Copernicus’s De revolutionibus and Girolamo Fracastoro’s Homocentrica were both addressed to Pope Paul III. Their dedicatory letters represent a rhetorical exercise in advocating an astronomical reform and an attempt to obtain the papal favour. Following on from studies carried out by Westman and Barker & Goldstein, this paper deals with cultural, intellectual and scientific motives of both texts, and aims at underlining possible relations between them, such as that Copernicus knew of Fracastoro’s Homocentrica, and that at least (...) part of the rhetorical strategy laid out in De revolutionibus’s dedicatory letter can be read as a sophisticated response to Fracastoro’s arguments.Keywords: Copernicus; Fracastoro; Paul III; History of astronomy; Patronage. (shrink)

This essay deals with Girolamo Fracastoro’s ensouled cosmology. His Homocentrica sive de stellis (1538), an astronomy of concentric spheres, was discussed by the Padua School of Aristotelians. Since the polemics over the immortality of the human soul, which had famously opposed Pomponazzi to Nifo, psychological discussions—including those about heavenly spheres’ souls—raised heated controversies. Fracastoro discussed the foundations of his homocentric planetary theory in a dialogue titled Fracastorius, sive de anima (1555). In a 1531 exchange with Gasparo Contarini, (...) Fracastoro discussed celestial physics, including problems linked to mathematical analysis of physical causation. Contarini expressed his doubts over Fracastoro’s lack of consideration of Aristotelian viewpoints on heavenly souls and intelligences. Fracastoro offered an account of cosmic animation in his later dialogue “On the Soul,” taking a different path than his Paduan teachers. He picked up the Platonic idea of the “world soul,” freely connecting it with Aristotelian views about the ensouled cosmos of concentric spheres, resulting in an eclectic composition of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Averroistic elements. Fracastoro grounded his renewed mathematical astronomy on an understanding of the cosmos as a living whole. His animated homocentric cosmos represented a development of Aristotelian premises and a step beyond this legacy. (shrink)

[1. Without special title] -- [2]. Anastatica.

SummaryThe Enlightened theory of civilisation was expressed through the formula of ‘doux commerce’, a form of commerce which acknowledged the need for the European conquest of non-European lands and nations, and the opportunity to bring European civilisation to other peoples without violence. Montesquieu was the first to express this idea, condemning the Spanish conquest and empire. In the Histoire des deux Indes, this idea was dramatically discussed: Raynal wanted to defend it; Diderot dismantled this project showing that civilisation was but (...) the mask of violent conquest. In this way the latter offered an extraordinary refutation of both Enlightened ideology and its strategy of civilisation. (shrink)

SummaryThe problem of converting the Amerindian world to Catholicism was given a radically new solution, both at a theoretical and a missionary level, by the Jesuit Acosta: since American societies were of a completely different nature to Mediterranean ones, the preaching of the Gospel, too, had to be different from the classical approach. He gave a new definition to both preaching and American societies, especially the latter's religion and social organisation. Acosta's approach to American sauvagerie was pioneering; he conceptualised ideas (...) that had never been thought of before. There existed societies which were neither barbarous nor political (like the empires of Incan Peru and Aztec Mexico), which nonetheless had social organisation. With regard to their religious life, Acosta maintained that cult and belief without faith was not a sign of atheism, but of an early form of religion. These two reassessments gave rise to a new image of the savage society, which attained enormous success, even outside the missionary world. Fitting the theological structure into the secularised theories of radical enlightenment, both Locke and Hume had recourse to the ethnologic aspects which Acosta had set out. (shrink)

Benedetto Croce was the author of the most important and original theory of history in the 20th century. His theory was that of ‘absolute historicism’, and this necessarily entailed an acute critique of inherited ideas about the Enlightenment. This article studies both Croce's theoretical analysis of Enlightenment and his historical analysis of the Neapolitan Enlightenment. Croce's interest in the Enlightenment had political as well as philosophical roots. All over Europe in the 1920s and 1930s historical and theoretical research was occurring (...) into in the Age of Enlightenment. The broad goal of such research was to bring forth a new concept of reason, which would have purchase in the contemporary debate about rationalism and irrationalism. This debate, which flourished in the era of totalitarian regimes, raised a series of further questions: What was culture? What was the task of culture in the fight against political irrationalism? What was the relationship between culture and the growth of public opinion? With respect to the latter relationship an important role was played by intellectuals, as evinced by the works of Benda, Max Weber and Croce himself. The genealogy of the modern intelligentsia led again to Enlightenment. In the third part of the article Croce's position on this issue is discussed in the light of his historical researches on Enlightenment by reference to his correspondence with two young historians, Delio Cantimori and Franco Venturi. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article outlines the concept of the early modern idea of religion through the notion of sacrifice, from Socinus on through Grotius and Spinoza to Diderot’s Encyclopedia. It is generally held that the philosophical representation of religion of the seventeenth century ‘set the stage’ for later Enlightenment philosophers. My argument runs in a different direction. I intend to show that the Enlightenment philosophers’ concept of religious history stemmed not only from the philosophical tradition, but also from their knowledge of (...) antiquarianism. In order to understand the genealogy of the Enlightenment idea of religion it is essential to acknowledge its roots in the antiquarian history of religions of the seventeenth century when a new idea of religious belief emerged with practice of sacrifice at its core. Grotius and the antiquarians inquired into whether religion was a universal phenomenon, what were its categories – such as belief and sacrifice – and the truth and falsehood of these. Diderot considered this history of sacrifice and ceremonies as the fundamental ‘deed’ of the religious experience, which he analysed employing both the philosophical and the historical perspectives through the category of fetishism. (shrink)

One of the key concepts in XVIII century political thought was despotism. Also Diderot utilised this complex idea. According to him, who followed Hobbes and Montesquieu, despotism was the result of the love of power, which was able to bring forth the passion of fear in the society. In this sense, Machiavelli belonged to this line of reflection: like that of Hobbes, his system was intended to show the danger of despotism and to learn the true foundation of natural law. (...) But rethinking this paradox Diderot was led to elaborate a new theory of despotism, no longer based on the mechanism of power. His interpretation of Machiavelli – and Hobbes – had opened up a new perspective, which did not move from the enigma of power – Machiavelli's and Hobbes’ chief concern – but from the nature of subjection. Along this path Diderot came across de la Boëtie's Discours de la servitude volontaire, which explained the origin of despotism in a different way. Despotism was not the result of the passion of fear, but of that of interest. The discussion of these two different ideas of despotism led Diderot to a new perspective from which he answered the problem of liberty in an original way. (shrink)

v. 1. Compendium logicae. Apologeticus de ratione poeticae artis. Trattato contra li astrologi -- v. 2. Compendium philosophiae naturalis, Compendium philosophiae moralis.

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Tra gli intellettuali italiani della seconda metà del Novecento, Norberto Bobbio ha giocato un ruolo di grande importanza. Girolamo Cotroneo è intervenuto, spesso in maniera polemica per discutere le posizioni assunte da Bobbio di fronte ai problemi più pressanti del dibattito politico. Ad ognuno degli interventi Bobbio ha replicato con una lettera privata all’autore. Quegli articoli e le lettere di Bobbio sono contenute ora in questo volume che costituisce un prezioso documento per una maggiore conoscenza di taluni aspetti del (...) dibattito politico italiano di un passato recente. (shrink)