L'ateismo trionfato overo riconoscimento filosofico della religione universale contra l'antichristianesmo macchiavellesco (review)

Edward A. Gosselin

Renaissance Quarterly, Volume 58, Number 2, Summer 2005, pp. 589-590 (Article) Published by Renaissance Society of America DOI: 10.1353/ren.2008.0726

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The accurate critical edition of these texts is by a promising young scholar, Aide Scala, who also provides a detailed biography of the author. Moreover, she offers a thorough commentary and contextualization of the Dialogi and of the other works by Rorario, including the oration in Defense of the Rats Infesting Cardinal Campeggis Garden (rich in burlesque references). The tract, mentioned above, on the ratiocinative capacities of animals is also studied through its philosophical role in the Bayle-Leibniz polemic, with an interesting if not persuasive aside on Rorarios anti-volgare stand in the Bembo-Castiglione questione della lingua. The last chapter contains an overview of the unfinished epic poem Heroica Historia. In conclusion, Scalas contribution sharply unveils Rorarios complex curriculum, and one can only hope that his witty Latin satires will be soon readable in English, possibly next to the excellent translation of Albertis Momus in the I Tatti Renaissance Library. In the meantime, a complete Italian two-volume translation of Rorarios works has been edited by Scala and published by the Accademia di San Marco in Pordenone.

MARCELLO SIMONETTA
Wesleyan University

Tommaso Campanella. Lateismo trionfato overo riconoscimento filosofico della religione universale contra lantichristianesmo macchiavellesco.
2 vols. Ed. Germana Elisa Ernst. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2004. lxviii + 268; i + 391 pp. index. illus. bibl. n.p. ISBN: 8876421254.

The importance of Germana Ernsts edition of Lateismo trionfante is that in volume 1 she has published a critical edition of the first (Italian) version of Campanellas important work. It shows us what Campanella had written before inquisitors and other censors had read it and forced him to make changes in the Latin versions of the work. Volume 2 is a photographic copy of Campanellas original manuscript that was the basis of Ernsts edited translation in the first volume: Ms Barb. Lat. 4458 of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Lateismo trionfanto was first written between 1605 and 1607 when it was rewritten in Latin. This Italian text was never published until Ernsts current edition, although Campanella had hopes of getting its Latin translation published through the help of Gaspare Schoppe in Germany in the years soon after its composition. (Schoppe suggested the first half of the title to Campanella; the second half of the title was Campanellas preferred version.) It was finally given an imprimatur in Italy in 1631, but was then soon taken off the market due to the criticism of an unknown censor (thought by Luigi Firpo to have been Alessandro Vitrizio [xlviii]). The Latin version was published once again in Paris (1636) after Campanellas release from prison and his immigration to France. The modern reader of the books short title might think it obvious why it raised the hackles of ecclesiastical censors, for it would seem that the book is about

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triumphant atheism. This is not the case, however. To Campanella, atheism did not mean the nonexistence of God but rather the belief in a Calvinist God predestining the eternal fate of human beings who have no free will and therefore no ability to chose good over evil. Campanella therefore saw his book as an attack on this triumphant Protestant theology that threatened God with charges of cruelty and injustice. He also argued that Christianity was the true religion (compared with all other religions in the world) because it was based on natural reason and natural law, with Jesus as the epitome of law and reason. Yet his Catholic opponents did not see this work as an attack on predestination. Luca Wadding (15881657) wrote, This is the cardinal point of heresy, [for] it confounds the law of nature and the law of Christ; and Niccol Riccardi, il Padre Mostro, said, If he is not Pelagius, I dont know who else would be (xlv). In Lateismo trionfanto, Campanella also accounts as heretics of the true Christian religion such writers as Niccol Machiavelli and others who assert that the ends justify the means. The philosophy of Machiavellisti endangers the work of the universal Christian monarchy. He says that all the anti-Christian evils of his age come from Machiavelli. So what is Campanellas Christian view in Lateismo trionfato? According to him, the Catholic faith is the most perfect form of the Christian faiths. He asserts that Catholicism is in line with natural reason and Aristotelianism, particularly in its Thomistic form. This opinion is no surprise since Campanella was a Dominican. All people, he says, can recognize Jesus as Reason Itself. Campanella therefore believes that all people are Christian when they live according to the lights of reason, even though they may not be members of the Catholic Church or may not know Jesus. This last view was dangerous, verging on heresy, according to Campanellas censors, for he seemed to draw many ideas from Origen which, coupled with his Pelagianism, allowed him to be read as an extreme Pelagian who believed all men would be saved. Consequently, although Campanella clearly believed in God and disbelieved in predestination, his book seemed too liberal for the likes of his critical inquisitorial readers. No wonder, then, that the Latin edition of 1631, published in Italy, had to go through rewriting and, even after publication, was removed from bookstores shelves for further emendations. It could only find unfettered publication in the freer air of Paris. Germana Ernst has done us all a great service in making Campanellas important work available to us in such a masterful fashion. We are in her debt.

EDWARD A. GOSSELIN
California State University, Long Beach, Emeritus

George W. McClure. The Culture of Profession in Late Renaissance Italy.

Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2004. xviii + 374 pp. index. illus. bibl. $65.00. ISBN: 0802089704.

The culture of profession to which the title of this study alludes is a rather amorphous entity. The author has examined a number of vernacular literary works