Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529–1597): new perspectives on a Renaissance philosopher

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Notes

1 First developed in early patristics in order to demonstrate the compatibility of Christianity with pagan thought, the prisca theologia concept was popular among Renaissance thinkers of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who considerably renewed the meaning and significance of the term. The doctrine claimed that a single, true wisdom was transmitted over time through various ancient theologians, spreading from Egypt and Persia to Greece and Rome. Its roots were often dated back to the figures seen as legendary magicians and theologians of the past, such as Zoroaster, Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, and others. See, above all, Schmitt, “Perennial Philosophy from Agostino Steuco to Leibniz”; Walker, The Ancient Theology; Vasoli, “‘Dalla pace religiosa alla ‘prisca theologia’”; Muccillo, Platonismo, ermetismo e “prisca theologia”; Vasoli, “Prisca theologia e scienze occulte nell’umanesimo fiorentino”; Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia perennis.

2 The most recent substantial volume devoted to Patrizi’s oeuvre was published in 2014 (Nejeschleba and Blum, Francesco Patrizi). See also some substantial portions of Levitin’s Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science, focused on the reception of Patrizi’s genealogy of ancient authoritative texts, mainly Zoroaster, in the early modern British context.

3 Among major recent publications on and of Telesio, see, above all, Mocchi, Plastina, and Sergio, Bernardino Telesio; Telesio, De cometis et lacteo circulo; Telesio, Delle cose naturali libri due; Omodeo, Bernardino Telesio and the Natural Sciences. Unlike Patrizi’s Nova de Universis Philosophia, Telesio’s opus magnum, the De rerum natura iuxta propria principia, has a modern edition, albeit of the earlier and abridged version of 1570 (Telesio, La natura secondo i suoi principi), and several reprints.

4 Suffice to say that, apart from numerous editions of Bruno’s texts in all major European languages, over the last year several single-authored monographs devoted specifically to his thought have been published. See, for instance, Carannante, Unigenita natura; Mertens, Magic and Memory in Giordano Bruno.

5 Patrizi, Nova de universis philosophia: materiali per una edizione emendata.