10 Facts About Pietro Pomponazzi

1.

Pietro Pomponazzi is sometimes known by his Latin name, Petrus Pomponatius.

2.

Pietro Pomponazzi was born in Mantua and began his education there.

3.

Pietro Pomponazzi completed his studies at the University of Padua, where he became a medical doctor in 1487.

4.

The treatise was burned at Venice, and Pomponazzi himself ran serious risk of death at the hands of the Catholics.

5.

Pietro Pomponazzi is profoundly interesting as the herald of the Renaissance.

6.

Pietro Pomponazzi was born in the period of transition when scholastic formalism was losing its hold over men both in the Church and outside.

7.

Pietro Pomponazzi claimed the right to study Aristotle for himself, and devoted himself to the De anima with the view of showing that Thomas Aquinas had entirely misconceived the Aristotelian theory of the active and the passive intellect.

8.

In On the Immortality of the Soul Pietro Pomponazzi argued specifically that Aquinas and Aristotle clash over the question of the immortality of the soul.

9.

Pietro Pomponazzi was not the first to make this claim, and appears to have been influenced by the Greek commentator on Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias.

10.

Pietro Pomponazzi declared his adherence to the Catholic faith, and despite the controversy over his initial work, it was not condemned by the Church.