What is the Best Method to Study Philosophy? Sebastiano Erizzo and the ‘Revival’ of Plato in Sixteenth–Century Venice

Abstract

The article offers the first textual and contextual study of Sebastiano Erizzo’s Treatise on the instrument and method of the ancients printed in Venice by Plinio Pietrasanta in 1554. Through examination of previously unstudied paratextual material, it argues that the work is linked to discussions on method that took place at the University of Padua, and to the programmes of vernacularisation projected or developed under the aegis of the Accademia Veneziana and the Infiammiati; it is the result of a close collaboration between Erizzo, Bassiano Lando, Girolamo Ruscelli and Lodovico Dolce.