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ABSTRACT
This 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.
Notes on Contributor
Thomas Leinkauf is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Münster and Director of the Leibniz-Forschungsstelle of the Academies of Science of Göttingen and Berlin at Münster University. He has published extensively on various aspects of early modern philosophy, primarily Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Francesco Patrizi, Athanasius Kircher, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. His opus magnum, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance (1350-1600), in 2 vols, came out in 2017.
Notes
1 On the influence of ancient thought on early modern philosophical debates, see Leinkauf, “Die Frühe Neuzeit und die antike Philosophie”; for Stoicism in particular, see pp. 50–8 (with additional references).
2 On Patrizi’s concept of nature, see Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul in Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de Universis Philosophia (1591)”, particularly his discussions of “space” (pp. 146–51) and “light” (pp. 151–2). On “space”, see Henry, “Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s Concept of Space and its Later Influence”; Grant, Much do about nothing, 199–206; Leinkauf, “Der Begriff des Raumes in der Diskussion um 1600”; Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 2:1642–53; on light/fire, see Maechling, “Light Metaphysics and the Natural Philosophy of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529–1597)”; Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 62–7; Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 2, 1663–6, 1675.
3 For Proclus’ concept of nature, see Martijn, Proclus on Nature. In what follows, the parts of Patrizi’s Nova universis philosophia are quoted: PAU = Panaugia, PAR = Panarchia, PP = Pampsychia, and, finally, PC = Pancosmia, with respective number of books, folio-pages recto and verso and the page columns a and b, for example, PC, VI, 78 vb.
4 Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 39–41 (= SVF, II, 1077; Nr. 54 B Long-Sedley): “(Chrysippus) ait enim vim divinam in ratione esse positam et in universae naturae animo atque mente, ipsumque mundum deum dicit esse et eius animi fusionem universam”; Diogenes Laertius, Vitae, VII, 148–9 (= SVF, II, 1022; 1132; Nr. 43 A Long-Sedley): “ousían de theoû Zênôn men phêsi tòn hólon kósmon kaì tòn ouranón”.
5 Patrizi repeatedly is referring on what he is labeling nostra fundamenta, that is “my fundaments” or “the fundaments of my system”, see PP V, 57va: “Si id ita sit liceat nobis, de brutorum animis ex nostris fundamentis philosophari”. For Patrizi and Neoplatonism, see Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele; Leinkauf, “Die Rezeption des Damaskios im Denken des Francesco Patrizi”; Leinkauf, “Francesco Patrizi”; Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul in Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia (1591)”.
6 The expression primordialis is used by Patrizi in PC, VI, 78vb: “Empyreum autem mundum fluorem esse, inde constat liquido, quod ardeat. Flamma illa blandissima, & suavissima, & vitalissima. Omni autem flamma, fluit sui natura, & fluida est, & fluor. Quia calore, & lumine constat primordiali”. Primordialis seems quite often equivalent to primaevum, that is to what is “very first”, “like a principle”, or “primaeval”.
7 Patrizi, PC, VI, 79rb (finis): “Concludendum igitur, fluorem primaevum, quartum esse corporum omnium principium, atque intrinsecus omnibus inesse, veluti elementum”; 78vb (finis): “universitas ergo rerum, extra Patris profundem procreate, fluor est. Magna equidem, & seculis omnibus inaudita sunt quae pronunciamus”. Patrizi is grounding the whole system of natural being in the primordial element fluor that is, in itself, the expression of the unfolding of God’s creative power. There exists a concatenation of different statuses of fluor from the idea fluoris, which is the unitas fluoris or the concept of fluor in the mind of God down to the bottom level of fluor terrestris: idea fluoris -> fluor luminis -> fluor caloris -> fluor empyreus -> fluor coelestis -> fluor arthereus -> fluor aereus -> fluor aquaeus -> fluor terrestris. On all these levels of being, fluor is the primordial element that is communicating to all other modes of being its stability or resistance, 78ra: “Antitypiam a quo nam habebunt (sc. res ipsae)? A re nimirum, quae resistentiam vel indere, vel inferred possit. Eam nos fluorum seu humorem nominamus”. In relation to space, light, and heat, fluor is the universal principle of subsistence and perseverance, see f. 79rb: “renitentia, resistentia, anterisis”. The “fluid” is conditio sine qua non of being, 79ra: “ut si eo (sc. fluore) universitas caruisset, nulla fuisset extra Patris profundem rerum universitas”; the passage PC VII 82rb, “& in fluorem induceret, ex quo res omnes formarentur”, shows clearly that it is not before the ideas and forms of things are introduced to fluor, the principle or power of subsistence and resistance, that concrete beings or res will exist. That the empyreum is an infinite totality of being and a dynamic substance composed of the primordial elements space, light, heat, and fluid, and that this totum is structured by the dynamic of essence, power, and action, is impressively discussed in PC, XIV, 95rb; XXVII, 136ra–b.
8 Patrizi, PAR, XI, 23vb, 24rb: “Gradus hi novem, sunt primus rerum atque entium ordo, in profundum, a summon ad imum ductus”; Patrizi develops grades, series, and chains, see Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul in Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia (1591)”, 141–4. See also PC, XV, 99ra–b: “densitas-raritas-tensio”. From this perspective, one can say, for example, that “a flame is nothing else than light with more density” or that “heat is nothing else than rarefied fire”. For Patrizi, the whole realm of the world is substantially a mixture of light, fire, and heat, with different levels of intensity produced by the more or lesser predominance of light, measured by the grade of “fluidity” (fluor) or consistency; 99va: “Flamma lux est densior [ … ] & lux flamma est rarior, & pro raritatis & densitatis ratione ac portione, vel calent magis, vel calent minus”. In contrast to a purely atomistic or materialist understanding of the world, Patrizi sees the last reason of the factual gradation and intensities in God’s will and intention to create a most beautiful totality of beings, 99vb: “Quorum (sc. siderum) nullum varia flamma lucet, sed singular atque omnia propria lucent flamma, varie a Conditore non quidem temperate, & cum aliis fluoribus permista, sed varie vel densata, vel rarefacta, tanta equidem rarefactionis, & condensationis diversitate ac pulchritudine, ut nulla in re alia & sapientia, & potential eius sint magis admirandae”. For the presuppositions of his position, firstly elaborated in his radical critique on Aristotle’s theory of elements (in particular, Patrizi’s discussion of the concept of “elemental fire”), presupposing on their part Patrizi’s reading of the Presocratic and Hermetic traditions (Ocellus, Timaeus Locrus, and others), see Vasoli, “La critica del Patrizi alla dottrina aristotelica della sfera ‘elementale’ del fuoco”.
9 For Bruno see, for example, De immenso, I, 5, 218; VII, 8, 260; VIII, 10, 314.
10 The reception of Stoic philosophy in the sixteenth century is complex: it embraces influences on the Protestant Reformation, specifically on Jean Calvin and his ethics, on the “new” natural philosophies of Telesio, Patrizi, and Bruno from 1560 to 1590, and even on the very specific concepts of nature in alchemical contexts as in Paracelsus or the impact Stoic ethics had on the French and Dutch political movements, that is, on Du Vair, Lipsius, and others. See Moreau, “Calvin: Fascination et Critique du Stoïcisme”: Cléret, “Paracelse, L’alchimie et les Stoïciens”: Mulsow, Frühneuzeitliche Selbsterhaltung; Granada, “Giordano Bruno et le ‘Banquet de Zeus Chez les Éthiopiens’”; Granada, “Giordano Bruno et la Stoa. Une Présence non Reconnue de Thèmes Stoïciennes?” The problems, for example, are how to come to grips with the Stoic concepts of fatum (fate) or apatheia (apathy) of the wise man (Sophos)? It is quite plausible that one of Patrizi’s most famous contemporaries, Bernardino Telesio, has construed his thoroughgoing criticism of Aristotle on Stoic grounds, particularly on the transformation of Aristotelian elemental philosophy in a new feature in which cold and heat (frigus and calor), the main physical agents in Telesio, play the main role to open a new horizon of a homogenous quantifiable “field” of being that oscillates between denser and lower intensities. Cf. Galen, De naturalibus facultatibus, 106 (= SVF, II, 406). For Telesio, see Mulsow, Frühneuzeitliche Selbsterhaltung; for the homogenization, see Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 1:6–12; 2:1529–40, 1630–734.
11 Patrizi, PP, I, 49vb: “Nullum entium Dei bonitate caret. [ … ]. Si bona sunt (sc. entia), Dei bonitatem quatenus poterunt, imitabuntur propria eorum bonitate. [ … ] Nullum ergo ens sterile est. Omne ens ergo foecundum est. Si foecundum etiam praegnans. Si praegnans, etiam parturit. Si parturit, etiam producit”. If, then, activity is the result of the potentials that are hidden in the essence of the being and unfolded by the forces, it is possible to argue that life is a “substance producing activity” (vita nihil aliud est, quam essential parturiens actionem, tum in se ipsa, tum ex se ipsa).
12 Patrizi, PP, I, 49va. Because we know from biographical information that Patrizi read Ficino’s Theologia Platonica quite early during his academic studies, that is, when he studied at Padua University around 1548–1551, it is not surprising to find this typically Ficinian ontological pattern at the foundation of his own ontology. For Patrizi–Ficino relations, see Muccillo, “Marsilio Ficino e Francesco Patrizi da Cherso”; for the ontological structure and hierarchy, see Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 25–6.
13 “Omnipresent”, at least in the sense that the Stoics gave to their passive and active “principles” or agents, see Diogenes Laertius, VII, 134 (= SVF, II, 299–300; Nr. 44 B Long-Sedley): “dokeî dè autoîs archàs einai tôn hólôn dýo, tò poioûn kaì tò páschon. Tò mèn oûn páschon einai tên apoion ousían tên hylên, tò dè poioûn tòn en autêi logon tòn theón”. God or the Logos is the all-pervasive active principle, the “leading or ruling principle” (hêgemonikón) of the cosmos (as the soul is such a principle for us), and this logos or nous is actively unifying the manifold of corporeal being to the one world through “breathing together” (sympnoîa) and “tension” (syntonía); see White, Stoic Natural Philosophy, 128–33, with reference to Diogenes Laertius, VII, 137–40.
14 Cf. Bergemann, Ralph Cudworth. System aus Transformation.
15 See Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 39–44; Leinkauf, “Der Ternar ‘essentia-virtus-operatio’ und die Essentialisierung der Akzidentien”; cf., for example, PAR, II, 3vb; IV, 7vb; VII, 13va; VIII, 15rb; PC, XIV, 95rb.
16 Cf. Leinkauf, “Der Natur-Begriff des 17. Jahrhunderts und zwei seiner Interpretamente”, 405 and passim; Leinkauf, “Die Frühe Neuzeit und die antike Philosophie”, 35–8.
17 Patrizi, PP, I, 49rb: “Ut anima dicat nobis humanam tantum animam. Animus vero, reliquarum rerum animos significet, plantarum, brutorum, & si qui sint in universitate, alii”. Patrizi advises his readers that he discusses the human soul in his humanae nostrae philosophia initia (49rb); see also 50rb; IV, 55rb, 55vb. Thanks to Maria Muccillo, we now have the manuscript of the De Humana Philosophia, which Patrizi was not able to insert into his compendium Nova de Universis Philosophia; something that reminds us of the fatal lack of the chapter “On Man” (De homine) in Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae. See Muccillo, “Il ‘De humana philosophia’ di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso”.
18 Patrizi, PAR, XVIII, 39rb: “Tertium sit, corpori mundane iunctum, & per ipsum fusum, quam dicimus naturam. Et inter primum [intellect] & tertium [nature], sit medium secundum, quod & cum mentibus, & cum natura iungatur, & haec sit animae latitude”. The distinction Patrizi introduces later between anima and animus seems to put the animus closer to nature. In any way, the ontological “place” for bodies is nature, because they are heterostata; that is, alistantia, or beings that emanate from another higher-ranged and self-standing (authypostaton) being through the power and potentiality of which it exists.
19 Patrizi, PP, I, 49va; 50rb. All souls are deriving from the absolute unity or God, unfolding the “one–all” (un’omnia) into the “all–all” structure: “animi ergo, & in mente fuerunt, & in vita, & in essentia, & in unitate, & in uno. Ergo ab uno animi venerunt, ut a primissimo principio” (PC XXIII, 121vb). The most prominent form of the world(-body) that is unfolded out of the empyreum relates to light (lumen) and heat (calor), the animus mundanus. It is the “universal form of the universe” (universalis universi forma), all-pervasive and extended throughout the whole “material” substrate of the empyreum, aether, and earth; for continuitas see PC XXIII, 122ra–b.
20 Sambursky, The Physics of the Stoics, 31–2; White, Stoic Natural Philosophy, 134–6. See Philo of Alexandria, Quod deus sit immutabilis, 35 (= SVF, II, 458); Nemesius, De natura hominis, 70–1 (Nr. 47 J Long-Sedley).
21 Cf. Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantia, 1052 C–D (= SVF, II, 2604; Nr. 46 E Long-Sedley): the kosmos is “self-sufficient”, in contrast to Patrizi’s Christian view, because “it alone has within itself everything it needs” (mónos en hautô(i) pant’echein hôn deîtai). Patrizi was quite aware that it is an important Stoic position to hold that the principle of the world is “spirit” or “fire”; see PAR, III, 5ra: “Stoici spiritum (sc. principium posuerunt), ignem Deum, & distinxisse videntur, & videri possunt non distinxisse. His fatum adiunxere”. See White, Stoic Natural Philosophy, 133–4. In the works of many sixteenth-century authors, for example in Paracelsus, Patrizi, and Bruno, we can find, therefore, a distinction between “outer” and “inner” fire, between the rough combusting-consuming fire and the subtle construing building up of fire. See Cléret, “Paracelse, l’Alchimie et les Stoïciens”. Cf. Patrizi, PC, V, 75v–76r; VII, 77ra: “Et Stoici (appellavunt [ignem & spiritum]) mundi spiritum per omnia meantem, & omnia vivificantem”. Also cf. Bruno, Opere magiche, 597–615; Bruno, De immenso, II, 9, 289; III, 8, 372–6, who differentiates between “fire” as a product of light, unfolding its vital dynamics and powers, and “fire” as an expression of heat, with combustible, destructive powers; the first is identical with calor, the second with its derivative.
22 The following passage, PC, XXIII, 123ra, could easily be understood as originally Stoic: “Nam praeter Conditoris providentiam, praeter Mentem, praeter animum, praeter spiritum ei tributum, elementa omnia opem sibi mutuo praestare, est valde rationi consentaneum. Ut mundi totius partiumque Sympathia, synoikeiôsis [sic!], cognatioque conservetur, & sibi partes omnes consonent”. This and the following remarks on Providence and world management of the godly will could easily have been taken from Cicero’s, Stobaeus’, or Laertius’ doxographies of Stoic philosophy, see also PC, XXXI, 150ra–b (medium): “voluit Conditor Deus”. That Patrizi is arguing here in direct confrontation against and with reference to sources such as these is evidenced by 123rb, in which he explicitly refers to the Porticus, even if here he is criticizing the theory that air should be “cold” (frigidus): “addidere de Porticu sapientes eum (sc. aerem) summum esse frigidorum. Perperam utrumque”.
23 Chalcidius, In Timaeum Platonis, 220 (= SVF, II, 879; Nr. 53 G Long-Sedley): “Item Chrysippus ‘una et eadem’ inquit ‘certe re spiramus et vivimus. Spiramus autem naturali spiritu. Ergo etima vivimus eodem spiritu. Vivimus autem anima. Naturalis igitur spiritus anima esse invenitur’ [ … ] ‘partes animae [ … ] per universum corpus porriguntur, omniaque membra usque ad quaque vitali spiritu complent reguntque et morderantur”. See Chrysippus, Peri psyches (= SVF, II, 885): “hê gàr psyche peneûmá ti sýmphyton hêmîn synechès pantì tôi sômati dihêkon, est’ an hê tês zôês eýpnoia parêi en tôi sômati”.
24 Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, XV, 14, 1 (= SVF, I, 98): “He [Zeno] says, that both are bodies, the active and the passive principle, while (Plato) says that the first active cause is immaterial”. See Plutarch, De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos, 1085 B–C.
25 For example, regarding the operations of the active principles – logos, fire, pneuma – in the passive substrate. See White, Stoic Natural Philosophy, 133, who speaks of “a biological rather than a mechanical picture of corporeal causation” that presupposes other than mechanical modes of “contact”, with reference to Hippocrates. For the problems of “contact” in sixteenth-century debates, see Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 2:1531–40.
26 With the only exception of his “mystical philosophy”, a text that Patrizi took over from the medieval tradition, is the so-called Theologia Aristotelis – today unanimously taken as a late-antique compilation of Neoplatonic texts from Plotinus up to Proclus – and that he highly esteemed and valued as an original Aristotelian treatise and as the “theology” or theory of principles of the Stagirite that he preserved from Plato. Patrizi is one of the first to give a full and critical account of Aristotle’s whole work in his Discussiones Peripateticae, written and published before the Nova de Universis Philosophia (in Basle in 1581). See Vasoli, “Francesco Patrizi sull’infinità dell’universo”. For the confrontation with Aristotle, see Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 72–89.
27 Patrizi, PP, IV, 54ra–54vb, with regard to the De caelo, B 2, 285a; 12, 292 a–b. The argument is that the “real Aristotle”, pupil of Plato, at the beginning, that is, in his mystica theologia, agreed with the prisca sapientia and with his master, Plato, that the world is totally pervaded by a animus mundanus, but that Aristotle then “deviated from Plato and from himself” (54ra: a Platone, & a se ipso discessit) and established his view that “not the whole world but only a part of it is animated” (non mundum universum, sed mundi partem esse animatam), that is the planets and the stars.
28 Patrizi, PP, IV, 55va: “Itaque dicamus, non solum astra, & sphaeras [ … ] & coelum totum esse animatum, non Angelis, qui Mentes sunt, sed animis. At [ … ] cum Platone, senioribus cunctis, & Graecis, & Aegyptiism & Chaldaeis, mundum totum anima esse praeditum affirmamus. Unde sequitur, non solum coelos, partesque eorum, sed elementa [!] etiam quotquot sunt omnia, partesque eorum singulas, a totis suis non avultas, animata esse”. The argument that stands behind that strong position is the following: a perfect body cannot not have all the necessary ingredients or conditions for life if non-perfect bodies, on the other side and empirically manifest, do have these presuppositions; see 56ra: “Mundus, corporum omnium est perfectissimum”. Cf. as a mixture or syncretism of Platonic, Stoic, and Christian arguments under the dominant Neoplatonic paradigm, the position of Cornelius Gemma in his De divinis characterismis naturae, I, 34: “Totum illud quod mundus vel universum dicitur, esse quoddam animal unum cui Mens unica vel animus [!] unus uno spiritu praeditus, per corpus unicum sit summa aequabilitate diffuses. Hoc enim non tam humana ratio, quam totius ordinis pulchritude, partium singularum & actionum conspiratio, ex intellectus vi & potestate demonstrat”.
29 Patrizi, PP, I, 50vb (finis) quotes Aristotle’s Mystica philosophia, that is the Theologia Aristotelis, edited by himself in 1591 as an appendix to Nova de universis philosophia: “Praeterea sciendum, quod anima existens actu, causata est ab intellectu. Intellectus autem, etiam existens actu, productus est a principio primo. Qui immittit animae formam potentiamque receptam ab ipso principio primo inferente rerum productibilium universitatem”.
30 Patrizi, PP, IV, 56v and passim. The soul or spirit that is in a fundamental and constitutive way present in the material substrate of the world has to be non-corporeal to be able to establish forms of complex unity in that substrate, as, for example, “sympathy”, “connection”, or “life-preservation”. Cf. Patrizi, PP, IV, 56va: “Esse namque, & servari, & in conservatione perseverare, sui ipsius natura, minime potest”. On the corporeal being that has only passive forces or potentials, see PC, XXIII, 121vb.
31 Patrizi, PP, IV, 56ra. To have a soul or to have a life does not imply having organs, “like the organs we know and see in living organisms”. On the other side, to be a perfect or even the most perfect body must include the presence of a soul, even if we cannot identify its presence as easily as in organic bodies. But if a lower or less complex body can be animated, it is impossible to exclude from the most perfect body the presence of the soul. Cf. PP, IV, 56ra: “Mundus, corporum omnium est perfectissimum. Ergo & formicarum, & blattarum corporibus est perfectius, & aliarum, istismodi, sine numero mundi quisquilarum, quae animatae sunt, & animo sibi proprio quaeque vivunt. Cur ergo corpus perfectissimum omnium, animo careat, & sit cadaver? Elementa, quae mole sua, quae perfection sua, & mundi molem replent, & perfectionem adimplent, cur suis animis carebunt?” Patrizi adopts the (Neo)Platonic concept that the world-soul in general, and the individual souls in particular, are “bridging the ontological gap between the immaterial and the material, the being and the nonbeing, the mental and the corporeal realm”; see PP, II, 51vb: “Tertia quaedam in universitate erit natura, non corporea, non incorporea, sed utrumque et incorporea, et corporea, ita ut media quaedam sit inter utramque”; IV, 56va.
32 Patrizi, PP, IV, 56vb: “Animus autem ipso sui esse, suaque praesentia, tria efficit: animat, vivificat, movet”. In the Platonic tradition, there is a lot of criticism of Stoic ontology: if there is no unifying principle, such as the soul or the pneuma (or the fire), where could unity, consistence, and identity of a being (corporeal being) come from? Nemesius, for instance, stated that if soul is body, what could be the sustaining force or power and the unifying principle of that soul? For Nemesius, therefore, soul cannot be body.
33 Galen, De plenitudine, VII, 525, 7–14 (= SVF, II, 439); 527, 13–6 (= SVF, II, 440; Nr. 47 F Long-Sedley). The difference between tò synéchon and tò synechómenon corresponds to the one between the spirit (pneuma) and matter (hylê), air and fire are said to sustain (synéchein phasí). See also Plutarch, De communis notionibus, 1085, C–D (= SVF, II, 444; Nr. 47 G Long-Sedley).
34 Patrizi, PC, XIV, 95r–96v. The ubiquity of the subtle, quasi-immaterial being of the empyreum in the world, cf. particularly 95va. The active nature of light and heat consists of the flames made of a subtle, invisible, white, and penetrating material. All this pervasive power is responsible for the fact that there is substantial continuity among former divided parts of the world, that there are no such things as the mundus supra-lunaris separated from the mundus sub-lunaris or an ontological “gap” between the empyreum, aether, and air. See Patrizi, PC, XIV, 96va–b: “Aerem, & coelum continuum & unum eiusdem naturae esse corpus, & nullo modo esse corpora separata. [ … ]. Coelum igitur, aether & aer, & ignis idem corpus unum sunt. [ … ] Unum ergo corpus totum est Universum, partium locis tantum in se differens”. It is a Stoic position, reported by Stobaeus (to whom Patrizi refers on many occasions), that air and fire are “weightless” (abarê) and extend through the whole body of the universe, creating “coherence” (systasis).
35 For the Stoics, what qualifies matter is God as the active principle (tò poioûn); for Patrizi, in contrast, it is the animus mundanus. But for both theories, there has to be an instrument that operates or transposes the active potential into the passive substrate. The Stoics define God as intelligent (noeron) and as a designing fire (pyr technikon) which methodically brings forth the world (epi genései kósmou) and encompasses inside itself all seminal forces (spermatikous logous), and also as the spirit/breath (pneuma) pervades the whole world. We have here, then, all connected, the notions of spirit, intellect, all-presence, method, activity, organization as immanent modalities of the poioun or God.
36 Patrizi, PP, IV, 56rb–56va; 56va: “ardên empsychoûsa, pháos, aithéra, kósmous”.
37 See Patrizi, PP, I, 50ra–b and Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 46 and passim; for lumen/lux, see Patrizi, PA, III, 7v: “radios [ … ] incorporea tamen & corporea simul”.
38 Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 1:134 and passim; 2:1197–9. Additionally, it is on and with this “borderline” that late antique thought, referring thereby to Plato’s Phaedrus, 246, A–D and Timaeus, 35, A–B and 41, D, developed the concept of the “charioteer” or “vehicle” that serves as a means to “move” from one sphere to another. See Proclus, Elementatio theologica, 207–8, adopted by Ficino, Commentaria in Platonis Sophistam, 271–3: “anima nostra quasi vestita spirtu” as the vehiculum celeste”, and later also by Patrizi, PAU, IV, 11ab: “est enim lumen virtutum coelestium [id est: non material powers, forces, instances] vehiculum [id est: material substrate], et vinculum universi superi et inferi”. This concept was surely known in sixteenth-century discussions, specifically when authors from an Aristotelian–scholastic movement, such as Gasparo Contarini, sought to integrate a significant amount of Platonic thought into their teachings and writings. See Gasparo Contarini, Opera, 165 B–C. See also Leinkauf, “Der Seelenwagen als “quadriga rationalis” bei Marsilio Ficino”.
39 Patrizi, PP, II, 52va: “Animus igitur omnia entia est. Superiora equidem tamquam eorum imago. Inferiora vero, ut eorum exemplar. Et essentia sua tota universitas entium est, modo nimirum animario”.
40 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, IX, 75–6 (= SVF, II, 311; Nr. 44 C Long-Sedley): “aídios toínyn estìn hê kinoûsa tên hýlên dýnamis [!] kaì tetagménôs autên eis génesin kaì metabolàs ágousa. Hôste theòs an eíê haýtê”. If this passage refers to Stoic thinking (as Long-Sedley holds with von Arnim), then we have the fundamental equation: dýnamis–ageîn–theós.
41 Patrizi, PC, V, 77ra.
42 For the Stoics, the soul is nothing else than corporeal; see Nemesius, De natura hominis, 78, 7–79, 2 (= SVF, I, 518; Nr. 45 C Long-Sedley): “sôma ara hê psyche”, the context is that only corporeal being can suffer (sympáschein) anything caused by other corporeal being; there is no reciprocal activity between non-corporeal and corporeal being. See also Nemesius, De natura hominis, 81, 6–10 (= SVF, II, 790; Nr. 45 D Long-Sedley).
43 Patrizi, PC, V, 76rb: “Ignis ergo hic supernus, a patre Deo, per suum profundum primo protensus: Deinde extra profundum per omnes rerum gradus, incorporeos & corporeos, usque ad mundi omnes cavitates & usque ad centrum terrae eum extendit”. Before this passage, Patrizi gives an impressive sequence of quotations from Hellenistic and late antique sources, mostly from the Oracula Chaldaica.
44 For example, Patrizi, PAU, V, 12vb–13ra; PAR, V, 5ra–vb (on fate); PC, I, 63vb: “Veterum elegantissimi quidam Physici autumarunt, mundum hunc conflagraturum”; 64ra: “Posidonius vero infinitum non esse docuit, sed tantum quantum sufficiat ad capiendum mundi resolutionem in ignem. Stoici vero alii infinitum esse affirmarunt, sed quibus rationibus id confirmarunt, nequaquam constat. Nos alia ingredientes via”; V, 77ra: “Et Stoici (sc. appellavunt [ignem & spiritum]), mundi spiritum per omnia meantem, & omnia vivificantem”; immediately after that, on p. 115, Patrizi quotes the locus classicus from Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 724–6: “Coelum ac terras, camposque liquentes/[ … ] spiritus intus alit. Totamque infusa per artus / Mens agitat molem, & toto se corpore miscet”. Also quoted is the important passage PAR, XVIII, 39rb–va, in which the concept of nature as a coextensive force to the body is introduced. Here in Virgil we have the explicit Stoic immanent viewpoint intus alere, mens infusa, se toto corpore miscere, which Patrizi is evidently overtaking in his Neoplatonic system; see also PAR, XIX, 108ra: “Zeno Stoicorum pater & ipse ignem (sc. solem) esse dixit. Stoici quidam, Heraclitum potius quam authorem suum secuti, accensionem esse e mari illuc sublatam”, on the soul and its nature see 110rb–va; XX, 112rv: “Zeno Parmenidis auditor igneum astrum esse (sc. Lunam), mente praeditum, & prudens, & artificio confectum. Cleanthes & ipse igneam scripsit. Empedoclem censuit esse aerem nebulosum, ab igne compactum, & ei commistum. Hunc bona Stoicorum pars, sunt secuti, nam mistam esse ex igne & aere tradiderunt [ … ]. Idem fere Chrysippus sensit, namque accensionem ex dulcium aquarum vaporibus collectam, & a sole accensam”; XXIII, 121va: “Esse autem aethera nobiliorem aere, etiam Pythagoreis, aliis cum Ocello placuit, & Platoni, & Aristoteli, & Cythio Zenoni, & reliquis de eorum omnium schola omnibus”; XXIII, 123rb and XXIV, 127v on the nature of water and its zone of activity (as “cold”); XXVII, 136va–137rb: Posidonius’ theory of the movements of the sea (cited through Strabo’s references); see also XXVIII, 139va.
45 If he refers to the great schools, as, for example, in PAR, IX, 18ra, he nearly always refers to the Peripatetics, Epicurus and his school and the Stoics, see also X, 20va; XI, 24rb. These three ancient schools represent the “negative” alternatives to the Platonic school and the tradition of “old wisdom” (prisca sapientia), present in the texts of Hermes and Zoroaster. For the genealogy of prisci theologi, see PAR, IX, 19rb–20rb.
46 Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VII, 85 (= SVF, III, 178); Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, III, 5, 16 (= SVF, III, 182).
47 Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, IX, 332 (= SVF, II, 254; Nr. 44 A Long-Sedley). The philosophers of the Stoic school tried to differentiate between to hólon (“whole”) and tò pân (“all”). The “whole” is the world (kosmos), as they say, and the “all” is the outside void (exôthen kenon) that exists together with the world. Therefore, the whole is limited (because the world is limited), the all instead is without limits (such is the void outside the world). See Patrizi, PC, I, 62vb–63ra, particularly 64ra–b and VIII, 82va: “Stoici, to pân, universum simul cum vacuo, infinitum esse docuerunt, tò hólon. Totum vero, absque vacuo esse mundum, esseque finitum. Quibus autem rationibus sua dogmata firmarent, est ignoto. Scripta namque eorum periere. Et qui eorum sententias retulere, non plene, sed concisum retulere, Plutarchus, Aetius, Laertius, Hesychius, Stobaeus”. Partizi gives his – quite heterodox – position in 83r–v: the world is infinite, which includes also a refutation of the Stoic “cauta distinctio, cum vacuo universum dici, sine vacuo dici totum”. See Vasoli, “Francesco Patrizi sull’infinità dell’universo”.
48 Cf. Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantia, 1053, B (= SVF, II, 605; Nr. 46 F Long-Sedley); Aristocles in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, XV, 14, 2 (= SVF, I, 98; Nr. 46 G Long-Sedley); Stobaeus, Anthologium, I, 161, 8–26 (= SVF, II, 503; Nr. 49 A Long-Sedley): “tò mèn oûn kenòn apeiron eînai légesthai; tò gàr ektòs toû kósmou toioût’eînai” (what is outside the world is void); “tòn dè tópon peperasménon dià tò mêdèn sôma apeiron eînai” (place is limited because of the fact that none of the bodies is infinite); Simplicius, Commentaria in Aristotelis De caelo, VII, 284, 28–285, 2 (= SVF, II, 535; Nr. 49 F, Long-Sedley). Surely, the Commentaria is Patrizi’s direct source, as he refers to Simplicius in nearly every chapter. The “void” is one of the four incorporeals: place, void, time, and things said or sayables (ta lektá), it exists only hypostatically (hyphestanai); hypostasis in contrast to hyparchein, see Brunschwig, “Stoic Metaphysics”, 212–3.
49 Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, VIII, 275–6 (= SVF, II, 223; Nr. 53 T Long-Sedley).
50 Patrizi, PP, V, 58rb: “Quae res quidem omnes ostendunt animos brutorum, non solum dialogos in se ipsos facere, verum etiam, ut Plutarchus ait, syllogismos”, also 59ra. Patrizi refers to Porphyry as a source for these arguments, 55ra–b.
51 See the reference to Strato in PP, V, 58vb: “At verissimum enim illud Stratonis physici dogma fuit. Nihil vivere sine sensu. Nihil sentire, aut cognoscere sine intellectu”. Strato’s natural philosophy is critical in confrontation to his master, Aristotle.
52 Patrizi, PAR, V, 5vb: “Stoicorum vero fatum, nostro saeculo nomine magis notum est quam vel opera, vel viribus, vel essential. Quae enim de eo hinc illuc sparsa dogmata leguntur tam varie sunt relata, ut scire certo nesciamus, quid ea schola fati nomine sibi voluerit. Si vero quod relatorum maior pars velle videtur fatum sit ‘heimós’, causarum seris, & cathena, unde sit ‘heimarménê’ dicta, concedemus huius cathenae summum rerum omnium esse principium. [ … ] Eorum quae praecedente libro examinavimus nullum esse cunctorum principium [see PAR, II on the world as purely corporeal] [ … ] Mundum rerum quae in eo sunt putarunt quidam [Stoici] esse principium. Mundus autem corpus est”; see also XI, 24rb. To have a real principle, one must transcend the corporeal realm, “est igitur ad incorproreas res confugiendum”, and this transcends the limits of Stoic thinking. For fate and concatenation, see Cicero, De divinatione, I, 126; De fato, 20–1. On the problem of fate, see Calvin’s critique in his Institutiones religionis christianae, cf. Moreau, “Calvin: fascination et critique du stoïcisme”, 54–9. for Calvin, the fate is only “blind necessity” and the predestination “free predetermination”.
53 Patrizi, PC, V, 75vc, M–E: “Sed, si hunc suum ignem, pater non clausit, quo eum effudit, aut diffudit? In mentem primam, & in secundam, & in Ideas, & in mentes alias, & in animos, & in corpora omnia, usque ad centrum”. 76rb, M–E: “Ignis ergo hic supernus, a patre Deo, per suum profundum primo protensus: deinde extra profundum per omnes rerum gradus, incorporeos, & corporeos, usque ad mundi omnes cavitates, & usque ad centrum terrae eum extendit”. Consequently, we can easily see the essentially geocentric signature of Patrizi’s cosmology and physics.
54 The formula was “bonum est diffusivum sui”, originally coming from Plato’s concept of a perfect and creative God, who produces the world by communication his goodness, adopted by Plotinus (see Plotinus, Enneads, II, 9, 3, 7 passim; IV, 8, 6, 1–25; V 1, 6–7), with an enormous impact on medieval thought, particularly on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae (I, 19, 2: “Ut bonum suum aliis per similitudinem communicet”) and Eckhart. See Kremer’s interpretation: Kremer, Die neuplatonische Seinsphilosophie und ihre Wirkung auf Thomas von Aquin, 9–19. For the concept of unfolding all its potentials “extra se”, see Patrizi, PAR, XVIII, 40rb–va.
55 We have to think here specifically of the abovementioned theory of the pyr technikón; see Zeno, SVF, I, 120, 171; Cleanthes, SVF, I, 497, 563. These are authors that Patrizi could easily have known through Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VII, 156, or Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 57: “naturam […] ignem esse artificiosum ad gignendum progredientem via”; See also Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 23–5, 28–30: “Sic enim res se habet, ut omnia quae alantur et quae crescent contineant in se vim caloris [ … ] nam omne quod est calidum et igneum cietur et agitur modo suo. [ … Cleanthes]. Omne igitur, quod vivit, sive animal sive terra editum, id vivit propter inclusum in eo calorem. Ex quo intellegi debet eam caloris naturam vim habere in se vitalem per omnem mundum pertinentem”. Patrizi refers directly to the Stoic system in PC, V, 77ra, M: “Et Stoici (sc. appellavunt [ignem & spiritum]), mundi spiritum per omnia meantem, & omnia vivificantem”; XV, 97ra: “Graecos veteres astra omnia ignes esse & flammas non pauci sunt arbitrati, Thales [ … ], Plato, Aristoteles, Cleanthes”. It is more than probable that Cicero and Laertius are his prominent sources for Stoic philosophy, in addition to authors such as Plutarch.
56 For example Alexander of Aphrodisias, De mixtione, 223, 25–36 (= SVF, II, 441; Nr. 47 L Long-Sedley): “pneúmatós tinos dià pantòs dihêkontos autoû (toû pantós)”. In this context, Alexander criticizes the Stoic position and opts for the Aristotelian view that every singular being is sustained by its “own form” (oikeîon eidos) and not by an all-pervading principle. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VII, 138–9 (= SVF, II, 634; Nr. 47 O Long-Sedley): dioikeîsthai, dihêkein, chôrein; Philo, De legum allegoria, 2, 22–3 (= SVF, II, 458; Nr. 47 P Long-Sedley): diateínein. See White, “Stoic Natural Philosophy”, 124–5.
57 It is the systematically important role of the Panarchia, the book on principles, to give to the reader the arguments for the different kinds of “transcendence” and for all hierarchical distinctions, and it is fully plausible that Patrizi rigorously bases his whole argument on late Neoplatonic axiomata, particularly those that Proclus introduced and used in his Elements of Theology and in the Dubitationes et Solutiones of his successor, Damascius; see Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 23–38; Leinkauf, “Die Rezeption des Damaskios im Denken des Francesco Patrizi”; Leinkauf, Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, 2:1663–6.
58 See Vasoli, “Francesco Patrizi sull’infinità dell’universo”; Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele.
59 Patrizi, PC, VIII, 82va: “Scripta namque eorum periere. Et qui eorum sententias retulere, non plene [!], sed concisim retulere”.
60 In the emendation of his Nova de universis philosophia, written 1596 after the tribunal of the congegratio in winter 1592, Patrizi, nonetheless, mentions Stoic authors along with representatives of the Epicurean, Academic or other “heresies”. See Patrizi, “Nova de universis philosophia”, Materiali per un’Edizione Emendata, I, 8 (50v): “Stoica (sc. philosophia aut secta) autem, quae paucula relatu habemus, fere inconstantia sunt omnia, sibique saepe adversantia”; 13 (54r). the one principle is called by “Thales ac Zeno Deum, qui et Mens sit et empyrea Mundi Anima [ … ]. Stoici Spiritum per omnia meantem (sc. esse dixerunt)”. He characterizes these thinkers as “physicos illos philosophos, qui corporum corporea principia intrinseca constituebant, alia etiam principia <unum> vel plura incorporeal et extrinseca, a quibus corpora fierent, necessaria esse [!] dixerunt”. That is, philosophically materialistic thinkers were forced to put non-bodily principles as principles for bodies.
61 The use of infinitipotens is surely rooted in Proclus’ concept of apeirodynamos or apeirodynamia.
62 Patrizi appropriates this “Chaldean” (and, in fact, Stoic) argument as his own; see Patrizi, PC, IX, 85vb: “Verum nos ex nostris principiis, quid caelum sit ad finem deducamus. [ … ]. Horum autem corporum (sc. all the bodies or things that exist as composites of the primordial elements) primum ostendimus fuisse empyreum mundum ad extra infinitum, ad intera finitum”; 85vb: “Nam continuo infinito ad extimam partem, ardente empyreo constructo, decuit, ad partem quoque intimam, discretum, finitum quidem, sed pene infinitum supremum condere conditorem”. Patrizi similarly refers to the Stoic position with regard to the “form” or “figure” (schema) of the world/universe; see PC, X, 86vb–87ra: a part of the philosophers (as the Stoics) who state that the world or universe is spherical say that it is surrounded by void (vacuum), others that it is surrounded by nothing (nihil), such as Pythagoras or Plato; the Stoics then say that the figure could be spherical, conical, or oval; against the criticism of Plato and Aristotle, Patrizi argues that it is not impossible to suppose, as certain Stoics do, that the world is cylindrical or lenticular; see f. 87ra. 87vb medium: “quod veterum quidam asseruerunt” is clearly referring to 86vb “ut Stoici [ … ]. Priorum (sc. Stoicorum) alii sphaericum fecerunt (sc. mundum), alii conicum, sicuti alii ovale”. Cf. regarding “fire”, “empyrean”, or “ether”; Oracles Chaldaiques 5, 2–4: the intellect is “artisan of the fiery world” (technitês kosmou pyriou); 10, 1; 33, 1–2; 68; 81; for ennoiai see 38, 1: for the ennoiai patròs with the Stoic term ennoiai koinai Patrizi, PAR, XII, 26vb: the “unities” (unitates) are in themselves “ideas” (ideae) and in the intellect ennoiai noêrai (“conceptus intellectualis”). The vocabulary is Stoic, with Neoplatonic colors. Important passages on the complex relation of on/einai (“being”), pan (“all”, “whole”), topoas (“place”), sôma (“body”), and hyphistêmi (“exist”) in regard with the Stoics, see Plutarch, Peri tôn koinôn ennoiôn, 30, 1073 D–1074 D.
63 See Leinkauf, “Der Natur-Begriff des 17. Jahrhunderts und zwei seiner Interpretamente”.
64 On Patrizi and Neoplatonism, see Leinkauf, Il neoplatonismo di Francesco Patrizi come presupposto della sua critica ad Aristotele, 23–71; Leinkauf, “Die Rezeption des Damaskios im Denken des Francesco Patrizi” (on Damascius); Leinkauf, “Francesco Patrizi” (on Proclus).