Commenting on Aristotle with a Knife

Abstract

Drawing on a variety of sources, including manuscript notes and a wide variety of published material, this article offers the first analysis in English of Bassanio Landi’s works in their medical and philosophical context. I argue that while Landi’s output is characteristic of its sixteenth-century Paduan milieu, his approach to methodological questions in anatomy and the arts, as well as his paraphrase of Aristotle’s De anima, make it possible to locate him within the heretical tradition that stretches from Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525) to Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623).