Calcidius, 13 Calvenus Taurus, 13 Calvin, John, 102, 104 Camerota, Giovanni, 135 Campanella, Tommaso, 124–26, 147 Camuzio, Andrea, 43–44 Cano, Melchior, 113 Cardano, Girolamo, 99, 124 Cardoso, Isaac, 90 Carpenter, Nathanael, 122, 147 Carpocrates, 159 Casaubon, Isaac, 76 Cattani da Diacceto, Francesco, 34–35, 194n4 Cervantes, Miguel de, 115 Cesarini, Virginio, 50 Cesi, Federico, 128 Champier, Symphorien, 41–43 Chariander, Georgius. See Henish, Georg Charon, 104 Charpentier, Jacques, 61 Chiaravalle, Agostino, 190n9 Chiari, Pietro, 145 Christ, 20, 37, 98–100, 117–19, 144 Ciampoli, Giovanni, 50 Cicero, 13, 85, 115, 117, 148, 178, 184n1 Clearchus of Soli, 86 Clement of Alexandria, 91, 157 Clement VIII, 48, 69 Comenius, Jan, 212n26 Conventi, Stefano, 45 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 127 Cornaeus, Melchior, 101–8, 137–38 Corneille, Pierre, 184n1 Cottunio, Giovanni, 89 Crispo, Giovan Battista, 48, 69 Cuoco, Vincenzo, 152 Da Monte, Giovan Battista, 66 Dannahuer, Johann Conrad, 106–8, 138 Da Ponte, Girolamo, 62 David, 161 Descartes, Rene´, 16, 77–78, 120 Digby, Kenelm, 202n124 Diogenes Laertius, 178 Donato, Bernardino, 38–41, 43–44

Doody, Margaret, 100 Duˆchatel, Pierre, 54 Duns Scotus, John, 47, 140, 159 Elijah, 51 Epicurus, 24, 99 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 115 Eusebius of Caesarea, 14, 46, 86, 90–91, 93 Evoli, Cesare, 47 Farissol, Abraham, 84, 88 Ferchio, Mattia, 88–90 Ferrari, Ottaviano, 181 Ferrer, Vincent, 159 Ficino, Marsilio, 31, 33–36, 43, 48–49, 57, 72–73, 86, 194n4, 195n19 Filelfo, Francesco, 31 Flacius Illyricus, Matthias, 95–96 Flandino, Ambrogio, 38 Foglietta, Uberto, 184n3 Fonseca, Pedro de, 48, 51, 159 Fornari, Callisto, 38, 40, 43 Forster, Michael, 146 Fox-Morcillo, Sebastian, 44–45 Francis I, 55, 59 Francis Xavier, 104 Fumano, Adamo, 38, 40 Gaffarel, Jacques, 87 Galante, Livio, 50 Gale, Thomas, 91–92 Galen, 41, 98–100, 115–16 Galilei, Galileo, 1, 49–50, 109–11, 116, 126–37, 147–48 Garber, Daniel, 126 Gassendi, Pierre, 9, 16, 77–78, 88, 121–22, 126, 147–48 Gatti, Giovanni, 28 Gaza, Theodore, 23, 26–27 Gedaliah Ibn Yahia, 86–88, 90–91, 93 Ge´ne´brard, Gilbert, 86 Genua, Marcantonio, 62 George of Trebizond, 7, 22–32, 36–38, 41, 43, 53, 79, 86, 89, 199–200n83 Gerard of Cremona, 23 Giannini, Tommaso, 199n83 Gibboni, Mattia de’. See Aquario, Mattia Giles of Viterbo, 37 Giraldi Cinzio, Giambattista, 141 Goldoni, Carlo, 145 Gregory XIV, 71

Index Gregory of Nazianzus, 17, 157 Gregory the Theologian. See Gregory of Nazianzus Gruet, Jacques, 96 Guiniggi, Vincenzo, 143–44, 146 Hamel, Jean-Baptiste du, 77–78 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, 152 Henish, Georg, 40–41 Henric-Petri, Adam, 40 Henry IV, 62 Herbet, Jean, 94 Herder, Gottfried, 146 Hermes Trismegistus, 71 Herodotus, 27 Hesdin, Jean de, 85 Hippocrates, 41 Hobbes, Thomas, 151 Holcot, Robert, 210n7 Homer, 145 Horace, 145 Hornius, Georg, 212n26 Iamblichus, 21, 37, 68 James I, 97–98 Jeremiah, 52, 157 Jobs, Steve, 210n5 John of Hildesheim, 96 John of Salisbury, 11 Jolles, Andre´, 100 Kant, Immanuel, 2, 152 Kepler, Johannes, 127 King, Martin Luther, 210n5 Kraye, Jill, 2, 184n18 Kunz, Otmar, 41 Kydones, Demetrios, 220n118 Lachtermann, David, 198n56 Lando, Bassiano, 66 Lando, Ortensio, 192n42 Le Clerc, Jean, 91 Leemans, Johan, 152 Le Ferron, Arnaul, 179 Lefe`vre d’E´taples, Jacques, 43, 55, 117–18 Leibniz, Gottfried, 202n124 Lejeune, Jean, 96 Levitin, Dmitri, 2 Liceti, Fortunio, 87–90, 93, 109, 133–34 Lines, David A., 184n18

257

Lipsius, Justus, 76 Locke, John, 2 Lohr, Charles, H., 184n18 Lollino, Luigi, 64 Longo, Gian Bernardino, 62 Lovejoy, Arthur O., 184n24 Loyola, Ignacio de, 106, 144 Lubitsch, Ernst, 210n5 Luca de Tuy, 84 Lucian of Samosata, 108 Luther, Martin, 9, 102, 104, 107, 141, 191n15 Maggi, Vincenzo, 62, 67 Maidstone, Richard, 96 Maresius, Samuel, 95 Marta, Giacomo Antonio, 125 Martin, Craig, 2 Marzio, Galeotto, 140 Maurus Abonycer, 127 Maximus of Tyre, 179 Mayer, Johann Friedrich, 92 Mazzoni, Jacopo, 7–8, 69, 74–76 McLuhan, Marshall, 139 Medici, Ferdinando de’, 76 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 33 Meijns, Brigitte, 152 Melanchton, Philipp, 191n15 Melissus, 29, 70 Mena, Juan de, 85 Merula, Giorgio, 140 Mill, John Stuart, 2 Mocenigo, Filippo, 197n40 Modena, Leon, 87 Mohammed, 24 Moncetti, Benedetto, 190n9 Monfasani, John, 184n18 Montaigne, Michel de, 151, 184n17 Monte, Lambertus de, 107 Montecatini, Antonio, 62, 67–69, 223n8 Moses, 4–5, 8, 20, 31, 48, 50, 57, 78, 88, 93–100, 157 Nardi, Bruno, 184n18 Nashe, Thomas, 141 Naude´, Gabriel, 87 Nazareus, 157 Newton, Isaac, 212n28 Niccoli, Niccolo`, 139 Nifo, Agostino, 55 Nikephoros Gregoras, 15, 18, 20 Nobili, Flaminio, 62

258

Index

Nogueira, Vicente de, 87 Nores, Cesare de, 197n40 Nougaret, Pierre-Jean-Baptiste, 146 Numenius, 157 O’Neal, Shaquille, 153 Origenes, 53 Orsini, Paolo Giordano, 135 Palaeologus, John, 186n49 Palaeologus, Manuel II, 220n118 Palmer, Ada, 2 Pandolfi, Alfonso, 9, 50, 156–57 Pansa, Muzio, 48 Parmenides, 29, 70 Patrizi, Francesco, 7, 49, 69–72, 76, 81 Paul, 17, 27, 161 Pellegrini, Tommaso, 64, 197n40 Pendasio, Federico, 10, 62, 66–67, 71–72, 74, 162–63 Pereira, Benito, 48 Perissol, Abraham Sapienza. See Farissol, Abraham Perotti, Niccolo`, 31 Peter, 17 Peter Lombard, 79 Petrarch, Francesco, 7, 12, 85, 116, 120, 141, 148 Philip II of Spain, 44 Philoponus, 68 Piccart, Michael, 142 Piccinardi, Serafino, 89 Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, 178 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 33–35, 44, 63, 178–79 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, 9, 139 Piccolomini, Francesco, 62–65 Pinelli, Gian Vincenzo, 198n56 Pio, Rodolfo, 38, 190n11 Pius II. See Piccolomini, Enea Silvio Pizan, Christine de, 114 Plato, Alcibiades II, 37; Hipparchus, 73; Laws, 24, 28; Meno, 13; Parmenides, 13, 24, 33–34; Phaedo, 13; Phaedrus, 19, 24, 28, 51; Philebus, 37; Republic, 27; Sophist, 33; Symposium, 24, 28; Teetetus, 139; Timaeus, 13, 19, 49, 57, 66, 94, 163, 165, 169, 189n97 Pletho, George Gemistus, 8, 15–26, 30, 36–38, 40–41, 79 Pliny the Elder, 84 Plotinus, 21, 27, 31, 33, 46, 73

Plutarch, 179 Poliziano, Angelo, 33 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 119, 151, 211n10 Porphyry, 14 Porre´e, Gilbert de la, 159 Porzio, Simone, 151 Possevino, Antonio, 48, 112 Proclus, 13, 21, 27, 37, 49, 82, 179 Protagoras, 139 Pseudo-Aristotle, De mundo, 59; Problemata, 118; Theologia Aristotelis, 14, 46, 61 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, 27, 31, 43, 82 Purnell Jr., Frederick, 7–8, 64, 75 Pythagoras, 89, 157 Quintilian, 184n1 Quirini, Lauro, 21 Racine, Jean, 184n1 Raey, Jean de, 202n124 Raffar, Vincent, 61–62 Ramus, Petrus, 9, 54, 59–62, 123–24, 126, 147 Raphael, 6 Rapin, Rene´, 77–78 Rheticus, Georg Joaquim, 127 Rico, Francisco, 84 Rivinus, Andreas, 201n118 Roccabella, Gianfilippo, 193n68 Rocco, Antonio, 133–34 Rogers, G. A. J., 2 Rohault, Jacques, 215n63 Roosevelt, Theodore, 210n5 Rossi, Azariah de’, 86–87, 90, 93 Rossi, Ettore de’, 190n11 Rossi, Gian Girolamo de’, 190n11 Rovida, Cesare, 180–81 Saccano, Ludovico, 188n85 Sacrati, Francesco, 144 Sagri, Francesco Maria, 76 Savoia, Maurizio di, 50 Scala, Bartolomeo, 187n65 Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 194n78 Scheiner, Christoph, 128–29, 135–37 Schmitt, Charles B., 6, 9, 184n18 Scholarius, Gennadius, 19–20, 22, 27, 37, 41 Scutellius, Nicolaus, 37–38, 40 Serughi, Vincenzo, 193n60 Sextus Empiricus, 178 Shakespeare, William, 146, 184n1

Index Shem Tov, Ioseph ben, 84, 88 Simplicius, 12, 14, 21, 46, 63, 81–82 Socrates, 63, 93, 101, 157 Sophocles, 145–46 Sorel, Charles, 125–26 Sorell, Tom, 2 Squarciafico, Girolamo, 220n107 Stefani, Giovanni, 191n19 Steuco, Agostino, 45, 47–48, 123 Sua`rez, Francisco, 97–99 Syrianus, 21 Syropoulos, Silvester, 17 Tasso, Torquato, 179 Tassoni, Alessandro, 214n50 Taurellus, Nicolaus, 119–20 Telesio, Bernardino, 125 Tertullianus, 157, 161 Thales, 131 Themistius, 21 Theodoretus, 41 Theodorus Metochites, 15, 18, 20, 30 Theodosianus, 159 Theophrastus, 21 Thespis, 146 Thomas Aquinas, 12, 20, 23, 28, 46–47, 52, 78, 105, 140, 159, 185n23 Thomasius, Jacob, 202n124 Tiepolo, Stefano, 64–65 Toland, John, 151 Toledo, Francisco de, 48

259

Tomasi, Carlo, 76 Turchi, Niccolo`, 62 Urban VIII. See Barberini, Maffeo Valier, Agostino, 197n40 Valla, Lorenzo, 184n1, 187n62 Valletta, Giuseppe, 8, 78–80, 152, 221n129 Verino, Francesco. See Vieri, Francesco de’ Vico, Giambattista, 8 Vieri, Francesco de’, 62, 72–76 Vimercato, Francesco, 7, 10, 54–62, 64, 71, 79, 123, 180 Vives, Juan Luis, 9, 121, 126, 140–141, 148 Voltaire, 184n1 Warburg, Aby, 6 Weigel, Erhard, 202n124 Welser, Mark, 128–129 Whitehead, Alfred North, 110 Wilkins, John, 127 William of Moerbecke, 12–13 Zamora, Juan Gil de, 84–85 Zapf, Gottfried, 106–8 Ziegler, Jacob, 41 Zimara, Marcantonio, 197n38 Zimara, Teofilo, 197n38 Zirclaria, Thomasin von, 114 Zorzi, Francesco, 97, 100 Zwinger, Theodore, 40, 190n108

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acknowledgments

The idea of writing this book arrived when I was invited to speak at the Seminar in the Renaissance at Wesleyan University by Francesco Marco Aresu and Nadia Aksamija. I thank them for the stimulating atmosphere of that meeting and for their intellectual generosity. The material on which this book is based was collected during several years of research at different institutions where I had the privilege to study and work: the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, the E´cole normale supe´rieure in Paris, Villa I Tatti in Florence, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbu¨ttel, the Huntington Library in Pasadena, and Warwick University (United Kingdom). Crucial support was also provided by the Alice Paul Center, the Center for Italian Studies and the Romance Languages Department at the University of Pennsylvania. The cultural vibrancy at Penn was a source of constant inspiration, and I wish to thank in particular all my colleagues in the Italian section of the Romance Languages Department, the participants in the Alice Paul Center seminar, the participants in the Classical Studies Department Colloquia series, the participants of the “Strategies of Authority” conference (April 2018), and the Global Medieval and Renaissance community. Penn Libraries were extremely generous in supporting my research, and I wish to thank in particular Lynne Farrington, Eri Mizukane, William Noel, John Pollack, and Lynn Ransom. I also wish to thank my graduate and undergraduate students, who embraced my passion for Aristotelianism, guiding me to uncover new questions and new answers. Many other colleagues helped me in different ways during the redaction of the manuscript, providing me with advice, bibliographical suggestions, and moral support: Niall Atkinson, Luca Bianchi, Christopher Celenza, Federica Caneparo, Anna Corrias, Rocco di Dio, Simone Fellina, Irene Fosi, George Karamanolis, David A. Lines, Giancarlo Lombardi, Marcella Marongiu, Jozef Matula, John Monfasani, Cynthia Pyle and the participants of the Columbia Renaissance Seminar, Meredith Ray,

262

Acknowledgments

Andrea Robiglio, Walter Stephens and his graduate students, Giovanni Tarantino, and Maude Vanhaelen. I also wish to thank all my colleagues at I Tatti, Wolfenbu¨ttel, Pasadena, and Warwick; the participants of the conference “Harmony and Conflict” (University College London, June 2018); the librarians at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (especially Dr. Serventi), the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca Fondazione Cariparma di Busseto (especially Dr. Dotti), the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, the Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea in Ferrara (especially Dr. Bonazza), the University of Pennsylvania, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbu¨ttel, the Huntington Library in Pasadena. Michele Ciliberto has always been an invaluable mentor to me from the time I decided to become an intellectual historian. Barbara Pugliese, thank you for our conversations in Palazzo Pitti. Jill Kraye and Craig Martin have been the readers one could only dream of: thank you for improving my book in so many ways. Giuseppe BrunoChomin and Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia, along with Mauro Calcagno, provided invaluable feedback on the manuscript and much more. I wish to thank Edward Chappell for revising my translations in the appendixes. Preparing my manuscript under the guidance of Jerry Singerman has been both a pleasure and an honor. Noreen O’Connor-Abel, Otto Bohlmann, Zoe Kovacs, and Gavriella Fried from University of Pennsylvania Press made this book better with their intelligence and insight. I also express my gratitude for the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Publication Grant, a generous contribution that Villa I Tatti has provided for this book. This book is dedicated to many people: to my wonderful, dear friend Simona Mercuri; to my two Biancas, my beautiful grandmother and my beautiful daughter; to my parents, Giulia and Fabrizio, who made the book possible, taking care of young Bianca, along with Amanda the dog, and who taught me that there is always a good battle to fight; and finally, for my husband, Peter, for the way he looks and smiles at me every day. A brief section of Chapter 3 was previously published in “Francesco Vimercato’s De placitis naturalibus Platonis et Aristotelis, ac inter eos de illis consensione et dissensione,” Rinascimento 52 (2012): 117–177. A brief section of Chapter 4 was previously published in “Saving the Philosopher’s Soul: The De pietate Aristotelis by Fortunio Liceti,” Journal of the History of Ideas 78 (2017): 531–547. I thank both journals for permission to use these materials.