A sixteenth-century Neoplatonic synthesis: Francesco Piccolomini's theory of mathematics and imagination in theAcademicae contemplationes

Abstract

AbstractThe metamathematical framework of the early modern period is primarily determined by two presuppositions stemming from the Aristotelian tradition: (1) mathematical objects are abstracted from sensible matter; (2) imagination is a reproductive faculty exclusively connected with the sensible realm. The recovery of the works of the Greek commentators confronted the early modern readers with rivalling philosophical–mathematical views that explicitly called into question some of their previously undisputed assumptions. In this article I will argue that Francesco Piccolomini (1523–1607) in hisAcademicae contemplationesbrings about an original fusion of these colliding horizons, by transposing the synthesis established by (?)Simplicius between Aristotelian abstractionism and Neoplatonic innatism into the sixteenth century.