Pietro Pomponazzi

During the Renaissance, Bologna was the centre for the new studies of Aristotle, who was considered the master of Natural Sciences. The school of thought known as Averroisti (that counted among its number Alessandro Achillini, who was also a scholar of Anatomy) held that there was a single human intellect, over and above individual expressions of it.

Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1524) was the leader of the opposing group, the supporters of Alexander, who urged the return to true Aristotelian thought represented by Alexander of Aphrodisia's commentaries. Both schools of thought maintained that there is a necessary order in the world, which excluded the direct intervention of God, and accepted "dual truth": the discoveries of scientific research may be true even when in conflict with religious faith. This view was to have an important influence on the birth of modern scientific thinking. In his De incantationibus, Pomponazzi accepted miracles and the influence of the stars but tried to explain them through natural causes. In his De immortalitate animae (1516) he argued that the immortality of the soul could not be proved on rational grounds, and in his De fato libero arbitrio, praedestinatione et providentia Dei (1520) he maintained that divine omniscience does not preclude free will. His defence of rational research as being independent of Theology exposed him to accusations of impiety, but in Bologna he found support and protection, even among the city authorities.