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Description
[PHILOSOPHY]
VANINI:
The Philosophical Works of Vanini, translated for the first time by Mr X. Rousselot.
Paris. Charles Gosselin’s Bookshop, 1842.
In 8°. Contemporary half-calf binding (worn). Smooth spine, decorated with gilt and blind-stamped tools. Missing at the foot and top. XVI pp and 321 pages.
FIRST EDITION in French of the philosopher Vanini’s condemned works.
VANINI, (1585–1619):
Giulio Cesare Vanini, also known as Lucilio Vanini, was born in 1585 in Taurisano in the Terra d’Otranto. He was an Italian philosopher and naturalist, regarded as one of the leading figures of scholarly libertinism. His writings earned him a death sentence, and he was burnt at the stake in Toulouse in 1619.
This free-thinker was among those who, like Giordano Bruno, by challenging traditional scholasticism, helped lay the foundations of modern philosophy. His wandering life, his tragic death, and his anti-Christian stance are reminiscent of Giordano Bruno.
The *De admirandis naturae* sets out, in simple and elegant prose, the naturalistic interpretation of supernatural phenomena that Pietro Pomponazzi — whom Vanini calls ‘*magister meus, divinus præceptor meus, nostri speculi Philosophorum princeps* ’ (‘My master, my divine tutor, the foremost of philosophers in our own image’) — had set out in his *De incantationibus*. Vanini even refers in it to Cardano, Scaligero and other sixteenth-century thinkers. ‘God acts upon sublunary beings (meaning “human beings”) by using the heavens as a means’ provides a natural origin and a rational explanation for so-called supernatural phenomena, whilst astrology was also regarded as a science; ‘the Supreme Being issues warnings to men, and especially to sovereigns, by whose example the world is governed, when dangers threaten them[4]’.
But the foundations of these supposedly supernatural phenomena also stem from human imagination, which is sometimes capable of altering the appearance of external reality, as in the case of the founders of the revealed religions, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and the impostor clergy who impose false beliefs to gain wealth and power, and rulers, who have an interest in maintaining religious beliefs in order to better dominate the people, as Machiavelli had already taught.
Following Pomponazzi once again and his interpretations of Aristotelian texts—as amended by the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias—he denies the immortality of the soul. Vanini’s works do not, strictly speaking, portray him as an atheist: whilst he denies the validity of revealed religions, he accepts God as an absolute being and regards nature as its manifestation. His philosophical conception is therefore akin to libertinism and pantheistic naturalism.
Rare.
See original version (French)
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10/15/2026 at 1:00 PM
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