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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Although many scholars have cited Marin Mersenne's Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim for his critical remarks about the life of Julius Caesar Vanini, none of them has realised the extent to which Mersenne dealt with Vanini's works. They have found in Mersenne only a story about Vanini's intention to teach atheism, his execution, and one or two criticisms of his ideas. Far from making here and there a few comments about Vanini, however, Mersenne devoted a large portion of the volume to a critical analysis of the view of nature and religion which Vanini presents in his two books. The purpose of this article is, first, to explain why no one has hitherto discovered the extent of Mersenne's preoccupation with Vanini and, secondly, to examine briefly his basic attitude to Vanini's life and works.
1 Lutetiae Parisorum: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1623, cited hereafter as QcG. See, for example, Charbonnel, J. Roger, La Pensée italienne au XVIe siècle et le courant libertin (Paris: Champion, 1919), pp. 41–42, 303Google Scholar; Lenoble, Robert, Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris: J. Vrin, 1943), pp. 173–174, 180Google Scholar; Cornelis DeWaard's notes in La Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1945), 1, 53-55, 69; Ernst Lenoir, Trois novateurs, trois martyrs, Vanini, Campanella, Bruno (Paris: Rieder, 1939), pp. 83, 86; Namer, Emile, Documents sur la vie de Jules-César Vanini de Taurisano (Bari: Università degli studi di Bari Pubblicazioni dell’ Istituto di Filosofia, 1965), pp. 11, 148-149Google Scholar; Pintard, René, Le Libertinage érudit dans la première moitti du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Boivin, 1943), pp. 43–44, 63, 67.Google Scholar Spink, J. S., French Free Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire (London: Athlone Press, 1960), pp. 32–33, 45.Google Scholar
2 Vanini, Julius Caesar, Amphitheatrum aeternae providentiae (Lugduni: Antonii de Harsy, 1615)Google Scholar; De admirandis naturae Regime Deaeque mortalium arcanis (Lutetiae: Adrianum Perier, 1616).
3 Voltaire, , Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (1675), pp. 35–38.Google Scholar
4 French Free Thought, pp. 37, 35.
5 According to Charbonnel, , La Pensée italienne (p. 305)Google Scholar, Vanini submitted an expurgated version of the De admirandis naturae to the Sorbonne to gain approval to publish it.
6 Charbonnel (p. 308) says Vanini's method is to present attacks on the idea of Providence in the strongest way and give very weak responses, a method which he calls an ironic playing with the naïveté of the reader. This charge of spreading impieties under the pretext of attacking atheism was made by one of Vanini's contemporaries, Garasse, P. François, in La Doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, ou pretendus tels (Paris: Sebastien Chappelet, 1623), pp. 785–786.Google Scholar
7 Lachèvre, Fréderic, Le Libertinage devant le Parlement de Paris. Le Procès du poète Théophile de Viau, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie Ancienne, 1909), i, xxiii.Google Scholar
8 Lenoir, Ernst, Trois novateurs (p. 92)Google Scholar, says that in the indictment issued against Vanini the word ‘heresy’ was erased and ‘atheism’ written in, in order to ensure that the case could not be transferred from the jurisdiction of the municipal court into the hands of the Inquisition. This doubtless indicates that there were personal or political influences involved.
9 Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964), P. 434.
10 See for example, Yates, pp. 434-435 and Williams, Arnold, The Common Expositor, an Account of the Commentaries on Genesis, 1527-1633 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1948), p. 45.Google Scholar
11 Charbonnel, p. 302.
12 Although Mersenne uses the term ‘atheism’ at various times to denote denial of God, heresy, and Protestantism, he also specifically defines it to mean ‘naturalism,’ which, by attributing everything, including miracles, to natural causes, in effect, he feels, eliminates God. See QcG, col. 570. Naturalism in France became associated with libertinism or free-thought. Kristeller, Paul Oskar, however, in ‘The Myth of Atheism and the French Tradition of Free Thought’ (Journal of the History of Philosophy, 6 [1968], 233–243)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cautions us against assuming that the attitudes and intentions of the French ‘libertins’ were attributable necessarily to Pomponazzi and the Italian school of Aristotelianism.
13 Observations et emendationes ad Francisci Giorgii Veneti problemata (Lutetiae Parisiorum: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1623).
14 Giovanni Maria Guanzelli, Indicis librorum expurgandorutn in studiosorum gratiam confecti tomus primus per Fr. Jo. Mariam Brasichellen in unum corpus redactus, et publicae commoditati aeditus (Roma: Ex typus Com. Apost., 1607), pp. 446-508.
15 Thuillier, Renato, Diarium patrum et sororum ordinis minimorum provinciae Franciae sive Parisiensis qui religiose abierunt ab anno 1506 ad annum 1700 (Paris: Petrus Giffart, 1709). 1, 95.Google Scholar
16 QcG, cols. 15-16, expurgated ed.
17 Amphitheatmm, pp. 1-7.
18 Altogether Mersenne gives thirty-six proofs for the existence of God, QcG, cols. 23-226.
19 QcG, cols. 235-278. Illyricus, Matthias Flacius, Novum Testamentum Jesu Christi filii dei, ex versione Erasmi (Basileae: n.p., 1570), pp. 670–672.Google Scholar
20 Amphitheatrum, p. 78. QcG, col. 282.
21 Amphitheatrum, pp. 151-152. QcG, col. 363.
22 Amphitheatrum, pp. 164-166. QcG, 365-380.
23 QcG, cols. 376-377. Lessius, Leonardus, De providentia numinis et animi immortalitate libri duo aduersus atheos et politicos (Antwerp: Ex ofiicina Plantiniana, 1613)Google Scholar, Bk. II. Toletus, Franciscus, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in tres libros Aristotelis de anima (Lugduni: Apud Alexandrum Marcilium Lucensem, 1580), pp. 536–559.Google Scholar
24 QcG, cols. 376-378. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Bk. n, Chap. 5, Reasons 6-11.
25 De admirandis, pp. 368-370. QcG, cols. 469-470.
26 De admirandis, pp. 369-370.
27 De admirandis, pp. 429-433. QcG, cols. 537-539.
28 De admirandis, pp. 431-436.