## 1. Life



Born in Mantua, Pomponazzi studied at Padua, obtaining his degree in
arts in 1487. He then taught there, first as extraordinary and then
ordinary professor from 1488-1496 (Nardi 1965: 54-55). His
teacher and fellow professor at Padua Nicoletto Vernia as well as his
colleague Alessandro Achillini openly endorsed Averroes' view of
the unicity of the material intellect, a view that Bishop Pietro
Barrozzi condemned with the threat of excommunication in 1489, leading
them to revise or hide their teachings (Hasse 2016: 184-214).
Pomponazzi questioned and ultimately rejected Averroes' unicity
position. Perhaps influenced by his other teachers Pietro Trapolino
and Francesco Securo da Nardo, he respected Thomas
Aquinas's views even if he found them to use theological
premises that he believed were unwelcome in natural philosophy
and contrary to Aristotle's philosophy. Despite rejecting
Averroes' view on the material intellect, throughout his career,
Pomponazzi's lectures relied on Averroes' commentaries.
For example, among Pomponazzi's writings are
*quaestiones* based on Averroes' *De substantia
orbis* (*On the Substance of the Orbs*). Around 1496, he
obtained a doctorate in medicine (Oliva 1926: 179), a common step for
those who wished to rise in the universities of northern Italy, where
philosophy was often taught as preparation to the study of medicine
(see Kristeller 1993: vol. 3, 436-38; Kraye 2010: 93). Although
Pomponazzi never taught medicine he was consulted for his medical
expertise (see Park 2006: 175-76) and frequently considered
medical teachings in his writings on wondrous phenomena,
Aristotle's zoological writings, and *Meteorologica* IV
(see Perfetti 2004: xliii-xlv; Martin 2002). During this first
stint at Padua, he wrote *Quaestio de maximo et minimo*
(*Question on the Maximum and the Minimum*), which
attacked William Heytesbury and the calculatory tradition (see
Biard 2009). Beginning in the 1330s, Heytesbury and others at Merton
College at Oxford applied mathematical and logical analysis on a range
of topics, including natural philosophical questions regarding
kinematics. Pomponazzi remained hostile to the calculatory and
terminist traditions throughout his life because he considered their
interpretations of Aristotle's texts as veering too far from a
strict exegesis of Aristotle. In 1496, Pomponazzi left Padua, after
disputing with Agostino Nifo, and tutored Prince Alberto Pio da Carpi,
who was in exile at Ferrara. Alberto Pio remained for years a
supporter of Aristotelian thought, commissioning translations of
Averroes and Aristotle, and Pomponazzi dedicated his 1514 *De
intensione et remissione formarum* (*On the Intension and
Remission of Forms*) to him (see Schmitt 1984).



After returning to Padua in 1499, he taught natural philosophy there
until 1509, when the university closed due to the War of the League of
Cambrai. He stayed briefly in Ferrara, where he taught at
the university for a year, and then returned to his native
Mantua, before moving to the university of Bologna in
1511. He remained there for the rest of his life, teaching
natural and moral philosophy (Oliva 1926: 265). His years at Bologna
were both productive and filled with controversy, including being
unsuccessfully accused of heresy in 1514 and in 1518 (Nardi 1965: 70;
Bianchi 2008: 132). All his works printed during the sixteenth century
stem from his tenure at Bologna (Lohr 1988: 347-62). In
1514 he completed a disputation on the intension and remission of
forms; and in 1515 he published the question *De reactione*
(*On Reaction*). A year later he published *Tractatus de
immortalitate animae* (*Treatise on the Immortality of the
Soul*). The work defends a materialist reading of Aristotle in
which the human soul depends on and perishes with the body. The
treatise came out three years after the Fifth Lateran Council issued
the bull *Apostolici regiminis*. The bull demanded that
philosophers refrain from teaching that the soul is one in number or
mortal and that the universe eternal. It also demanded that
philosophers defend Christian doctrine to the best of their ability.
As Pomponazzi's teaching appeared to many to run against the
bull, he was attacked, but also defended, by a number of scholars and
ecclesiastical authorities. Although he was denounced as a heretic, he
was not tried and never abjured, protected by the powerful
Venetian Cardinal Pietro Bembo (see Bianchi 2008: 130-34; Pine 1986:
124-28).



Despite these controversies, Pomponazzi maintained his position at
Bologna and continued to teach and write, pursuing many of the themes
found in his psychological writings. In 1520, he completed *De
naturalium effectuum admirandorum causis sive de incantationibus*
(*On the Causes of Marvelous Natural Effects or On
Incantations*). The work circulated in manuscript widely before
being printed first in 1556 and again in 1567 (Regnicoli 2010). In the
same year he finished *De fato, de libero arbitrio, de
praedestinatione* (*On Fate, Free Will, On
Predestination*), which was not printed until 1567. In 1521, he
published *De nutritione et augmentatione* (*On Nutrition
and Growth*). Given greater freedom to choose the subject of his
lectures as the result of contract negotiations, Pomponazzi lectured
on a number of Aristotle's writings that were not part of the
typical duties of an ordinary professor. These topics include
Aristotle's *De generatione et corruptione* and his
zoological and meteorological writings. His *Dubitationes in
quartum Meteorologicorum librum* (*Doubts on Meteorologica*
IV) were printed in 1563. Pomponazzi, after several years of illness,
died from kidney disease in 1525 (Nardi 1965: 205-6).


## 2. Writings, Methods, and Interpretative Challenges



There are numerous challenges to interpreting the writings of
Pomponazzi. In addition to his writings printed during the sixteenth
century, many *reportationes* (transcripts) made by listeners
of his lectures are extant. Due to the nature of their creation, they
potentially contain errors or are incomplete. At times, they appear to
present conflicting views. Filled with witticisms and ironic
statements, they reveal insights into Pomponazzi's popularity as
a lecturer. Adding to the difficulty of interpretation, are
Pomponazzi's repeated statements of not having solutions to
philosophical questions and his promotion of the idea that
philosophy teaches the practice of doubting (Perfetti 1999).
Accordingly, he questioned at times both ecclesiastical authority and
the prevailing philosophical environment of Padua and Bologna that was
characterized by Averroism (Hasse 2016: 196).



An additional impediment in interpreting Pomponazzi stems from his
arguments that he characterized as *in naturalibus* (based
on nature). Similarly, he at times described himself as following the
*via peripatetica* (the Peripatetic path), which meant
investigating according to Aristotelian principles without influence
from other fields, most prominently theology. Restricting arguments to
those that are *in naturalibus* or following the *via
peripatetica* required determining Aristotle's
view, regardless of its truth. Pomponazzi justified this approach on
the grounds that natural philosophy possesses different principles
than theology and therefore those fields should not use the principles
of other fields. Consequently, at times he maintained that as a lay
person he was unable to pronounce on theological questions.
Furthermore, his duties as professor of philosophy, as in essence a
professional Aristotelian, required him to expound the views of
Aristotle, regardless of their conformity to theological truth.
Thus, he included provisos in *On the Immortality of the
Soul*, *On Incantations*,
and *Apology* that stated that his conclusions were
merely according to philosophy and that he accepted the determinations
of the Catholic Church as having a greater degree of authority than
philosophy. Some of his contemporaries and later scholars have seen
the inclusion of these provisos as being disingenuous, a means to
protect himself from prosecution (Renan 1852: 286; Pine 1986: 123).
But other scholars have argued for the philosophical coherence of
his employment of probable arguments and deference to faith (see
Perrone Compagni 1999: lxxxv-xcvi). In the thirteenth
century Albertus Magnus had distinguished between investigations
of nature and the divine, contending that the fields have distinct
methods and that revelation disagrees at times with arguments based on
reason and experience (Martin 2014: 16-18). Although at times
Albertus's position was controversial, a number of medieval
philosophers endorsed his view. Thus even if Pomponazzi included these
provisos as a protective measure, he nevertheless simultaneously
endorsed a long medieval tradition that held that natural philosophy
was separate from theology and that theological truths prevailed over
philosophical ones (Bianchi 2008).



Pomponazzi used the methods and language typical of the medieval
scholastic tradition (Kraye 2010), primarily relying on reason and
experience as the key tools for investigation. The former refers to
the logical and philosophical principles of Aristotelianism, the
latter refers to both quotidian experience and the experiences found
in the writings of authorities, witnessed in testimonies of
contemporaries, and taken from his own personal history. He had a
critical attitude toward some humanist writers, for example, judging
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's attack on astrology to be
ignorant of the workings of the field. And while his Latin prose did
not match the polished elegance of Renaissance humanists, in
other ways his writings, through their extensive consideration of
ancient philosophical and literary sources,
reflect developments of humanism. Despite never learning
Greek as many of his fellow philosophers did, including his rival
Agostino Nifo, Pomponazzi relied on new translations of Greek
commentators on Aristotle, most significantly those of Alexander of
Aphrodisias (Kessler 2011). Furthermore, his later writings,
especially *On Incantations*, take evidence from a broad range
of Greek, Roman, and Renaissance poets and historians, interspersed
among citations of the typical authorities of the scholastic
traditions. In that work, he also discussed the possible natural
causes of the Delphic oracle (see Ossa-Richardson 2010).


## 3. Psychology



Pomponazzi's most complete discussion of the human soul was
published in his 1516 *On the Immortality of the Soul*. The
work builds on earlier discussions found in *quaestiones*
delivered in 1503 and 1504 (Pomponazzi 2018; Poppi 1970: 27-92;
Kristeller 1944) and in lectures on *De anima* given in
1514-15 (Bakker 2007). In *On the Immortality of the
Soul*, he sought to establish whether the human intellect is
separable and immortal using a methodology that did not exceed
"natural limits", that is, without supposing
"something from faith or revelation" and to determine what
is "in conformity with the words of Aristotle" (ch. 8). He
cautioned that he did not affirm anything contrary to Thomas
Aquinas's views but his critiques advance "in the way of
doubt and not of assertion" (ch. 8). Moreover, he tempered his
considerations by declaring his preference for scripture over
"human reasoning and experience" (ch. 8).



In what manner the human intellect is separable was a frequently
debated question in Renaissance discussions of the soul. Many of
Pomponazzi's contemporaries adopted Averroes' solution
that the possible or material intellect must be one in number and thus
shared by all humans. Pomponazzi rejected Averroes' view,
deeming it "most false, unintelligible, monstrous, and quite
foreign to Aristotle" (ch. 4). After rejecting Averroes'
unicity thesis, Pomponazzi maintained that the most probable arguments
according to natural philosophy and Aristotle's view are
contrary to Thomas's position that the individual human
intellect is immortal, separable, and unqualifiedly immaterial.



A central premise for Pomponazzi's psychology is that the entire
human soul falls under the study of natural philosophy. The human soul
has three powers--vegetative, sensitive, rational--but is
unified; these powers do not have distinct substantial forms (see
Casini 2007). Pomponazzi generally referred not to the intellect but
rather to the intellective soul, meaning the rational power of the
human soul (Sellars 2016). This intellective soul, or rational soul,
rests midway between the eternal and perishable (ch. 1; see Bakker
2007: 165-67). Accordingly, he emphasized the relation between
the intellectual soul and the sensitive soul, citing Aristotle's
statement that "the soul does not know at all without some
phantasm (*phantasma*)" (*De anima* 3.7
431a16-17). The intellectual soul's dependence on these
phantasms--images that the imagination creates based on what has
been sensed--is confirmed for Pomponazzi not just by
Aristotle's authority but also by our own experience and by
experiences with those who have suffered injuries to the relevant
organs. Since the sensitive soul resides within a material organ and
sensation occurs in time, it is dependent on matter both with respect
to subject (i.e., the sense organ) and object (i.e., the sensible).
The human intellectual or rational soul, however, is dependent on
matter for its object (i.e., the phantasms) but is only immaterial
with respect to its subject (i.e., cognition) (see Brenet 2009).



Because the human intellectual soul depends on the operations of the
sensitive soul, which are part of a material and perishable body, it
cannot function after the body has been destroyed. Accordingly, in
Pomponazzi's view, the human intellectual soul is immortal only
in a relative or qualified sense. Because the act of understanding
does not require a material organ as subject, the human intellectual
soul is more immortal than the sensitive soul or the souls of animals.
The human soul partakes in the immortal through its limited knowledge
of the forms of species, without being immortal in itself. Yet because
it cannot function without the sensitive soul, it is lower than
God's intelligence and than the intelligences that move the
celestial spheres, which are separated substances. Moreover, the human
soul differs from these separated intelligences in that it is the
actualization of a body while the intelligences merely actuate, that
is, set in motion, the celestial spheres without receiving anything
from the matter of the orb. The human's soul dependency on
matter means that human cognition is less abstracted than that of the
intelligences, which know through intuition not sensation.
Accordingly, the human soul cannot know universals unqualifiedly but
only in relation to singulars. Thereby, the human rational soul, with
its functioning tied to material objects, sits midway between the
material and the immaterial and between the eternal and the
perishable; and human knowledge, while partaking in the knowledge of
universals, possesses it in limited manner (ch. 8).



While most scholarship has emphasized Pomponazzi's argument
related to the connection between the intellectual and sensitive soul,
he put forth several other arguments based on Aristotelian principles
against the immortality of individual human souls. He argued that if
the human soul survives the death of the body at that point it must be
an individual indivisible substance that is either in some place or
nowhere. If it is somewhere, it must have arrived there through
locomotion, yet Aristotle denies that indivisibles can move in space.
If it is nowhere, then Aristotle could have posited intelligences that
do not move the spheres and potentially there could exist an infinite
number of intelligences, which in turn is prohibited by
Aristotle's arguments against the realization of an infinite
multitude. Similarly, he argued that if human souls are immortal and
individual, given that the world and its species are eternal according
to Aristotle, the number of human souls must be infinite or souls must
transmigrate, both propositions that Aristotle rejected. Additionally,
Pomponazzi dismissed Thomas Aquinas's view that God creates each
human soul placed within the body as being an explanation unacceptable
to natural philosophy because Aristotle held that according to natural
philosophy the soul is not created but rather generated "by the
sun and man" (*Physics* 2.2. 194b13) and everything that
is generated perishes (ch. 8).



Given the importance of the immortality of the soul to Catholic
doctrine, Pomponazzi considered the ramifications of the soul's
mortality to ethics and the possibility of human happiness and
blessedness (see Cuttini 2012). He countered the argument that
immortality of the soul is necessary for a happy end achieved by
perfecting the intellect by contending that achieving such
intellectual perfection is only possible for someone with superior
intellectual ability and of sound health, who has withdrawn from
worldly affairs. Yet, such individuals are extremely
rare--"even in long centuries, barely one is
found"--and the human race and its societies do not permit
all humans to devote themselves to philosophy (ch. 13). To the
potential objection that belief in the mortality of the soul
encourages immoral acts since some persons would choose to commit
crimes because there would be no punishment or rewards after death,
Pomponazzi responded that there are sufficient motivations for
virtue without considerations of the afterlife. In his view, the
essential reward of virtue is virtue itself, which is
humankind's greatest good and brings security and peace of mind.
Accordingly, the religious teachings of immortality are not true
according to the principles of natural philosophy but were introduced
in order to persuade those incapable of understanding philosophy to
behave in a moral fashion, thereby allowing society to function (ch.
14).



Keeping with his earlier statements that his arguments were probable
and according to natural principles, Pomponazzi concluded that the
question of the immortality of the soul is a neutral problem, meaning
that there are no arguments based only on nature that prove either
immortality or mortality. His application of the term "neutral
problem" was not novel. John Duns Scotus had come to the same
conclusion about the immortality of the soul, and Thomas Aquinas
regarded the question of the eternity of the world as a neutral
problem. Consequently, faith is the ultimate arbiter of the question,
and Pomponazzi maintained that Christians must follow the doctrine of
immortality that has been established by the Church fathers and Pope
Gregory I, who were the greatest experts in divine matters (ch.
15).



*On the Immortality of the Soul* provoked numerous polemics, in
which Pomponazzi defended his views. In 1518, he published
*Apologia* (*Apology*). The first book
of *Apology* responds to the objections made by his former
student Gaspare Contarini, and the second book answers critiques made
by other philosophers and theologians. These books address questions
about free-will and wondrous phenomena, which were later discussed in
greater depth in *On Incantations*. The third and final book
recounts Pomponazzi's reactions to Ambrogio Flandino's
hostile preaching and to public uproar in Venice. Pomponazzi asserted
his innocence from these charges, while proclaiming his belief in the
immortality of the soul, emphasizing that his book only concluded that
Aristotle held the soul to be mortal (3.1.3). He argued that
theologians from Augustine to Duns Scotus maintained that the soul is
mortal according to Aristotle and therefore sustaining such a position
should not be considered heretical (3.3.4). In fact, Tommaso de Vio
(Gaetano), a former general of the Domincan order, who at the time was
a cardinal and close to Leo X, had recently cast doubt over whether
the immortality of the soul is demonstrable according to Aristotle
(Gilson 1963: 173-83). Furthermore, Pomponazzi maintained that
he could not be considered a heretic because the definition of heresy
entails adhering firmly to one's own opinion, but he had never
received warnings from ecclesiastical authorities and therefore could
not have adhered firmly to anything contrary to the Catholic
Church's teachings (3.3.1-2). In 1519, Pomponazzi
published *Defensorium* (*Defense*) in reply to Agostino
Nifo's lengthy attack that argued that intellection is possible
without phantasms (de Boer 2018: 19-25). The *Defense*
was printed together with Giovanni Crisostomo Javelli's response
that offered theological and Platonic counterpoints to
Pomponazzi's views. The theologians Ambrogio Flandino and
Bartolomeo Spina also published attacks on Pomponazzi's
treatment of the soul (see Blum 2007: 223-27).


## 4. Wondrous Nature, the Preternatural, and Miracles



In 1520, Pomponazzi finished *On Incantations*, a work that
expanded many themes of his psychological writings. The book
undermines the use of demonic and supernatural explanations for
sublunary phenomena. The work is presented as a response to the
question: How would Aristotelians explain what "seems to be
beyond the order of nature" (*praeter naturae
ordinem*) or, in other words, what seems preternatural? The
category of preternatual, which included diseases and
strange, seemingly irregular phenomena, formed the subject matter
of numerous early modern philosophical inquiries (see Daston 2000).
With respect to *On Incantations*, Pomponazzi's friend,
Ludovico Panizza, asked him to explain the extraordinary recoveries of
three boys from a skin disease, burns, and a sword that physicians
could not remove (*Praefatio*.1). The actions of demons
could explain these recoveries; Pomponazzi stated that these
demonic acts are justified in accordance with ecclesiastical law
(*ex decreto Ecclesiae*) and are capable of "saving many
experiences". Yet, Pomponazzi contended that Aristotelians
should not use demons to explain these wondrous events. In
Pomponazzi's view even if demons exist, a premise that Aristotle
did not admit according to Pomponazzi's interpretation of
*Metaphysics* Lambda, they would not be able to affect the
sublunary world because they would not have adequate knowledge of its
particulars. Demons' knowledge of sublunary particulars must
derive either through essences or from sensation and
*phantasmata* (i.e., mental images). Knowledge through
essences, however, does not provide knowledge of singulars but only
universals and species. Moreover, knowledge from sensation and
*phantasmata* entails generation, corruption, and corporeality,
properties which cannot belong to demons (1.1).



Demons' lack of knowledge of natural particulars is merely one
reason they cannot be the cause of wondrous sublunary events. Citing
Augustine, Pomponazzi contended that all theologians hold that while
demons can directly move bodies from one place to another they cannot
alter them directly but must do so through natural bodies. Yet,
Pomponazzi rejected the likelihood that demons affect change by
applying active powers to passives, just like humans imperfectly do
when they apply medicines. For Pomponazzi, this understanding of
demonic action is untenable because it requires that demons use
sensible material substances, which would be detectable. Presumably
demons must carry these substances in pillboxes and bags, all of which
is contrary to experience (1.2). Finally, he concluded that it is
superfluous to suppose demonic influence "because we can save
these kinds of experiences through natural causes" (1.3).
Accordingly, the first half of *On Incantations* posits
hypothetical natural causes of preternatural experiences in an attempt
to show the inadequacy and superfluity of demonic explanation.
Pomponazzi presented his conclusions as part of a process that leads
closer to the truth, arguing that "sciences develop through steps"
(*scientiae enim fiunt per additamenta)* (9.1). He likened
this process to changes in legal codes, whereby better laws replace
older inferior ones, admitting that his solutions should be
accepted only while there are no
preferable alternatives (*Peroratio*.1).



Employing doctrines key to natural magic, Pomponazzi put forth three
potential ways that natural causes could explain wondrous effects:
directly through manifest causes, such as heat and cold; through
occult qualities or powers; or indirectly through vapors and spirits
that had been altered by such powers (3.1-3; Copenhaver 2015:
272-84). In support of these explanations, citing Albertus
Magnus, Marsilio Ficino, Pliny, and unnamed botanists, he maintained
that herbs, stones, minerals, and animal extracts possess nearly
countless occult powers and that if we knew them it would be possible
to reduce those effects that the unlearned attribute to demons and
angels to the actions of these occult powers. In support of the
existence of these occult powers Pomponazzi described experiences with
herbal medicines, magnets, electric rays (*torpedines*), and
remoras--fish that allegedly could halt ships with the power of
their mouths--experiences, all verified as true by respected
authorities (3.2-3).



Pomponazzi contended that similar powers reside in humans, either
through the temperament, the sensitive soul, or the intellectual soul.
He based this contention on the fact that human temperaments were
widely recognized to affect and determine human habits, inclinations,
and physiognomy (3.4). Following Aristotle's *De motu
animalium* and Ficino's *Platonic Theology*, he
argued that the actions of the soul are not only spiritual but also
real and cause alterations in the body, as is manifest in the physical
effects of emotions, such as tremors and blushing (3.6). Finally, he
maintained that it is possible that the human mind can produce what it
thinks through real bodily means, such as spirit and blood, in an
analogous way to the intelligences' production
of changes in the sublunary world through corporal
intermediaries, namely celestial bodies (3.6).



Applying these causes, Pomponazzi explained that many of those accused
of necromancy, like the medieval physicians and astrologers Pietro
d'Abano and Cecco d'Ascoli, were merely very knowledgeable
and capable of applying actives to passives (4.1). Moreover, it is
possible that some humans possess extraordinary occult powers
that allow them to affect cures through touch, like the kings of
France, or to perform other marvelous feats such as charming snakes
and opening doors without touching them (4.2). Pomponazzi argued that
the powers of imagination can produce real effects. For example, he
cited the widespread belief that women's thoughts at the time of
conception will produce a fetus that is similar to those thoughts.
Therefore, the power of fascination and imaginative powers transmitted
through vapors might explain unexpected cures and diseases just as
they are supposedly responsible for the spread of leprosy and plague
(4.3). While Pomponazzi admitted that some supposedly magical works
are acts of deception--such as fraudulent magicians
conjuring through sieves--he allowed that it might be possible
that some men possess natural occult powers that allow them
to move a sieve or transmit vapors through prayers so that they form
images on mirrors (4.4). Pomponazzi used this analysis to respond to
the possible objection that these three kinds of natural causes
eliminate the acceptance of miracles. He maintained that many the
deeds reported in the Bible can be "superficially reduced
to natural causes", but that some cannot, such as the
resurrection of Lazarus, the eclipse during the crucifixion of Jesus,
and the satisfaction of the hunger of a thousand people with five
loaves of bread and two fish (6.7). Furthermore, while he conceded
that there is a remote possibility that the cross found in Saint
Catherine's heart and Saint Francis's stigmata arose from
natural causes, he nonetheless stated it is more likely and more pious
to understand them as miracles (6.8).



Perhaps the most controversial portions of *On Incantations*
surround his explanation of why both pagan and monotheistic societies
give credence to the works of demons. His answer derives from his
largely Aristotelian and Averroistic conception of the ordering of the
universe (see Perrone Compagni 2011: xxxiii-lxxi). For
Pomponazzi, God is both the final and efficient cause of the universe,
a view he put forth in his earlier *quaestiones* on
Averroes' *De substantia orbis* (Pomponazzi *Corsi
inediti*: 1:299-304). God, possessing knowledge of the
essences of all species of beings, arranges the universe through the
celestial intelligences (10.2). In turn, the celestial intelligences
through the powers of the stars cause the eternal cycles of change in
the universe. Accordingly, the entire arrangement of the world,
including human society and religion, reflects and derives from
God's power. Thus, pronouncements in favor of the existence
of demonic works from serious and important authorities, both
religious lawmakers and philosophers including Plato, are the result
not of their truth but of their usefulness for creating a virtuous
populace. Since a large portion of humanity is incapable of
understanding philosophical truths, lawmakers have created and
employed myths or fables to inculcate virtue. The
legislator, like the physician who deceives a patient for the
patient's own good, composes such fables because they
contribute to the larger purpose. These fables should not be
judged as philosophical doctrines--they contain neither falsity
or truthfulness *per se* but have an allegorical or poetic
meaning. For Pomponazzi, these myths are not cynically
used merely to gain political power but are harmonious with the
universe's nature and order, as arranged by God and the
celestial intelligences. Political authority and obedience are
necessary for ensuring the persistence of political structures that
are ordained for humanity, for which nature has given leaders and
organization just as it has for flock animals, like bees and quail
(10.2). Consequently, the growth and decline of religions are in
accordance with the cyclical workings of nature.



Pomponazzi's judgment that the bulk of humanity is incapable of
understanding philosophical truths corresponds to his statements in
*On the Immortality of the Soul* about the differences between
divine and human souls and the scarcity of humans who develop
into philosophers with comprehensive and accurate knowledge of nature
and the universe. The inability of nearly all of humanity to
understand true causes has led to further misunderstandings of
prodigies, omens, divination, and oracles. Pomponazzi held that,
instead of being direct messages from God, they are reflections of a
purposeful and well-ordered universe.



Pomponazzi contended that fields such as astrology and physiognomy
read signs that are causally connected through celestial
influences or physiological links. Celestial prodigies, omens, and
apparitions in the sky both signal and cause future events by
affecting vapors and spirits that in turn influence the outcomes of
human activity. Some apparitions, such as the recent image of Saint
Celestine that appeared in the sky above Aquila while its residents
prayed for protection from excessive rain, result from the collective
imagination affecting vapors, exhalations, and clouds (see Giglioni
2010). Moreover, Pomponazzi argued that the
prodigies' indicative character explains their purpose and
final cause that is linked to nature, which is interdependent, well
ordered, and under God's providence. The possibility of using
prodigies to predict the future is analogous to physicians'
ability to give prognoses for diseases using symptoms that seemingly
are not directly connected to the maladies. Similarly ignorant people
have mistakenly understood the prognostications of sibyls and other
seers as being caused by demons when in fact they possess either
extraordinary occult natural powers or are caused by astral
powers.



Invoking celestial powers, occult virtues, the force of the
imagination, and the intermediary actions of vapors and spirits,
Pomponazzi contended that by using only Aristotelian natural
principles it was possible to save or explain seemingly miraculous,
prodigious, and preternatural phenomena. Pomponazzi accepted the
veracity of many of these phenomena, trusting for the most part
in the accounts of contemporaries and ancient histories (12.7). At
times, however, he rejected accounts from history as implausible, such
as tales of Vespasian curing with his saliva and his foot (8.1).
Nevertheless, in his view, the numerous historical
narratives of presages, oracles, and divination confirmed
their reality (10.2). 



In the closing of *On Incantations*, Pomponazzi stated that
while he believed that what the Peripatetics would have probably
(*verisimiliter*) believed is in agreement with Christianity,
he would nevertheless revoke the entire work and submit himself to the
Catholic Church in the event that this writing were judged to
oppose Catholic doctrine (*Peroratio*.1). A number of
interpreters have found this conclusion to be disingenuous,
and the Holy Office placed the work on the Index of Prohibited
Books by the 1570s. A censor wrote that while Pomponazzi put
forth arguments that seem to undermine the existence of miracles he
did make strong ones in their favor (Baldini & Spruit 2009: vol.
1, tome 3, 2279).


## 5. Fate and Providence



Several months after Pomponazzi completed *On Incantations* in
1520, he finished *De fato, de libero arbitrio, et de
praedestinatione* (*On Fate, Free Will, and
Predestination*), a work that addressed Alexander of
Aphrodisias's *De fato* (*On Fate*), which
had been printed in Girolamo Bagolino's Latin translation in
1516. Alexander criticized Stoic deterministic understandings of
causation because they deny the possibility of chance, contingency,
and human choice. In *On Fate*, Pomponazzi largely sided not
with Alexander but in favor of his Stoic opposition.



The premise of Pomponazzi's arguments coincides with his
understanding of causation presented in *On Incantations*. The
work also reaffirms the limitations placed on the human intellect in
*On the Immortality of the Soul*. In *On Fate*,
Pomponazzi argued that God, as efficient cause of the world, acts on
the sublunary world using the celestial bodies. God is the principal
cause, and the celestial bodies are the instrumental cause of
accidental effects in the sublunary world, which Alexander and Thomas
Aquinas viewed as contingent and without a cause (1.7.II/15). The
celestial bodies' motion, contiguous to the lower world, drives
and determines alterations on earth. Therefore, accidental effects,
ultimately resulting from God acting as an efficient cause, occur by
necessity (1.7.II/16). Pomponazzi maintained that they are mistakenly
called contingent as a result of human ignorance of causes and future
events but not from any irregularity in matter, natural powers, or
celestial influences. Rather, all accidental effects and what appears
to result from luck or chance can be traced back to fixed causes
(1.7.II/23-26).



Applying this deterministic framework, Pomponazzi rejected
Alexander's understanding of free will as the ability to choose
between alternatives. Pomponazzi maintained that human will functions
just like the rest of nature. It depends on an eternal, external
mover, namely God's will and the celestial
motions (1.9.2.10). Just as for other natural beings, if there is
a potentiality and no impediment, by necessity the potentiality will
be realized. Thus, the human will reacts to external factors according
to its powers and the absence of impediments (1.9.2.12). Consequently,
the human will depends on higher, universal causes. The apparent
ability of humans to deliberate between choices using reason, however,
is an illusion because every actor is in fact directed toward one of
the choices by external causes (1.9.3.2-4).



The rejection of the existence of free will presented difficult
ramifications for Christian ethics and theology, which depend on the
freedom to choose a virtuous life. In resolving these difficulties,
Pomponazzi chose fate over freedom because he thought that it better
preserved God's complete power and providence. If God had
granted freedom to humans, the lack, or extreme rarity, of truly
virtuous humans on earth demonstrates the absence of a truly
providential plan in which humans' freedom to choose a completely
moral good life is realized. Similarly, if humans have the ability of
free choice, God must not know these future decisions and humans are
thereby limited with respect to his knowledge and power. As a
consequence, Pomponazzi opted for fate and determinism, rejecting what
he considered to be a denial of God's providence, omnipotence,
and omniscience. The world's order and the cosmic laws that
govern the eternal motions of the universe include the existence of
good and evil as part of the necessary cycles of change.



At the beginning of the third book, Pomponazzi maintained that his
naturalistic arguments (*argumentationes naturales*) of the
first two books were by no means certain and were to be rejected if
they contradicted the teachings of the Catholic Church (3.1.1). He
then proposed to find solutions to the questions of fate and divine
providence that preserve free will. Accordingly, Pomponazzi, seemingly
in opposition to the arguments outlined in the first two books, opened
the door for the possibility of freedom of choice that potentially
could be in line with Christian theology by identifying the human will
with the intellect. He argued that God limited his omnipotence and
foreknowledge, thereby allowing for the possibility of future
contingents. This divine self-limitation allows for the possibility
that the human intellect, through the power of deliberation, is
capable of suspending predetermined acts of volition that go against
the moral interests of the actor, thereby being able to choose to sin
or not sin. Human liberty is defined in negative terms, a privation
and a suspension, since the will does not produce action in these
instances but only impedes it (3.8). While some commentators have seen
this line of argumentation as a potential "line of defense for
the *opinio christiana*" (Poppi 1988: 659), it was
specifically condemned in 1576 by a censor who placed the work on the
Index of Prohibited Books (Baldini & Spruit 2009: vol. 1,
tome 3: 2279-80).



The fifth and final book of *On Fate* continues the theological
discussions of the previous two books, turning to an examination of
predestination, a concept that according to Pomponazzi is not
mentioned by philosophers but is key to Christian theology, being tied
to doctrines on fate and God's providence. In this book, he put
forward two distinct, incompatible accounts of predestination. The
first account argues that God does not act in an indeterminate or
contingent manner and, therefore, has determined everything for
eternity, eliminating the importance or even the possibility of human
choice (5.2). The second account argues that God has created the
universe perfect with respect to all its parts, including humans who
have the capacity to choose or refrain from sin. God,
however, has not made all humans equal with respect to their ability
to obtain perfection, and only some have been granted grace or are
"elected". This election, or grace is not certain, as
those that have been chosen still have the possibility to choose to
sin and thereby forfeit the grace that had been conceded to them. The
chosen, however, who follow God's will can be certain to obtain
the glory that God has conditionally promised (5.7). The epilogue
reiterates his conviction that the Stoic conception of the universe is
preferable. He maintained that if the universe is like an animal, the
sublunary world represents excrements, while the heavenly spheres are
perfect and free of evil. Finally, he confessed that he has never
understood how Christian theologians preserve divine providence and
human free will, describing it as an illusion and a trick
(5.*epilogus*.7-10).



That the first two books of *On Fate* at times seem to be in
disagreement with the latter three presents difficulties for
interpreting it, having led some scholars to assume Pomponazzi's
true position corresponds to arguments in *On Incantations*and is found in the first books (see Poppi 1988). Others
have seen the last three books as an attempt to undermine Christianity
by demonstrating the weakness or incompatibility of the Christian
doctrines of predestination and God's omnipotence and
omniscience (see Di Napoli 1970). Alternatively, scholars have seen
the latter books to be a genuine attempt to critique and reform
Thomistic theology (see Perrone Compagni 2004: cix-clviii) that
offers innovative solutions to outstanding theological problems (see
Ramberti 2007: 109-50).


## 6. Later Works



Pomponazzi elaborated on many themes found in *On Fate*, *On
Incantations*, and *On the Immortality of the Soul* in the
final years of his life while he lectured on Aristotle's
*Parva naturalia*, *De generatione et corruptione*,
*De partibus animalium*, and *Meteorologica*. The
only new work printed during these years was *On Growth and
Nutrition* (1521), which discussed a central topic of *De
generatione et corruptione*. The work is explicitly naturalistic
in outlook and provides potential natural explanations for what some
considered miracles--that St. Paul's tongue spoke after his
head was severed from his body--in addition to asserting that the
human intellect requires a bodily organ (1.11, 1.23; see Ramberti
2010).



Pomponazzi reaffirmed his views about the mortality of the soul in his
lectures on *De generatione et corruptione* given in 1522
(Nardi 1965: 251-68). His lectures on *De partibus
animalium* display his skepticism toward complete human knowledge
of the natural world (see Perfetti 1999). This skepticism expressed in
the biological works also appears in his lectures on Aristotle's
*Meteorologica*, in which he puts forward doubts about
knowledge of the final causes of disasters and the certainty of a
number of meteorological explanations (see Martin 2011: 30-33,
44-50). In these lectures he followed several teachings of
*On Incantations*, affirming the place of prodigies in the
ordering of the universe and the stars' role in causing sublunary
change (see Graiff 1976).


## 7. Influence and Legacy



Given the controversial nature of many of his writings and the
difficulty in interpreting his works, Pomponazzi's influence was
varied. Opponents accused him of undermining organized religion,
abetting Lutheranism, and contributing to the development of atheism.
Alternatively, he has been praised for promoting intellectual freedom,
improving methods for interpreting Aristotle, and preparing the way
for the materialism and positivism of modern science.



Although his writings do not appear to follow the demand of
*Apostolici regiminis* that philosophers defend Catholic dogma
to the best of their ability, ecclesiastical authorities did little to
enforce the Fifth Lateran Council. While never convicted of
heresy, or even tried for it, nevertheless after the
publication of *On the Immortality of the Soul* he
faced significant turmoil, including accusations of heterodoxy
and the burning of copies of his books at Venice. Some
adversaries, such as Ambrogio Flandino, associated *On Fate*
with Martin Luther's and Jan Hus's denials of free will,
an association that continued throughout the sixteenth century (Del
Soldato 2010). That Guglielmo Gratarolo, a Calvinist exiled from
Bergamo living in Basel, printed *On Incantations* and *On
Fate* potentially confirmed perceived links to heterodoxy
(Maclean 2005). As the Counter Reformation more clearly defined
Catholic orthodoxy in the second half of the sixteenth century, many
Catholic theologians and philosophers, especially Jesuits, saw his
teachings as noxious and a potential source of heresy. During the
seventeenth century, concerns over Pomponazzi grew in part due to the
convicted and executed heretic Giulio Cesare Vanini (d. 1619), who
appropriated a number of Pomponazzi's arguments. Subsequently,
many scholars, including Francois Garasse, Marin Mersenne, and
Tommaso Campanella, linked him to atheism and to Niccolo
Machiavelli's promotion of religious imposture as a political
tool. Yet he still had his defenders. The erudite Frenchman Gabriel
Naude praised Pomponazzi both for his wit and for his
historically accurate interpretation of Aristotle. As a result,
Pomponazzi became linked to seventeenth-century libertinism (Martin
2014: 94-95, 124-44).



Despite numerous negative assessments, some sixteenth-century
philosophers pursued Pomponazzi's approach. For example, Simone
Porzio, a professor of philosophy at Pisa, followed his mortalist and
Alexandrian take on the human intellect (Del Soldato 2010). Even
though many throughout the seventeenth century condemned his
view that the soul dies with the body, Pierre Bayle absolved
Pomponazzi of impiety, found him to be an example of freedom of
thought, and praised him for his ethical teachings that spurned the
inducements of the afterlife (Bayle 1740: vol. 3, 777-83). In
the nineteenth century, he was championed by positivists, such as
Ernest Renan and Roberto Ardigo, who upheld Pomponazzi as a
model for the scientific spirit that opposed religious oppression
(Ardigo 1869; Renan 1852: 284-88). During the twentieth
century, a number of scholars endorsed the views of
seventeenth-century libertines, interpreting Pomponazzi as insincere,
a promoter of religious imposture, or as a determined enemy of
Christianity (see Busson 1957: 44-69; Charbonnel 1919:
220-74, 389-438). Accordingly, he gained among some the
epithet "Radical Philosopher" (see Pine 1986). Other
scholars, following the leads of Bruno Nardi and Paul Oskar
Kristeller, placed him in the context of the secular tradition of
medieval philosophy that separated theology from philosophy (Bianchi
2008). Under that interpretation, Pomponazzi was not necessarily an
instigator or harbinger of the conflicts between church and
science of the modern period but rather better understood as
continuing scholastic philosophical practices, which
included open inquiry, that took root in the thirteenth
century.