…4. Use of Pre-Platonic Sources
… he was willing to consider as wide a range of views as possible on subjects of interest to him, whether they were scientific, philosophical, historical, or dealt with concrete problems in engineering or hydrology. And he made use of them in his own way, unwilling to adhere unquestioningly to the theories and practices of contemporaries who dealt with the same works in different ways. To cite a concrete example, Patrizi accepted the authenticity of the body of works attributed to the pseudo-Egyptian sage Hermes or Mercurius Trismegistus, as had Marsilio Ficino before him and many of his own contemporaries, such as Giordano Bruno (Yates 1964). He printed some Hermetic works and the Chaldaean Oracles attributed to Zoroaster (Patrizi 1593). …
But what is most interesting is that Patrizi did not employ these texts in the way that fanatical Hermeticists like Bruno did, who saw therein a justification for the practice of spiritual and demonic magic and a basis for undermining the authority of the Christian church as a “triumphant beast”, perverting the “true” religion of the ancient Egyptians. Instead, Patrizi found in those works themes which he felt would be echoed by “later” Greek authors such as Plato and his followers, adding additional support to their appeal. Yet it is clearly no coincidence that Patrizi's own difficulties with the Church over the Nova … Philosophia would occur while Bruno was languishing in prison in Rome prior to his execution in February 1600 and that Galileo Galilei and other innovative cosmologists would face similar confrontations with the Congregation of the Index and the Inquisition.
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5. The Relation of Philosophy to Science
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In sum, then, given the innovative, retrospective, Platonic and Aristotelian/anti-Aristotelian aspects of Patrizi's thought, what is the best way to “categorize” him as a Renaissance philosopher? Humanist, scientist, mathematician, literary critic and poet, historian, engineer and utopian theorist, it is hard to find one category which fills the bill. Perhaps there is a message here, not just about Francesco Patrizi of Cherso but about many Renaissance thinkers of his day. Confronted by so many models from previous ages and seeking to discover the best means to move into the future, it is hardly surprising that many of the most open-minded thinkers of the time can best be viewed more appropriately as transitional figures, rather than Platonists, Aristotelians or “philosophers of nature” as many have been claimed to have been. For example, to characterize Patrizi as a “Renaissance Platonist” with such thinkers as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is to ignore or understate the significant differences among them. And to see him as a “philosopher of nature” with such contemporaries as Bernardino Telesio and Giordano Bruno hardly fits as well. That he should be so hard to define – both looking back and looking forward – should not disturb us. He was, after all, a “Renaissance” thinker, helping to usher in a new age. …