Girolamo Savonarola’s Critique of Astrology through the De doctrina Aristotelis

Abstract

This article describes the De doctrina Aristotelis of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98), a collection of Latin notes concerning Aristotelian works. This recently edited text comprises a collection of passages, quotations and brief summaries from genuine and pseudo-epigraphical writings. This compilation was not intended for publication or public circulation; these personal notes were employed by the Dominican preacher in his sermons and treatises — in the plain Latin version or via a translation into the vernacular — as didactical devices or rhetorical tools. The text, together with a similar compilation of Platonic passages, the De doctrina Platonicorum, is preserved in the Conventi Soppressi, D.VIII.985 manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze. After outlining the De doctrina Aristotelis, the article focuses on several passages in the sermons and treatises (from Metaphysica, Physica, De caelo and Meteora) that criticize the scientific value of astrology, which was one of the most important targets of Savonarola’s critique of contemporaneous cultural tendencies.