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Renaissance, Francesco Patrizi of Cherso (1529-1597) was a leading critic of the dominant
Aristotelianism of the times. Not to be confused with the earlier humanist and political
theoretician, Francesco Patrizi of Siena (1413-1494), Patrizi of Cherso focused his attention
on a wide variety of philosophical, scientific, artistic and literary issues, providing in his
“New Philosophy” a major alternative to earlier schools of thought and a model which later
thinkers such as Galileo Galilei no doubt found valuable in developing the mathematized
physics which would prove the dominant force in the rise of early modern science. In
addition, Patrizi's research into the history of ancient and medieval philosophical sources as
an essential part of his method for establishing the legitimacy of his own position would make
those texts available to his contemporaries in a way they had never been before and serve as a
model for future generations of scholars. It also emphasized the centrality of the study of the
history of philosophy as an integral part of engaging in philosophical investigation in its own
right.
Based on the published and unpublished works he wrote during his career, it is clear that
Patrizi's range of interests was quite broad, reflecting both the artistic, historical and literary
influence Renaissance humanism continued to enjoy in scholarly circles during the sixteenth
century as well as the emergence of a devotion to practical scientific and engineering issues
on the part of many philosophers. A brief survey of his works amply reveals the scope of his
concerns [see Bibliography]. Among his earliest publications was a collection of works which
appeared at Venice in 1553, including his utopian “The Happy City” (La città felice), a
dialogue on honor (Il Barignano) and a discourse on the diversity of poetic inspirations
(Discorso della diversità de' furori poetici). He composed poetic works of his own. In 1560
he published his ten dialogues on history and, two years later, ten dialogues on rhetoric. He
also engaged in exchanges on literary subjects with some of the leading authors of his day.
It was not until 1571 that Patrizi put forward his first major philosophical work in a more
narrowly construed sense, when the first part of his “Peripatetic Discussions” (Discussiones
peripateticae) appeared at Venice; a greatly expanded version would be published at Basel ten
years later. The Discussiones would constitute one of Patrizi's most important contributions to
Renaissance philosophy. It provided a thoroughgoing analysis and critique of Aristotle's
thought, which continued to be the most influential source in theological as well as secular
philosophical settings in the sixteenth century. In addition to taking on the leading
philosophical tradition of his day, Patrizi's work would serve as the basis for his own
development of an anti-Aristotelian philosophy in the years ahead. [see section 2].
By actively seeking to compare Aristotle's philosophical views with those of other ancient
thinkers, the Discussiones earns Patrizi a place in the history of a major philosophical genre
which has its roots in classical antiquity and which flourished again during the late fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, in large part due to the increased availability of translations and
commentaries of the works of Plato and other ancient sources. This ‘Comparatio’ tradition
would not only attain popularity in printed works but would provide an alternative model for
teaching philosophy and natural science in university settings, where Peripatetic views had
long held the field. Unlike the ‘Conciliatio’ approach adopted by such thinkers as Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, which sought to reconcile the apparent differences between the
teachings of Plato and Aristotle, authors like Patrizi and contemporaries such as Jacopo
Mazzoni and Paolo Beni attempted to use a direct confrontation of the opposing views as a
method for arriving at a position which was most defensible philosophically. In his own major
works Patrizi did not hesitate to emphasize his opposition to Aristotelianism and his
preference for a Platonic approach. [see section 3.]
The publication of the Discussiones did not by any means signal an end to Patrizi's broader
literary and historical interests, however. In 1583 he published a major study on the ancient
Roman army, based on his reading of Polybius, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
following it up a decade later with a two-volume comparison of ancient Roman military
tactics and strategies with those of his own day, probably in attempt to encourage an
improvement in Italian military standing. He translated works of Platonic thinkers such as
Proclus, the pseudo-John Philoponus, and various tracts in magical philosophy, now
recognized as spurious, which were associated with the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes
Trismegistus and his followers. His attention to the latter sources placed him in the middle of
the growing debate on the authenticity and philosophical merit, if any, of the “ancient
theology” and the practice of spiritual and demonic magic by such contemporary thinkers as
the unfortunate Giordano Bruno. [see section 4].
Shortly before being called to Rome by Pope Clement VIII to teach Platonic philosophy at the
University of Rome, the Sapienza, Patrizi published the first edition of his philosophical
masterpiece, the Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara, 1591; an edition with significant
variants was printed at Venice with a spurious retrodating of 1593). In sum, it brings together
many of the major themes that had dominated his philosophical career: the opposition to
Aristotle and the Peripatetic philosophical method, the admiration for Platonism as a
philosophical alternative, together with the incorporation of insights derived from other
ancient and modern sources to form a novel system that Patrizi was proud to call his own and
seek to have established as a new basis for philosophical instruction in the universities of
Europe. Not surprisingly, opposition to his goals was determined, with critics on both the
theological and philosophical sides voicing their concerns. In spite of his having produced a
series of emendations in response to criticisms by theological and philosophical critics, his
work was condemned by the Congregation of the Index of prohibited Books “until corrected”
in 1592. He was to spend the last years of his life trying to defend his views, which in some
cases hindsight shows to have pointed toward some of the ways in which science and
philosophy would move in the Seventeenth Century and beyond. [see section 5.]
2. Critique of Aristotelianism
Given that his earliest development of an interest in logic and philosophy occurred at the
University of Padua, it is surely no surprise that a close familiarity with the works of Aristotle
and his interpreters would form a major part of his training. It is perhaps worth stressing that
in philosophy as in other areas such as art, architecture, science and literature, the Renaissance
was a “retrospective” age. From roughly the mid-Fourteenth through the late Sixteenth
centuries, many of the leading scholars of Europe were engaged in attempting to recover the
high levels of skills and learning that characterized late classical antiquity. Humanists trained
in the ancient languages sought to recover texts which had been lost or ignored for a
millennium or more. We owe the very concept of the “Middle Ages” (not to mention the more
pejorative notion of the “dark ages”) to this movement. Patrizi's early mastery of Greek and
his interest in assembling a library of classical Greek manuscripts (Muccillo 1993) places him
well within the tradition of seeking to restore the legacy of antiquity as a precondition for
moving ahead to a “new” era.
Aristotle's works had, of course, been made available to scholars via translation from Greek
and Arabic sources during the medieval period (Twelfth through Fourteenth centuries), and a
familiarity with Aristotle's logic and natural philosophy became a requirement for an Arts
degree at medieval universities and thus an integral part of the training of those who wished to
pursue advanced studies in medicine, theology or canon or civil law. But the number of
philosophers or theologians who could access the Aristotelian corpus in the original Greek
was quite small, and there was an extensive body of works in Greek devoted to commentaries
and criticisms of the Stagirite's positions that would not become available to a majority of
readers until the Renaissance provided accessible translations. It is not surprising that Patrizi
devoted much of his time and effort to these endeavors, and his doing so would have a
profound effect on the way in which he and many of his contemporaries and successors would
come to interpret the Peripatetic system.
It is perhaps significant that Patrizi's earliest works, produced while he was still in close
contact with teachers and colleagues at Padua, reveal a far less critical view of Aristotle and
his doctrines than his later writings would, generally attempting to utilize Plato and other
earlier thinkers to complement rather than refute Peripatetic positions (see the article by F.
Bottin in the Other Internet Resources). In this regard, it is quite likely that Patrizi may be said
to have undergone a philosophical development from an earlier, more sympathetic, view of
Aristotle's philosophy to a more critical attitude as his familiarity with Platonic and other
earlier sources increased and he became aware of the debates among the contemporary
Aristotelians themselves, such as Pietro Pomponazzi and Agostino Nifo, over such basic
doctrines as the immortality of the soul and the nature of the physical cosmos. Add to this the
ongoing exchanges he had with thinkers committed to developing a philosophical and
scientific method outside both the Platonic and Aristotelian “mainstreams” and it becomes
clear why Patrizi came to play the major role he did in the move from an entrenched
Peripatetic approach to the search for a “new” method which would come to characterize the
leading philosophers and scientists of the Seventeenth Century and beyond.
Beginning with the first edition of his Discussiones peripateticae in 1571, Patrizi initiated a
more critical assessment of the character and philosophical reasoning of Aristotle than had
characterized his earlier writings. That work, followed by the expanded edition of 1581,
provided a close comparison of the views of Aristotle and Plato on a wide range of
philosophical issues, arguing that Plato's views were preferable on all counts (Kristeller 1964,
115), although it should be noted that the three books added to the 1581 edition exhibit a far
more aggressive tone than the initial edition. In addition, Patrizi echoes the theme put forward
earlier by Christian Platonists such as Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and his
own Renaissance predecessor Marsilio Ficino, that Platonism is more in harmony with
Church doctrine than the Stagirite's were. Later, by including the spurious work Theology of
Aristotle, derived largely from the Neoplatonist Plotinus, as an appendix to his Nova de
universis philosophia (1591), he implied that Aristotle in fact agreed with many of the
Platonic doctrines he openly attacked in his corpus of attributed works, thus suggesting an
underlying duplicity on Aristotle's part in order to bolster his own philosophic credentials as
an independent thinker. And Patrizi's own “novel” philosophical system would underscore the
anti-Aristotelian attitude he had expressed throughout his career.
What were some of the major issues on which Patrizi took Aristotle to task? In his Della
poetica (Aguzzi-Barbagli 1961-1971) he evaluated and rejected the Stagirite's analysis of
poetry as a form of imitation, seeking to replace it with his own view, influenced at least in
part by Platonic sources (Bolzoni 1980, 1983; Spedicati 1986). With regard to Aristotle's
views on metaphysics and natural philosophy, he rejected the notion that the three basic
“principles” of form, matter and privation could provide an adequate account of the nature of
being, especially given that matter was conceived in terms of pure potentiality and form as
incapable of existing except as embodied in a material substrate (Vasoli 1996). Within the
broader range of scientific and cosmological issues discussed in his major work on his “New”
philosophy, Patrizi rejects Aristotle's denial of the possibility of a vacuum, arguing instead for
a position closer to the atomistic view that a material void is possible, although couched in
terms of his own conception of space. In that work he would also argue for replacing the four
standard Aristotelian material elements – earth, air, fire and water – with his own alternatives
– space (spatium), light (lux), heat (calor) and humidity (fluor). He rejected the finitude of the
physical universe and the concept that heavenly bodies moved in conjunction with fixed
celestial spheres. In sum, by drawing upon a series of ancient, late medieval and Renaissance
sources, Patrizi sought to replace the dominant Aristotelianism of his era with a new and
challenging alternative – one which showed at many levels his preference for a Platonic
conception of reality.
3. Defense of Platonism
In rejecting the Peripatetic conceptions so dominant in philosophy and science, Patrizi was
clearly motivated not only by his desire to replace what he took to be incorrect views
contained in the Aristotelian works but by his wide reading and critical study of many of the
major sources associated with the Platonic tradition. In addition to the translations of and
commentaries on the Platonic dialogues and the works of Plotinus published by Marsilio
Ficino, Patrizi's knowledge of Greek gave him access to a body of writings from other
relevant authors. Besides translating John Philoponus' commentary on Aristotle's
Metaphysics, Proclus' Elements of Theology and Physical Elements, he was well versed in the
works of thinkers such as Antiochus of Ascalon, Cicero, Ammonius Saccas, Boethius and
Augustine, who actively sought to incorporate Platonic teachings as an essential part of their
own views, as well as Platonically-influenced contemporaries such as Francesco Verino il
Secondo and Jacopo Mazzoni. He argued actively for the replacement of Aristotle's works as
the model for philosophical and scientific education at the University level, and his holding
chairs in Platonic philosophy at both Ferrara and Rome indicates his success in bringing his
ideal to fruition.
What were some of the major advantages Patrizi felt Platonism had over Aristotelianism and
how does his own scientific-philosophical synthesis reflect this conviction? This is best
illustrated in his major work, the Nova de universis philosophia (Patrizi 1591, reprint with
variants dated 1593). The work consists of four major parts, combining, as he claims in the
title, Aristotelian, Patrizian and Platonic methods to produce a new philosophy. This new
system involves three stages, initially ascending, as Aristotle's had, to the First Cause, but not
by using motion to reach the “Unmoved Mover”, but rather by employing light (lux) and
illumination (lumen) to attain to the Father of Lights. Then the Patrizian method will provide
an analysis of the Divinity, followed by the employment of a Platonic method to show how all
creation is derived from God. Although on the surface such a program could be seen as falling
within the boundaries of the conciliatory model which many of his contemporaries used to
incorporate both Platonic and Aristotelian elements into their thought, a closer analysis
reveals the underlying Platonic nature of his undertaking.
The four major sections of the Nova … Philosophia are as follows: Panaugia, or “All-
Splendor”; Panarchia, or “All Principles”; Pampsychia, or “All-Soul” and Pancosmia, or
“All-Cosmos”. It has been emphasized (Kristeller 1964, 120) that Patrizi's selection of light as
the basis of his initial “Aristotelian” method of establishing the existence of God as “First
Light” involves a departure from an Aristotelian approach in favor of a more Platonic one,
although this has been called into question (Ryan 2002, 192-195). The key point seems to be
why light rather than motion is elevated by Patrizi to the status of the primary basis for an a
posteriori proof of God's existence as First Cause. From a Platonic perspective, the answer
seems clear. Plato's use of the Sun as the physical counterpart of the Good in the Republic and
his extensive use of visual metaphors for intellective processes (rather than, for example, the
tactile images that later Stoic thinkers would employ in arguing that the mind can “grasp”
certain appearances) strongly suggest that Patrizi was seeking to replace the Aristotelian
model with a Platonic one. The fact that the notion of “seeing” the truth would become
standard in later Platonic sources such as Plotinus and lead to the development of what has
been termed Neoplatonic Light Metaphysics only strengthens the case. In the Panaugia
Patrizi construes light as an intermediary between the corporeal and incorporeal realms. The
existence of light in the corporeal realm argues for the existence of a purely incorporeal light,
and indeed Patrizi construes God as the Lux Prima from which by illumination proceeds the
entire realm of incorporeal entities. God is also the ultimate source of corporeal light as well
(Vasoli 1991).
In contrast to the Panaugia's emphasis on the centrality of light, the Panarchia, constituting
as it does the initial application of the overtly “Patrizian” method mentioned in the title of the
work, builds upon a pattern more familiar to students of the Platonic tradition. Dedicated to
showing how the levels of reality flow from the ultimate cause, Patrizi's ontology draws upon
such Platonic predecessors as Plotinus, Proclus and Marsilio Ficino to present a ten-level
system. Beginning with God, whom he terms the “One-All” (Un'omnia), he establishes Unity,
Essence, Life, Intelligence, Soul, Nature, Quality, Form and Body as the succeeding
categories which constitute the incorporeal and corporeal universe. Such a pastiche would
doubtless resonate with students of the history of Platonism. God thus is viewed as having
both internal and external products in Patrizi's version of what might be termed the “chain of
being”.
The third section of the Nova … Philosophia, the Pampsychia, focuses on Soul as an
intermediary between the spiritual and corporeal realms. As has been pointed out (Kristeller
1964, 122), Soul thus plays a role similar to that assigned to Light in the Panaugia, but the
precise relationship between the two is not dealt with. The soul of an individual living being
has the same connection to its body as the World Soul has to the universe as a whole; thus the
Anima mundi is not simply a collection of individual souls but a separate entity which vivifies
the universe as a distinct reality.
The fourth and final part of Patrizi's work, the Pancosmia, shows how the physical world
derives its existence from the supramundane realities discussed previously and how a
“Platonic” method may be used to arrive at an understanding of the connections between the
two realms. Thus Patrizi puts forward a model for the understanding of the universe which
bridges the gap between philosophy and science and incorporates methodologies for
explaining physical and astronomical phenomena which would resonate with thinkers seeking
to establish an alternative approach to the study of nature from the largely qualitative analysis
embodied in Aristotle's natural philosophy. [see Section 5].
Patrizi's concern with early sources was not strictly scholarly or historical, as can readily be
seen by examining his works and the ways in which those texts were employed. An
independent thinker, he was willing to consider as wide a range of views as possible on
subjects of interest to him, whether they were scientific, philosophical, historical, or dealt with
concrete problems in engineering or hydrology. And he made use of them in his own way,
unwilling to adhere unquestioningly to the theories and practices of contemporaries who dealt
with the same works in different ways. To cite a concrete example, Patrizi accepted the
authenticity of the body of works attributed to the pseudo-Egyptian sage Hermes or Mercurius
Trismegistus, as had Marsilio Ficino before him and many of his own contemporaries, such as
Giordano Bruno (Yates 1964). He printed some Hermetic works and the Chaldaean Oracles
attributed to Zoroaster (Patrizi 1593). It was, ironically, within Patrizi's own lifetime that
serious textual and historical arguments would finally be put forward to undermine the
authority of many of these spurious works, and his own commitment to the authenticity of the
Hermetica can now be seen to have played a major role in leading some of his critics and
defenders to single out and publicize some of the historical and textual grounds for rejecting
them as spurious (Purnell 2002; Mulsow, ed. 2002).
But what is most interesting is that Patrizi did not employ these texts in the way that fanatical
Hermeticists like Bruno did, who saw therein a justification for the practice of spiritual and
demonic magic and a basis for undermining the authority of the Christian church as a
“triumphant beast”, perverting the “true” religion of the ancient Egyptians. Instead, Patrizi
found in those works themes which he felt would be echoed by “later” Greek authors such as
Plato and his followers, adding additional support to their appeal. Yet it is clearly no
coincidence that Patrizi's own difficulties with the Church over the Nova … Philosophia
would occur while Bruno was languishing in prison in Rome prior to his execution in
February 1600 and that Galileo Galilei and other innovative cosmologists would face similar
confrontations with the Congregation of the Index and the Inquisition.
Given the “retrospective” character of the Renaissance in general, it is not surprising that what
were believed to be the oldest texts to have survived from antiquity would enjoy the audience
they did. Such works would have a profound effect on how the more familiar and “standard”
philosophical and scientific sources were interpreted. And the coupling of critical
historiographical and etymological skills as developed by Renaissance humanists with the
philosophical and scientific interests of thinkers like Patrizi would usher in a new age of
systematic analysis of the intellectual legacy of the ancient world.
One can easily see numerous sources in the history of science which may have influenced
Patrizi's conception of the universe. The infinity of space and the existence of a vacuum were
maintained by the ancient atomists, and, as noted, the centrality of light as an intermediary
level between the corporeal and incorporeal has solid roots in the Platonic tradition. In some
ways Patrizi's cosmology may well reveal the influence of similar attacks on the Aristotelian
position put forward by his contemporary and correspondent, Bernardino Telesio of Cosenza.
But it is equally clear that his system represents his own unique blend of metaphysics and
physics. He does not embrace a Brunonian schema which couples the notion of an infinite
universe with that of an infinite number of world-systems spread throughout it. Patrizi's
universe is still geocentric, though it places the Earth at the center of an infinite expanse of
light-filled space beyond the material realm. And although it rejects the Sun-centered
universe, it does accept the Earth's diurnal rotation. An innovative production, it could hardly
help but influence later theories (Filippona La Bruna 1965; Grant 1981; Petković 2002).
Another fundamental distinction Patrizi introduces is that between mathematical and physical
space, a view which will have profound import for the main figures identified with early
modern thought, such as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Descartes and Leibniz. In Patrizi's system,
mathematical space is a pure reality, ontologically prior to all bodies; its primary unit is the
geometrical point. Physical space, on the other hand, contains bodies, which are not purely
three-dimensional geometrical forms, but provide the additional factor of resistance, a view
which can be seen as anticipating Leibniz's addition of the notion of force to Descartes'
conception of bodies as geometrically definable (Kristeller 1964, 123). Thus Patrizi can be
counted among the Renaissance thinkers such as Jacopo Mazzoni, Galileo's mentor at the
University of Pisa, who posited mathematics as prior to physics and quite probably opened the
doors to the mathematized physics which would come to dominate early modern science
(Purnell 1972; Wallace 1998). Yet for Patrizi it is geometry which is the most valuable tool
for the study of the physical world, not arithmetic. Perhaps oddly for someone with a
background so deeply rooted in Platonism, Patrizi considered numbers to be merely products
of thought, not constitutive or revelatory of the ultimate character of the natural world.
Perhaps it would take the development of analytic geometry to alter such a view in due
course.
Although space was put forward as the main principle of the physical, the three derivative
principles also play important roles in Patrizi's model. The primary occupant of space is light;
from it in turn heat is produced, which is construed as a formal and active principle. It is
probably no coincidence that heat had been one of the three basic principles underlying his
colleague Telesio's system of nature, together with cold and matter, although Telesio's was a
qualitative rather than quantifiable universe, as Patrizi's would be. The final constituent of
Patrizi's physics is humidity (fluor), which is passive and material and somewhat akin to the
elements associated with pre-Socratic thinkers such as Empedocles.
Bibliography
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