Francesco Patrizi Research Articles

Patrizi, panpsychism, and the Presocratics

ABSTRACT The main aim of the article is to show how panpsychism, that is, the idea the everything in the world is endowed with a soul, was varied even during the periods in the history of philosophy when it flourished. In the Renaissance, I focus on Francesco Patrizi: he coined the term, which originally meant that everything is ensouled. The article starts by an investigation of Patrizi’s attempt to trace panpsychism back to the most ancient thinkers. His conclusions are, in general, in agreement with current scholarly assessment of early Greek philosophers, whose views I attempt to reconstruct in a kind of survey. A closer comparison, however, shows significant differences between Patrizi’s and today’s account of the most ancient conception of panpsychism. While Patrizi uses the concept to state that the world as a whole is ensouled, early Greek philosophers understood it to mean that every thing in the world possesses a particular soul. From a broader perspective, it is clear that, while Patrizi builds on the notion of all-embracing ancient philosophy, modern scholarship assumes a more historical account of ancient thought characterised by a gradual progress from simple, more empirically based concepts, to more complex and metaphysical ones.

The eternal cold of Tarquinia Molza. Nature and history of catastrophes in the works by Francesco Patrizi of Cherso

The eternal cold of Tarquinia Molza. Nature and history of catastrophes in the works by Francesco Patrizi of Cherso

A Felicidade, Razão da Cidade: Francesco Patrizi da Cherso

In this article we seek to make known the work La Città felice by Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, in what are its fundamental lines. As this author is less known in contemporary times, the truth is that he played an important role in the development of the philosophy of nature. The work under consideration, on the other hand, develops a kind of utopia as a political analysis in the style of Aristotle. Taking inspiration from Plato, Patrizi engendered a Neoplatonic theory in an Aristotelian form.

Allegories of Light and Fire: Ignatian Effigies Painted on Copper

Abstract This article examines two small portraits of Ignatius of Loyola painted on copper between 1598 and 1622. Rather than focusing on the true likeness of the founder of the Jesuits, it sheds light on the neglected early history of the Ignatius-ignis pun, according to which his name is juxtaposed with the Latin word for fire. For this purpose, the article connects to the growing interest in the materiality of art. In contrast to traditional supports, the use of copper generates extraordinarily brilliant pictorial effects. This “magical” production of light plays, I argue, a crucial role in representing both Pedro Ribadeneyra’s account of Ignatius’s fiery physiology and Filippo Neri’s report concerning Ignatius’s supernatural splendor. However, the presence of light is no metaphor of the divine but is closely related to the contemporary physics and metaphysics of light. With Francesco Patrizi da Cherso in mind, the portraits can be construed as allegories of light and fire.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Human Character and the Formation of the State: Reconsidering Machiavelli and Polybius 6.

Human Character and the Formation of the State:Reconsidering Machiavelli and Polybius 6 Jeffrey Dymond This article aims to contribute to a growing debate over the sources of a crucial opening chapter in Machiavelli's Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (1517)—a chapter widely regarded as foundational for the political theory developed in the book. Until recently, commentators have largely agreed that Book 6 of Polybius's Histories is the principal source for the account of the formation of the state found in Discorsi 1.2, offering as evidence Machiavelli's discussion of the mixed constitution and the cycle of constitutions (anacyclosis) that supports it.1 But, over the last decade, [End Page 29] some historians have moved away from this traditional interpretation. Citing a number of perceived substantive differences between the two texts as well as the long-standing uncertainty over how Machiavelli accessed the contents of Book 6, these readers have suggested Lucretius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus as other possible sources.2 At the same time, and contrastingly, recent research into the textual transmission of Book 6 has made others increasingly confident that there is an explicit textual connection between the two books.3 The present article will contribute to this debate by reconstructing the interpretation of Polybius 6 that emerged in early sixteenth-century Florence before re-examining the Discorsi within this context. While not precluding additional sources from the chapter, it will argue, first, that Machiavelli was indeed immersed in an environment in which a common reading of Polybius 6 circulated and that, second, Discorsi 1.2 is indebted to this interpretation, although it is a substantially different interpretation of Polybius than previous commentators have typically assumed. The traditional understanding of Discorsi 1.2's debt to Polybius 6 claims that anacyclosis and the mixed constitution are the most significant Polybian ideas in the chapter, with a number of reasons offered for why Machiavelli uses them. In two essays that first appeared in 1967, "Machiavelli e la teoria dell'Anacyclosis" and "Machiavelli e Polibio," Gennaro Sasso argues that Machiavelli takes from Polybius a theoretical defense of [End Page 30] the mixed constitution and that this serves as a foundation for the political theory developed throughout the Discorsi. More specifically, Sasso says, Discorsi 1.2 relies on Polybian anacyclosis to demonstrate the pervasiveness of the tensions between two social groups, the popolo and the grandi, and that they can only be stabilized through the imposition of a mixed constitution.4 J. G. A. Pocock's 1975 The Machiavellian Moment offers an alternative interpretation emphasizing the historical claims of Book 6. Pocock argues that Machiavelli is drawn primarily to Polybius's assertion that Rome's mixed constitution developed over time, with each part emerging in response to a different historical contingency. This, according to Pocock, provided Machiavelli with a framework through which a fundamentally historical political theory could operate.5 While the traditional interpretation rightly sees a connection between Polybius 6 and Machiavelli's discussion of anacyclosis and the mixed constitution, it is limited by the assumption that these two phenomena represent the only extractable theoretical content of Book 6, an assumption that owes more to the image of Polybius sketched by F. W. Walbank than to early modern readings. Walbank, whose interpretation was dominant for much of the twentieth century, argues that the theoretical content of Book 6 is both limited and superficial. At its heart is anacyclosis, which he understands to be a historical illustration of Polybius's "fundamental principle," derived from "experience," that all states follow a life cycle of origin, peak, and decline and which the mixed constitution has successfully been able to "brake."6 The particular reasons behind this are, however, beyond Polybius's scope; Polybius, Walbank says, was a "man of action," "not a philosopher."7 Contrastingly, early modern readers treated Polybius as a considerably more sophisticated author.8 For example, and in stark opposition to Walbank, Francesco Patrizi's 1560 Della historia diece dialoghi explicitly categorizes Polybius as a "philosopher" due to the Greek historian's emphasis [End Page 31] on historical causation,9 a sentiment echoed by Jean Bodin in 156610 and François Hotman in...

Las ideas políticas en el Renacimiento

James Hankins es uno de los mas importantes especialistas en la historia del pensamiento politico de los humanistas del Renacimiento. Su libro sobre el platonismo del Renacimiento es de referencia obligada para los estudios sobre la epoca, asi como sus articulos sobre Leonardo Bruni y el “humanismo civico”. En este reciente libro reune el trabajo de muchos anos. Consta de veintiun capitulos y tres apendices. Los dos primeros son traducciones de textos latinos al ingles. El primero de ellos es un pasaje del De vita solitaria de Petrarca. El segundo es un pasaje de la Historia de Bruni y el tercero es una lista de ediciones de Francesco Patrizi.

A DRAWING BY FRANCESCO PATRIZI (1826–1905) OF THE EXCAVATION OF THE TOMB OF THE SEMPRONII IN THE VIGNA CASALI 1871–2

This paper discusses a drawing in the Lanciani collection representing the excavations of a tomb at the Vigna Casali in 1871–2. This tomb had a rich collection of antiquities, including important sarcophagi now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek. The drawing, which is wrongly catalogued as depicting the Vigna Casati, has not hitherto been connected with these finds. It was made on site by Francesco Patrizi (1826–1905), a supporter of contemporary painting, amateur artist, and owner of the Villa Patrizi not far away. This article correlates the information contained in the drawing with contemporary descriptions of the excavations and a measured drawing made for the Casali family at the time, in order to understand better what the site contained.

Convention as the Source of the Avant-Garde. Remarks on the Inventiveness of Poetics of the Past

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 59 (2011), issue 1.
 Modern theoretical-literary treatises, defined as normative poetics, are usually connected with the dominance of the convention and normativism, with obligatory rules, canonical concepts and restrictive directives hampering originality. The present text tries to revise the conviction that convention is a dominant tendency in the development of the old theoretical thought; it tends to show the avant-garde aspects of modern poetics and to present the relations between what is conventional and what is innovative in the most original theoretical texts of late Renaissance and Baroque. Examples of two avant-garde modern poetics—Francesco Patrizi’s theory of wonder formed at the end of the 16th century and the 17th century Emanuele Tesauro’s conceptistic theory—show that tradition and convention are necessary elements of inventive theories. The avant-garde of poetics of the past, contrary to the avant-garde of the 20th century, is not born from the defiance of the earlier theories but is formed by way of modernizing and transforming them. Old inventive theories—despite all the departures from tradition—are still part of the classical paradigm. Hence, the avant-garde character of late-Renaissance and Baroque theoretical reflection consists in a peculiar synergy of convention and novelty.

Do we have any genuine works by Aristotle? Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s discussion of the corpus Aristotelicum

ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the scrutiny, as found in the Discussiones Peripateticae 1, 2–4, to which Francesco Patrizi da Cherso subjected the works of the transmitted corpus Aristotelicum, and those attributed to Aristotle outside the corpus. It explains why Patrizi rejected most of the transmitted œuvre as spurious, and shows what would have been the most radical consequence of his hyper-critical stance, had it carried the day. Particular attention is paid to contemporary (i.e. sixteenth-century) scholarship available to, and used by, Patrizi.

Francesco Patrizi’s concept of “nature”: presence and refutation of Stoicism

ABSTRACTThis essay analyzes the ways in which, in his Nova de Universis Philosophia, Francesco Patrizi uses, adopts, and, in some cases, rejects the Stoic philosophical tradition. Although, at first glance, most of Patrizi’s remarks on Stoicism and Stoic understanding of nature are critical – as this article demonstrates – he widely relied on Stoic teaching that he sought to combine with Neoplatonism and the prisca theologia doctrine.

History and theory: the paradox in Francesco Patrizi

ABSTRACTPatrizi's Ten Dialogues on History bring the Renaissance humanist discourse on the meaning of history to a new level. First, he emphasizes narrativity as the fundamental structure of history. Then he asks for the essence of history, which hinges on the creativity of the narrator, who organizes the facts to be told. With a focus on the Third Dialogue, we see that, for Patrizi, history is elapsing time preserved beyond time and human knowledge enacted in time or reenacted in events. A theory of history shows that history is the connection between contingency and truth.

In search of a spiritus: Francesco Patrizi on tides

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal with a topic widely debated in European intellectual circles at the time: the origin of tides. By deconstructing Patrizi’s views on the phenomenon of ebb and flow, this paper places these chapters of Patrizi’s opus magnum into a larger context and shows how, with the use of novel philosophical arguments, he sought to replace what he considered an outdated theory of tides.

Phaedrus’ Cicadas: Patrizi's Dialoghi and vernacular rhetoric

ABSTRACTIn his Dieci dialoghi della retorica (Venice, 1562), Francesco Patrizi analyses the nature of language and the historical developments of oratory, taking part in the debate on this art reinforced by the spread of the Aristotelian Rhetoric. This gave him the opportunity to consider the origins of human social life and explain the traditional rhetorical teaching in an anthropological perspective. He also argued against the civic use of oratory as presented in some contemporary treatises on it, written in the vernacular.

The philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a comparison of the philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More. The point, however, is not to demonstrate Patrizi’s influence on More but rather to see how, with respect to some particular subjects, they both tried to offer a modern interpretation of Neoplatonism. The main axis of the analysis follows the topics of space, light, and soul. While to More, light is of merely marginal interest, it is demonstrated that space and soul are of crucial importance and play a similar role in both authors’ systems. They function as intermediary entities that link the higher and the lower reality and form a sort of canvas upon which the material world unfolds. Yet, in comparison with Patrizi, More’s system is both constrained by a much stricter, dualistic classification and at the same time veers dangerously close to immanentism and pantheism (which More tries to avoid).

Francesco Patrizi da Cherso and the anti-Aristotelian tradition: interpreting the Discussiones Peripateticae (1581)

ABSTRACTThis paper tries to present a different view of Francesco Patrizi’s anti-Aristotelian philology such as it transpires in his masterful monograph of 1581, the Discussiones Peripateticae, the influence of which was widely felt in seventeenth-century Europe. The book is the product of a learned, Hellenizing, and deeply inspired critique of a major doctrinal corpus from classical antiquity, and it is usually taken as a stepping stone in a self-righteous fight by “modern” philosophers to replace Aristotelianism as the dominant academic system. This essay is revisionist on the second of these accounts.

Is Francesco Patrizi’s L’Amorosa Filosofia a heterodox reading of the Symposium?

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on L’Amorosa Filosofia, perhaps the most compelling response to Ficino’s De Amore produced in the sixteenth century, as it is centered on the notion of love as philautia, based upon a naturalistic and psychological interpretation. The learned lady Tarquinia Molza, the most important interlocutor of Francesco Patrizi, affirms that love, from its beginnings in the inner self to its end, when reaching the divine, cannot but be a phenomenon that engages the sense of touch, showing a naturalistic attitude toward the body and an interest in the mediation between matter and spirit. Contrary to popular notions of self-love as selfish and callous, an honest man must necessarily love himself first in order to love others. In The Praise of Folly, Erasmus also tackles the concept, making Folly praise Philautia as a fundamental means for happiness. More relevant to Patrizi’s work, in Mario Equicola’s De Natura de Amore, there is a long digression on the virtues of self-love.

Between Res and Verba: The Use of Myth in Francesco Patrizi's Dialoghi della retorica (Venice, 1562)

This paper analyses the role played by myths in Francesco Patrizi’s Dialoghi della retorica (1562). In the discussion of the tenets of classical rhetoric contained in the work, Patrizi aims to define both the matter and the form of the discipline through the analysis of the nature of language and the limits of human knowledge. Patrizi uses some stories where fiction and history are intertwined to provide a mythical explanation of the causes behind the first decay of human social, political and intellectual life. Therefore, the present contribution will focus on Patrizi’s approach to reforming language in its rhetorical dimension, and will determine what role is reserved for fiction in the Dialogues on Rhetoric. In other words, I will try to respond with Patrizi to the following question: What meaning can fiction offer when language is employed as a way of accessing truth?Keywords: Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, Rhetoric, Aristotle, Myth and History.

Real animals in ideal cities: the place and use of animals in Renaissance utopian literature

AbstractAnimals populate literature dealing with ideal cities and imagined parallel worlds. In this essay Cecilia Muratori explores the place of animals in works sharing utopian traits by the Italian writers Ortensio Lando (c. 1512–53?), Francesco Patrizi (1529–97), and Anton Francesco Doni (1513–74). In particular, she investigates the ways in which the narratological device of displacing the human/animal relationship into an imaginary world enables an approach to the theoretical question about the difference between humans and animals as well as to the ethical one regarding the use of the animals. The presence of animals is a neglected aspect of such texts despite the extensive body of scholarship on utopian literature. Muratori argues that it is this specific combination of ontological issues and very practical remarks which makes these texts a particularly important case study for reconstructing Renaissance philosophical discussions on the status of animals. The problem of the human/animal divide and the question about human uniqueness thus appear alongside the discussion of topics such as how to preserve health in an ideal city or suggestions about the best diet for its citizens (a diet based on animals as food, for instance). Such concerns directly involve the assessment of the relation of humans to the world of animals, included in these imaginary cities or worlds as co‐inhabitants, as sources of food, as living beings which share in various ways the same space as humans, and also as mirrors on which the definition of man as a special animal is projected.

Francesco Patrizi: Philosopher of the Renaissance; Proceedings from the Centre for Renaissance Texts Conference (24–26 April 2014). Tomáš Nejeschleba and Paul Richard Blum, eds. Olomouc: Palacký University, 2014. 384 pp. N.p.

Francesco Patrizi: Philosopher of the Renaissance; Proceedings from the Centre for Renaissance Texts Conference (24–26 April 2014). Tomáš Nejeschleba and Paul Richard Blum, eds. Olomouc: Palacký University, 2014. 384 pp. N.p.