Pietro Pomponazzi

Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) was a leading philosopher of Renaissance Italy. Teaching primarily at the universities at Padua and Bologna, he developed innovative approaches to Aristotelian natural philosophy and psychology. He gained particular fame, and notoriety, for his philosophical investigations into the mortality of the soul and for his naturalistic explanations of seemingly miraculous phenomena and of the development of religions. Pomponazzi was notable for his philosophical challenges to religious doctrine as well as for his use of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s writings and Stoic ideas to forge what he considered to be a purer or more accurate interpretation of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and psychology.