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Resources of Intellectual
Legitimacy in Italian
Cosmological Affairs:
Cremonini and
Bellarmine’s Authority
Conflict (c.1616)

Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

This essay deals with two seventeenth-century intellectuals, the Aristotelian
philosopher at Padua, Cesare Cremonini, and the Jesuit controversist, Robert
Bellarmine. In the years of the cosmological affair of 1616, both defended
their cosmological conceptions by relying on the principle of authority. Cependant,
they embraced different sources of legitimation in matters of natural philoso-
phy. While the Padua professor stick to (what he considered to be) the letter of
Aristotle, basically a secular interpretation of his world conception, Cardinal
and Inquisitor Bellarmine understood the cosmos against a theological back-
ground. En particulier, Bellarmine subordinated natural philosophy to exegesis
and the authority of the Scriptures, and this allowed him to depart from
Aristotle to some extent (for instance on the ﬂuidity and possibly the corruptibil-
ity of the heavens). Encore, the two thinkers also shared the criticism of the major
astronomical novelty of their time, namely the planetary system of Copernicus
and his followers. But their objections rested on different worldviews and
authorities (Aristotle and the Scriptures, respectivement). Cremonini also supported
a vision of celestial animation which was received with much preoccupation by

This article stems from the project Early–Modern–Cosmology, which has received funding
from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (GA
n. 725883). I would like to thank the blind referees for their precious comments and sug-
gestions. I would also like to thank the colleagues in Venice and Innsbruck, who discussed
with me the problems of the animation of the heavens in the framework of an exchange
between the ERC projects Early–Modern–Cosmology and NOSCEMUS (PI, Martin Korenjak,
GA 741374). I am particularly thankful to Ovanes Akopyan for his valuable comments and
suggestions. Unless otherwise stated, translations are mine.

Perspectives on Science 2022, vol. 30, Non. 5
© 2022 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

https://doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00563

874

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Perspectives on Science

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religious authorities as they feared that his views might revive forms of astral
worshipping. This essay discusses the manner in which Cremonini and Bellarmine
received geocentrism and cosmology in very different, even opposite, manners, surtout-
cially concerning the relation between natural philosophy and theology, et le
reconcilability of cosmology with the Scriptures.

Introduction

1.
Thomas S. Kuhn once argued that an “Aristotelian-Ptolemaic paradigm”
dominated astronomy and regulated normal scientiﬁc activity for many
centuries before the Copernican break induced a new generation of scholars
to embrace a fundamentally restructured vision of the world with conse-
quences ranging from astronomy to physics, the image of humankind, et
religion (Kuhn 1959, 1962; Swerdlow 2004; Westman 1994). As important
as this interpretation was to make the epistemological idea of the discontinuity
of the historical a priori of science plausible (Kuhn’s celebrated theory of sci-
entiﬁc revolutions), it also disseminated a historical oversimpliﬁcation.
Among others, it levelled the positions of the opponents of heliocentrism to
an undifferentiated community of religiously motivated Aristotelian Ptolemaics,
while the early modern cosmological debates were reduced to a pro and
contra controversy over Copernicus’s legacy.1 This essay on the sources
of cosmological legitimation in the early seventeenth century faces a more
intricate story, at least as far as geocentric positionings were concerned.

In the midst of heated controversies that agitated early seventeenth-
century scientiﬁc culture in Italy, two prominent intellectuals, the Aristotelian
philosopher, Cesare Cremonini, and the Jesuit controversist, Robert Bellarmine
defended geocentric cosmological views on the basis of arguments that
ultimately rested on the principle of authority, secularly philosophical
and philosophical-theological, respectivement. Both criticized the main astro-
nomical innovations of their time, particularly the planetary system of
Copernicus and his followers. Cependant, while Bellarmine showed a certain
openness to the doctrine of the ﬂuidity and corruptibility of the heavens, dans
a more Stoic than Aristotelian fashion, Cremonini went as far, in his adher-
ence to the Aristotelian philosophy, as to refuse to look into his friend and
colleague Galileo Galilei’s telescope and acknowledge the validity of the
discoveries that the latter had announced in the Sidereus Nuncius (1610).2
In Cremonini’s eyes, such novelties had the major shortcoming that they

1. More recent studies have contributed to gain a more nuanced understanding of the

“Copernican question” and its cultural impact (see Westman 2011; Omodeo 2014).

2. Cremonini’s refusal to look into the telescope is derived from a letter by Paolo
Gualdo to Galileo from 29 Juillet 1611 and has become almost legendary (cf. Galilei
1901, p. 165).

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

conﬂicted with basic assumptions of Aristotle’s De coelo, especially the incor-
ruptibility of the heavens. Encore, Cremonini’s interpretation of the Aristotelian
cosmos was quite unconventional, especially concerning its reconcilability
with Christian dogma. He and Bellarmine received the cosmological tradition
in very different, even opposite, manners with regard to such crucial aspects as
the relation between natural philosophy and theology, and the reconcilability
of cosmology with the Scriptures.

The relevant context is that of the cosmological affair of 1616 (quelques-
times reduced to the “Galileo affair”), which reached its climax when the
Holy Ofﬁce in Rome condemned the Copernican planetary hypotheses and
the Sacred Congregation of the Index decreed the suspension of Copernicus’s
heliocentric work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium [On the Revolutions of
the Celestial Spheres] (1543) “donec expurgatur” [until corrected]. Statements
concerning terrestrial motion and the Sun’s immobility cum centrality had
to be ﬁxed―at least as far as they suggested a “physical” reality of “mathe-
matical” hypotheses―because they were in ostensible conﬂict with faith
(c'est à dire., the literal interpretation of the Scriptures) and reason (c'est à dire., Aristotelian
philosophy) (see Pagano 1984).3 This event has been often regarded as the
result of a clash between opposing “styles of thought”―scientiﬁc, philo-
sophical, and religious.4 However, it was no purely intellectual conﬂict, comme
it was connected with institutional and political agendas. En fait, competing
cosmological conceptions and epistemic values were tied to different societal
settings, as they were especially linked to university, ecclesiastical institu-
tion, and courts.5 One can recount the names and “afﬁliations” of the main

3. The censor who completed the expurgation of Copernicus, Francesco Ingoli, même-
tually eliminated only those passages that referred to terrestrial motion or solar centrality in
an assertive manner and not those which could be interpreted as purely mathematical
hypotheses (cf. Lerner, R.M., 2004).

I prefer to speak of “styles of thought” alongside Ludwik Fleck and Ian Hacking
rather than “paradigms,” although Kuhn’s opposition of the Copernican and Aristotelian-
Ptolemaic frameworks also refers to a cognitive as well as a discursive framework looming
large over cosmological controversies over the motion of the earth and the centrality of the
sun, in which the position of humankind in the cosmos and biblical exegesis were at stake.
Fleck’s concept is more sensitive to the connection of cognitive, conceptual, and ideological
structures to their cultural-historical settings. For an accurate reconstruction of crucial ele-
ments of the conﬂict over Copernicus surrounding Galileo, see Guerrini 2010 (see also
Bucciantini 1995; Bucciantini, Camerota, and Giudice 2011).

5. Biagioli (1993) has forcefully called for a sociological reconstruction of the cosmo-
logical affair, which invested Galileo, in Galileo, Courtier. His analysis essentially looked at
the micro-sociology of the Renaissance court and the opportunities it offered to a court
philosopher/mathematician. For a broader reconstruction of the societal structures of
courtly science rather than the personal interactions, see Omodeo and Renn 2019. In the
present essay, I wish to stress the adherence of different approaches to cosmology (and cos-
mological authority) to different social settings.

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Perspectives on Science

877

actors of the famous drama: Galileo Galilei, the Florentine mathematico-
philosophical courtier, Bellarmine, the Roman Inquisitor, Cremonini, le
Padua professor of philosophy, Tommaso Campanella, the religious-political
agitator in jail, and Antonio Foscarini, the Carmelite friar and provincial
superior of Calabria. Most of the cosmological works by these scientists, phi-
losophers, and theologians have been studied in detail. This scholarly atten-
tion especially concerns the works that document Galileo’s adherence to the
heliocentric theory: his Copernican letters to Benedetto Castelli (21
Décembre 1613) and to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Christina
(1615), and Campanella’s Apology for Galileo’s philosophical freedom,
the Apologia pro Galilaeo he wrote in prison in 1616.6 Foscarini’s defense
of the scriptural tenability of the “Pythagorean” planetary theory of
Copernicus, Lettera sopra l’opinione de’ Pitagorici e del Copernico [Letter on the
Opinion of the Pythagoreans and of Copernicus] (1615), is well known, aussi
(Puits noir 1991).

Much less has been written on works on cosmology by Cremonini and
Bellarmine, although these authors are often mentioned in connection
with the scientiﬁc controversies of the time.7 In this essay, I focus on their
lesser-known works: Cremonini’s Disputatio de coelo in tres partes divisa
(“Disputation on the Heavens Divided into Three Parts”) ( Venice,
1613), and Bellarmine’s De ascensione mentis in Deum per scalam rerum crea-
tarum [“The Mind’s Ascent to God through the Creatures’s Scale”] (1615).
To be sure, these works cannot be understood in isolation but as part of the
broader authority and cosmology conﬂict of the time. After the Roman
censure of 1616―and even more so after the condemnation of Galileo’s
Copernican dialogue in 1633―, Galileo’s cosmology was received in
Europe in parallel with other defenses of the Scriptural tenability of the
Copernican system, in primis, in connection with Johannes Kepler’s and
Foscarini’s writings on similar issues. En fait, their considerations on the
reconciliation of Copernican astronomy and the Scriptures were perceived
as part of the same cultural agenda, namely, one that favored a mathematical
approach to nature and argued for the Scriptural compatibility of daring
nouveautés, such as the heliocentric planetary theory.8 Cremonini’s and

6. The literature on Galileo’s Copernican controversies is overwhelming, especially as
it has been at the center of much discussion on science and religion. Apart from the above
mentioned sources see Finocchiaro 1989; Feldhay 1995; Puits noir 2006.

7. On Cremonini’s cosmology, see Del Torre 1968; Omodeo 2019. On Bellarmine’s
cosmology, see Baldini 1984; Baldini and Coyne 1984; Coyne and Baldini 1985; plus
speciﬁcally, on Bellarmine’s De ascensione cf. Barreca 2013.

8. The Elsevir Latin edition of Galileo’s dialogue, Dialogus de systemate mundi
(Strasbourg 1635), comprised an Appendix gemina, qua SS. Scripturae dicta cum Terrae mobili-
tate conciliantur, by Kepler and Foscarini. In a similar manner, the English edition by

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

Bellarmine’s works could not be received together with Galileo, as they vis-
ibly embraced different methodologies and had a diverging comprehension
of the world. It might have been a consequence of such dissonance that their
interventions have been neglected by most historical reconstructions of the
cosmological affair. Both the Padua professor and the Cardinal Inquisitor
in Rome rejected heliocentrism and the cogency of mathematical-
astronomical conclusions, while aiming to maintain geocentric cosmology.
What is more, their reliance on authorities, in particular on Aristotle, pre-
sents two markedly different approaches, which clashed with each other in
fundamental respects. Cremonini adhered to the teaching of Aristotle as
the main authority of university philosophy, while Bellarmine had an ofﬁcial
reverence towards Aristotle as the philosophical cornerstone of Counter–
Reformist theology―but less strict adherence to his cosmology. Their
respective approaches led them to opposite conclusions on how to interpret
geocentric cosmology. En effet, Bellarmine ﬁgures prominently among the
Roman censors of Cremonini’s works (Spruit 2000, pp. 197–8).

Cremonini’s Cosmic Animation via Aristotle and Other

2.
Cosmological Heterodoxies
Cesare Cremonini has a two-sided reputation in historiography, as he has
often been portrayed as a sort of cultural politician in institutional history
and an irredeemable conservative in the history of science. In institutional
histoire, Cremonini is known for his ﬁerce opposition to Jesuit education.
He was in the forefront of those who criticized the opening of a Jesuit col-
lege in Padua, which would have co-existed with the University. He was
the representative of the University’s corporate interests in front of the
Venetian authorities which, eventually, decided to prohibit the Jesuits’
public teaching initiative.9 Scholars of Counter Reformation Italy have also
pointed out that Cremonini was among the early modern “scientists”
whose orthodoxy was scrutinized by the Inquisition for many years and,
at one point, his case also led to an inspection of Galileo (Poppi 1992;
Baldini and Spruit 2009, 1.2: pp. 1485–87).

In the history of science, Cremonini has a poor reputation. He is
remembered for his criticism of telescopic astronomy. In spite of his close
friendship with Galileo, he refused to look into his lenses and thereby
legitimate a cosmology that departed from the Aristotelian letter. Il

Thomas Salusbury, The system of the world (Londres 1661), comprised a series of additional
related texts, among them, Kepler, His Reconciling of Scripture Texts, Didacus a Stunica, Son
Reconciling of Scripture Texts, and Foscarini, His Epistle… reconciling the Authority of Scripture,
and Judgments of Divines alleged against his System.

9. On the Jesuits’s controversy with the University of Padua, see Favaro 1878;

Cremonini 1998; Grendler 2002.

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Perspectives on Science

879

embodied the type of “pedantic” Aristotelian reprimanded by Galileo as
somebody who would even refuse to acknowledge, on the basis of anatomic
sections, that the nerves depart from the brain instead of the heart, because
this conclusion conﬂicted with Aristotle’s doctrine, if taken literally.10

Cremonini’s radical―at points perhaps “subversive”―loyalty to Aristotle
located him outside of the circle of cosmological innovators of his time and
also led him to harsh conﬂicts with religion and Catholic Scholasticism, dans
particular with the variant of Aristotelian philosophy that emerged after the
Council of Trent (Sangalli 1998; see also Mayer 2014, passim. I take the
adjective “subversive” from Martin 2014). On the basis of “sole reason,»
by which Cremonini meant Aristotelian philosophy, he inferred (1) le
absence of a Creator from the doctrine of the eternity of the world, c'est,
a cosmos without Creator, (2) he argued for the uselessness of divine provi-
dence to rule over nature and (3) indirectly fostered the thesis that souls can-
not be separated from bodies according to natural reasoning. Although he
explicitly distanced himself from the sort of heretical theses on the mortality
of the human soul found in the work of Pietro Pomponazzi, (whose theses
were in open conﬂict with the Christian dogma of the immortality of the
soul), Cremonini asserted the inseparability of celestial souls from celestial
bodies against a doctrine of the separate motive intelligences of the heavens.
This went against the opinion of many opponents of Pomponazzi (tel que
Agostino Nifo) who had countered his argument for the body-soul insepa-
rability (Nifo 2009; Pomponazzi 2013; cf. Garin 1966, pp. 499–580;
Leinkauf 2017, pp. 1589–1621). For these reasons, Cremonini was severely
and repeatedly reprimanded but never actually condemned. En fait, le
Republic of Venice strenuously defended his libertas philosophandi as a profes-
sor appointed at its state university. Cremonini always declared himself
innocent through appeals to the doctrine of the double truth that revived
medieval debates on this notion (Bianchi 1990). According to this Averroist
attitude, one should admit that there are two accesses to truth, one within
the limits of sole (Aristotelian) reason, and one that descends from divine
revelation.11 As a matter of fact, this claim often masked conﬂicting views

10.

En fait, Cremonini did reject experimental evidence in anatomy on the basis of
Aristotle, and even engaged with a criticism of Galen, for instance in his Apologia dictorum
Aristotelis de calido innato adversus Galenum ( Venice 1626).

11. Although Cremonini adopted Averroist positions on speciﬁc issues, he cannot be
labelled as an “Averroist” according to a dichotomy very much in vogue in past accounts of
Italian Renaissance Aristotelianism, which reduced a multifaceted philosophical culture to
the opposition of “Averroists” and “Alexandrists” on the immortality of the soul (Garin
1966, vol. 2, chap. 1). As a matter of fact, we are today in a better position to judge
the Aristotelian eclecticism of those days and refer to its strands in the plural. On Renais-
sance Aristotelianisms see, entre autres, Sgarbi 2017.

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

of reality, not just “two accesses.” Cremonini declared that the philosopher
limits himself to reason and, in the cases in which he comes to rational con-
clusions that are in open contradiction with religious dogmas, accepts the
other indemonstrable truth as an issue of faith. Along this line, he defended
the autonomy of his philosophical arguments as independent of theological
considerations, which he refused to address. One reads at the beginning of
his Disputatio de coelo (1613) the following caveat:

Reader, be warned that in this work I expound Aristotle’s doctrine
following his philosophical principles. You should not be surprised if
some statements derived from the Philosopher’s mind (which is
excellent elsewhere) are contrary to Christian faith and to the truth.
(Cremonini 1613, F. +3v)12

One of the most radical theses that he propounded in this text was the
necessity of the world’s existence in accordance with Aristotle’s theses of
the eternity of the cosmos. En outre, he connected this thesis with an
explicit negation that God has a free will―at least in accordance with
Aristotle’s natural reason. This implies that God is necessitated. Un tel
negation of the act of Creation and divine freedom marks Cremonini’s
naturalist radicalism along the line that ideally connects him to the most
subversive natural philosophers of early modernity, Giordano Bruno and
Baruch Spinoza (Omodeo 2019). In Cremonini’s case, though, the neces-
sity thesis was based on the principle of authority: “The Philosopher does
not posit God’s will” (Cremonini 1613, p. 385). Cremonini regarded
Aristotle as the “Philosopher” tout court, the prototype of all rational think-
ing. Donc, his presentation of heretical theses via Aristotle seemed
unacceptable to religious authorities as they, on the top of it, embraced
a Christianized version of Aristotelian philosophy in line with Counter
Reformation theology.13 The Roman Inquisitors repeatedly requested
Cremonini to recant from his interpretation of Aristotle’s cosmology, mais
he never renounced his “purely” philosophical attitude. As he claimed,
he was expected to teach Aristotle’s corpus as it is and not as it should
être. De plus, he adduced that he was neither capable of understanding the-
ology nor supposed to deal with it. Accordingly, he declared that he bent to

12.

13.

“Lector hoc te monitum volo me in hoc opere scribendo doctrinam Aristotelis,
eiusque Philosophiae principia sequutum; ut nihil mirum, nonnulla hic ad Philosophi alio-
qui eximii mentem dicta Christianae ﬁdei, ac veritati adversari.”

It should be mentioned that Cremonini did not dismiss Thomas Aquinas’ work,
just as he took into account various strands of ancient and Scholastic Aristotelianism. Comment-
jamais, he did so in a quite eclectic manner, without sticking to any interpretation and always
pretending to aim at Aristotle’s original intention without overdeterminations and anach-
ronisms. On this urge to go back to the philosophical sources, see Martin 2014.

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religious authorities on matters of faith. Such arguments are to be found in
his responses to theological criticism, in Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta
coeli substantia [Apology of Aristotle’s Statements on the Fifth Substance of
the Heavens] (printed in 1616), and De coeli efﬁcientia [“On the Efﬁciency of
the Heavens”], which was written in the wake of these controversies and
remained unpublished as it did not pass the censorship.14

There is another, less obvious, aspect of Cremonini’s worldview that
proved extremely controversial from a theological perspective and is worth
mentioning. He afﬁrmed that the heavens are moved by their souls, lequel
act as inner principles of animation. Although the question of the animation
of the celestial spheres had been a lengthy debated issue among Aristotle’s
commentators since antiquity, among Islamic philosophers and Latin scho-
lastics ( Wolfson 1973), Cremonini directly referred his view to the most
authoritative philosophical texts on the heavens, in primis Aristotle’s De coelo:
“Heaven is animated and has the principle of motion. These are Aristotle’s
words in De coelo II 13” Cremonini 1613, p. 87)15 Cremonini argued on the
basis of Aristotle’s authority that the cosmos and its major parts, the celestial
spheres deputed to transport the planets, are animal-like entities. Although
this conception was usually referenced through Platonic and neo-Platonic
sources, Cremonini rather supported it via Aristotle. En fait, he argued that
celestial bodies are endowed with souls because their material bodies are
“organized” in heterogeneous parts similar to the “organs” of animals. Son
maxim was that “to infer animation [the attribute of having a soul or anima]
from organization [the attribute of having a heterogeneous functional struc-
ture] is an upmost Aristotelian argument” (Cremonini 1613, p. 77).16

The idea of cosmic animation was looked upon with much concern by
religious authorities.17 In fact, the scientiﬁc and theological circles of
Rome criticized Cremonini’s Disputatio de coelo not only for his views about
the eternity of the cosmos and divine necessity but also for his theses on the
animation of the heavens. As the founder of the Lyncean Academy, Federico
Cesi reported to Galileo, the Disputatio was “frowned upon by the censors for
its celestial animals or animated heavens” (see Galluzzi 2017, p. 161). Le
theologian Francesco Ingoli, known to astronomy historians for the expur-
gation of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus after the condemnation of the

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14. Two extant copies of De coeli efﬁcientia are preserved at the University Library of
Padua (MS. 200/1) and at the Marciana National Library of Venice (Mss. latini VI 176). Sur
Cremonini’s troubles with the Inquisition related to his cosmology, see Del Torre 1966.
“Coelum est animatum et habet motus principium. Sunt verba Aristotelis 2. De

15.

Coelo, textu 13.”

Aristotelicum.”

16.

“Arguere ab organizatione ad animationem est arguere ab eo, quod est maxime

17. One could also speak, with Kevin Chang, of “cosmic vitalism” (cf. Chang 2011).

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

heliocentric system, also wrote from Rome on the reactions to Cremonini
to Cardinal Caetani on on 9 Août 1613:

I was invited to Prince Cesi’s palace on Wednesday, where there were
many scholars discussing various mathematical, philosophical, et
theological questions. There were Peripatetics, Paracelsians, et
Telesians. You can imagine whether there was any agreement. One of
them was ﬁercely attacked for maintaining that the heavens are
animated. I commented that, ﬁrst, this opinion had been condemned
as erroneous by the Sorbonne of Paris; second, that in the ﬁrst chapter
of Genesis the ends to which God made the creatures are listed and
that it was established that the celestial bodies “serve as signs to
mark sacred times” and not as intelligent beings, because this is the
principal end of the intellective soul that He gave only to the
heavens. Although he put up a good defense by saying that what is
written in the book of Genesis was not the principal purpose, I replied
that it could not be so because the principal purpose for which the
other creatures were created are clearly stated there. (Galluzzi 2017,
pp. 161–62; slightly revised; cf. Galluzzi 2014, pp. 185–86)18

The controversy referred to in this passage was championed by two scholars:
the Padua philosopher Giulio Cesare Lagalla, who followed Cremonini as a
supporter of animation, and the Jesuit Francesco Diotallevi. The latter feared
that the idea that the heavens have souls could resuscitate forms of astral
worshipping. Against such neo-pagan cults, he argued

If the heavenly soul is blessed, then we should worship the stars as
part of a blessed body, in the same manner in which we venerate the
relics of the saints. Cependant, this is against Scripture, which forbids
worshiping the sun, the moon, and all the stars. (Lagalla 1622, p. 6)19
It should be remarked that none of the clashing parties rejected Aristotle’s
authority. Lagalla and Diotallevi based their arguments on different interpre-
tations of Aristotle and the manner in which a reconciliation between his
philosophy and the Christian religion should take shape. Lagalla even sought to
support animism through the Doctors of the Church, such as Augustine and
Thomas, who left the issue of celestial animation open to discussion.20

18. The defender of celestial animation was the Aristotelian philosopher Giulio Cesare

Lagalla, author of De coelo animato disputatio (1622).

19.

“Si anima coeli sit beata, tunc sidera tanquam corporis beati partes, adoranda
essent, quemadmodum adorantur Sanctorum Reliquiae. Contrarium tamen statuir Scrip-
tura, quae Solem ac Lunam, et coetera sidera, prohibet adorari.” This argument is reported
by Lagalla himself in De coelo animato disputatio.

20. Lagalla referred to Book 2 70 of Thomas’ Summa contra Gentiles and to passages
from Augustine’s Enchiridion and De genesi ad literam. Cf. Lagalla 1622, p. 21 (“liberum esse

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What possibly made the animation of the heavens controversial is that
form of “cosmic vitalism” made soul doctrines relevant to astronomy and,
vice versa, suggested to infer theses on the souls and their relation to bod-
ies from heavenly doctrines. Cremonini, par exemple, took the deﬁnition of
the heavens’ souls from Aristotle’s De anima:

Every organic body is animated by the soul, which is its essence [ou
quiddity, quod quid erat esse illius]. The heaven is an organic body.
Donc, the heaven is animated by the soul which is its essence.
The soul, which is the essence of the natural body, is the nature and
form that is inseparable, apart from an act of reason. It is one with its
matter, since potency and act are one (De anima II 7). (Cremonini
1613, p. 100)21

the inseparability of

the heavenly souls have
Could the thesis of
consequences on the comprehension of human souls and disprove their
immortality?22 The Roman authorities certainly preferred to keep the
discourse on the heavens and that on the soul separated in a time when
Pomponazzi’s controversies on the mortality of the soul were of fresh mem-
ory. Cremonini’s assertion, in the above mentioned passage, that the soul is
inseparable, echoed Pomponazzi’s thesis that the soul perishes with the
body. To reject the heavens’ animation, as many Jesuits did, could prove
a safe strategy to insulate astronomy from controversies over the soul. Ce,
à son tour, brings us to the Jesuit positions on cosmology and celestial ani-
mation, and particularly Bellarmine as one of the theological examiners of
Cremonini’s work in Rome.

3.
Intermezzo: The Question of Celestial Animation among Aristotelians
At the same time as the above reactions in Rome to Cremonini’s animated
cosmology were taking place, the religious authorities started examining

21.

unicuique, absque ulla erroris suspicione hanc sententiam tueri; potissimum Sancto Thoma
id conﬁrmante”), and p. 26.

“Omne corpus organicum est animatum, anima quae est, quod quid erat esse
illius. Coelum est corpus organicum, ergo coelum est animatum, anima, quae est, quod
quid erat esse illius. Anima, quae est, quod quid erat esse corporis naturalis, est natura,
et forma non separabilis, nisi secundum rationem, faciens unum cum sua materia, ut poten-
tia, et actus unum faciunt, 2. de Anima textu 7. Ergo anima coeli non est intelligentia, sed
natura et forma naturalis […] sicut omne animatum est organicum, ita omne organicum est
animatum […] Quod movet seipsum, habet in seipso principium activum sui motus […].»
22. Eugenio Garin argued for a connection of cosmological and psychological con-
cerns in the immortality polemics surrounding Pomponazzi (cf. Garin 1966, pp. 526–
27). On the Alexandrist-Averroist controversies over the immortality of the soul affecting
the cosmological debate, see Omodeo 2020.

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

the ideas he presented in the Disputatio de coelo. The Congregation of the
Holy Ofﬁce raised doubts about its legitimacy and doubted whether the
printed book corresponded to the one that the Venetian Inquisitor
approved for publication. Par conséquent, the Pope requested that a com-
parison between the approved version and the printed book was made.
Most likely, Bellarmine was also assigned to be the book’s censor (Mayer
2014, p. 128). Thomas Mayer, the historian of Inquisition trials, a
offered a well-documented reconstruction of the Inquisitors’ engagement
with the disputatio and its author and their request that Cremonini
recanted from his controversial theses. Cremonini wrote two books as a
response to his critics, but the latter were dissatisﬁed by his apologies.
The ﬁrst of these two books, Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta coeli sub-
stantia [“Apology for Aristotle’s Statements on the Fifth Substance of the
Heavens”] appeared in Venice in 1616 while the subsequent De coeli efﬁ-
centia was written immediately thereafter but was never approved for pub-
lication. In the end of this long contrast between Roman authorities and
Cremonini in Padua, the Pope prohibited his work “without any limita-
tions.” The ﬁnal decision was prompted after a report by the Padua
Inquisitor reached the Congregation of the Holy Ofﬁce informing them
that Cremonini had declared that he was not concerned “whether his
books are prohibited or not” (Spruit 2000, p. 203). The main allegations
concerned the defense of the eternity of the heaven, the mortality of the
soul, and the thesis that God is the ﬁnal cause but not the creator of the
monde (Mabilleau 1881, pp. 355–7). The animation of the heavens, comme
was defended by Cremonini, was very much at the center of the dispute,
as the thesis of the ensouled heavens and the inseparability of their souls
could raise doubts concerning the immortality of human souls indepen-
dently of the body.

To be sure, Cremonini was not the ﬁrst Aristotelian to defend celestial
animation. Although many Latin Scholastic philosophers denied the idea
that the whole and its parts are animated (c'est à dire., the cosmos and the celestial
spheres are endowed with souls that act as motive forces), the exceptions to
this tendency are very signiﬁcant. Par exemple, Robert Grosseteste and
Thomas Aquinas did not exclude in principle that souls (animae, hence
the expression I use of “animism”) could account for celestial motions
(Grant 1994, p. 472). Animism had its Platonic resonances, aussi. Neo-
Platonic thinkers, including in the Renaissance, often connected anima-
tion with the idea that the microcosm and macrocosm have a structural
correspondence and with the doctrine the anima mundi (or world soul).
Apart from philosophers gathering in Florence in the ﬁfteenth century,
later authors, such as Girolamo Fracastoro, Francesco Patrizi, Giordano
Bruno, and Johannes Kepler, varied the Marsilio Ficino’s neo-Platonic

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legacy and embraced various forms of cosmic animism.23 However, le
idea of celestial animation was also received by distinguished Aristotelians,
especially by Padua professors during the Renaissance. This is witnessed by
Cremonini himself, and his pupil Lagalla, who strenuously defended the
doctrine of the heavens’ animation through appeals to the authorities of the
“Philosopher,” the “Commentator” (c'est à dire., Aristotle and Averroes), et
Thomas Aquinas. Forms of Aristotelian animism of the heavens were also
defended before Cremonini by other philosophers who are variously related
to the so-called Padua School, including Agostino Nifo, Girolamo Fracastoro,
Gasparo Contarini, and Jacopo Zabarella.24 Other early modern thinkers
who also relied on Aristotle’s authority preferred to renounce cosmic anima-
tion. Among them, many Jesuits abandoned animation as a viable explana-
tion of celestial motions. Par exemple, the most reputed Jesuit astronomer
of the seventeenth century, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, argued in his
Almagestum novum IX 8 [“The New Almagest”] (1661), that the heavens
work like a mechanism without any support of motive souls. He also
pointed out that the latter position runs the risk of reviving ancient forms
of celestial worshipping:

The celestial bodies are not animated by an intellectual or rational,
nor by a sensitive or vegetative, soul. […] This is proven by the
authority of the Fathers, especially the accounts of St. Cyril […] et
St. Ambrose […], two authors who, in fact, reproach Origen for
suggesting that dew and frost, and the cold, might be taken as
animated in so far as they invite to praise God; of St. Gregory of
Nazianzus […], OMS, on Psellus’s testimony, condemns the Platonic
impostures about the heavenly soul; and of St. Chrysostom […], OMS
among other things declares: ‘the sun has neither reason, nor a mind
or potential for reasoning’. […] Acutely, Lactantius accuses the
pagans with this argument: rather than assuming that the
predictability of their motion connects the stars to God, it should

23. The cometary debates of Tycho Brahe’s time provided a great impulse for specu-
lations about the possible causes of planetary motions through a ﬂuid space, y compris
forms of “astrobiology,” as Paolo Rossi has labelled them (voir, entre autres, Rossi
1977; Granada 2010; Boner 2013; Regier 2014). On Patrizi’s cosmology, also see Prins
2015.
24.

Voir, entre autres, Nifo, De intellectu II 22 (Nifo 2011, pp. 304–5); Zabarella, De
rebus naturalibus libri XXX (1597, p. 269); the exchange between Contarini and Fracastoro
on the causes of celestial motion (Contarini 1571, pp. 238–52), and Fracastoro’s dialogue,
Fracastorius sive de anima (Fracastoro 1574, pp. 149v–150r).

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

have been observed instead that they lack not just divinity, mais aussi
intellect and will. (Riccioli 1651, pp. 245–46)25

This position, embraced and propagated by the most influential Jesuit
astronomer of the time, can be considered to be representative of the
hegemonic line of the Jesuit order on these matters in the seventeenth
siècle. It seems to be no chance that the best-known supporter of de-
animated cosmic mechanisms of early modernity, René Descartes, received
his fundamental education from the Jesuits.26

4. Bellarmine’s Scriptural Cosmology
Among Jesuit theologians, Bellarmine certainly played a crucial role in the
reassessment of controversial philosophical doctrines in Rome (Godman
2000). Although he was neither an astronomer nor a natural philosopher,
as a Roman censor and Inquisitor, he had a strong say in matters of science
and faith. He played an instrumental role in the eventual condemnation
of Giordano Bruno. His trial featured a discussion on cosmology and
Copernicus’s legacy, as part of Bruno’s own defense strategy. Bellarmine
helped to prepare the list of theses he had to abjure but the latter’s unwill-
ingness to recant from the theses including the plurality of worlds (lequel
he saw as a plurality of Copernican systems) led to his fatal end (Firpo 2000;
see also Martínez 2018). Bellarmine was indirectly involved in the condem-
nation of Galileo, aussi. Dans 1616, he was the person who imposed on
Galileo the prohibition to disseminate and teach heliocentric astronomy―a
fact that contributed to Galileo’s later condemnation. En effet, as the author
of the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632), Galileo was accused of
ignoring Bellarmine’s “injunction” (Mayer 2010; Puits noir 1991).

It is well documented that Bellarmine had a certain knowledge of
astronomy as a college teacher. In his early years in Louvain, he taught

25.

“Caelestia corpora neque intellectiva aut rationali, neque sensitiva, neque vegeta-
tiva anima sunt animata. […] Probatur I. Authoritate Patrum, praesertim S. Cyrilli […],
S. Ambrosii […] qui duo vel inde Origenem redarguunt, quod etiam ros et gelu, et frigus,
et pruina dicenda esset animata, quia invitantur ad laudandum Deum; S. Gregorii Nazianzeni
[…] ubi interprete Psello, damnat Platonicorum imposturas de anima caelorum; S. Chrysostomi
[…] inter alia pronunciat: ‘Nec enim Seol habet rationem, nec mentem, nec cogitationem.’ […]
Lactantius […] acute Gentiles insectatur eo argumento, quod si ob constantiam in motu
videntur in De referenda sidera; potius inde non modo divinitate, sed intellectu ac voluntate
carere colligendum erat.” Cf. Marcacci 2018, pp. 197–203.

26. The issue of the modern de-animation of the cosmos and the rise of mechanic
philosophy is a much-debated topic of intellectual history that I am not going to readdress
ici. It is sufﬁcient to say that past dichotomies (a radical instantiation of which is
Merchant 1980) have been replaced by more nuanced and historically careful interpreta-
tion, according to which mechanism and vitalism are not irreconcilable (voir, par exemple., Wolfe
and Gal 2010; Wolfe 2019).

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on spherical astronomy, possibly using Piccolomini’s Sfera (Coyne and
Baldini 1985, p. 105). In the Lectiones Lovanienses which began in October
1570, he engaged with a number of cosmological problems linked to the
interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica and the exegesis of
the Genesis. This gave him the occasion to depart from Aristotle’s cosmol-
ogy on signiﬁcant points in the name of a conception of the heavens that is
more adherent to the letter of the Scriptures. Bellarmine’s conception com-
prised the distinction of three heavens: sublunary, a ﬁery one for the celes-
tial bodies and an empyrean heaven beyond the ﬁxed stars. Aussi, he argued
against the circular mathematical simplicity of the heavenly motions, their
occurrence in a ﬂuid medium, against the doctrine of the material spheres
deputed to transport planets and stars, and he adhered to the doctrine of
the ﬁery nature of the stars, which he also connected with the possibility of
change and corruption in the heavens, against the doctrine of their quin-
tessential nature (Coyne and Baldini 1985, pp. 106–7). As we will see,
Bellarmine later mentioned some of these doctrines although in hypothet-
ical terms.

Dans 1615, the year of Galileo’s famous letter to Cristina of Lorraine on
the Scriptural tenability of the Copernican system, Bellarmine gave to the
press his small tract on the ascent of the mind to God by means of the
contemplation of Creation, De ascensione. It is curious to observe that this
work has generally escaped the attention of the historians of Renaissance
astronomy despite the importance that is generally allotted to Bellarmine
in the context of the epistemological and cosmological controversies of his
time.27 I assume that the reason of this negligence lies in the fact that this
booklet was neither on natural philosophy nor on mathematical astronomy
strictu sensu, but rather a work on piety. Cependant, it was constructed on
cosmological premises, which Bellarmine considered to be of great spiri-
tual relevance. À son tour, it reinforced speciﬁc views of the cosmos, as it
stressed that nature reveals God and His attributes, mainly His wisdom
and power.

The impact of Bellarmine’s booklet is indirectly testiﬁed by its many
editions. It was reprinted all over Europe throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury and later. Dans 1615, it was printed in various localities at the same
temps: in Rome by Giacomo Mascardi; in Lyon by Jacques du Creux; dans
Cologne by Johann Kinckius and in Antwerp by Plantin. New editions
appeared at a regular pace throughout the century. The De ascensione was
reissued in Milan “apud Io. Baptistam Bidellium” in 1616. Lyonnese edi-
tions were printed for three consecutive years, dans 1615, 1616, et 1617, comme

27. For an epistemological assessment of Bellarmine, which is less obvious than Pierre

Duhem’s (1969, p. 117), see Feyerabend (1975, pp. 192–3).

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well as 1624. The booklet was reprinted in Rouen in 1619 and in Cologne
dans 1626, 1634, et 1662. A special version appeared in Rome in 1637; it
was a Greek translation promoted by the Holy Congregation de propa-
ganda ﬁdei, which covered the expenses. The astounding number of pub-
lications can be read as a sign of the cultural relevance that Bellarmine’s
supporters allotted to his cosmo-spiritual tract. They are especially
revealing of the powerful means of dissemination of the Jesuit Order
and its networks.

As Bellarmine declared to his dedicatee, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini,
he wrote the De ascensione for his own personal use, in September 1614,
when he was in a retreat and thus discharged from other institutional
duties. Repeating a literary trope of modesty, Bellarmine declared that
the initiative to publish was not his own. Unspeciﬁed friends had insisted
and eventually convinced him to give the libellum to the press. Il
expressed his hopes that those most prominent in the Church government
could particularly beneﬁt from it:

En fait, if you look for some usefulness in these elucubrations of
mine, they especially concern people busy with public duties, most
prominently ecclesiastic princes. You are one of the ﬁrst among
those princes who carry the burden of ecclesiastic duties, as a
Cardinal, Archbishop and Treasurer [camerarius] of the Holy Roman
Church, one of those responsible of the Universal Inquisition
Ofﬁce, engaged in the defense of many and most serious causes.
There is one more reason to dedicate this work to you, c'est, à
communicate to the next generations’ memory a monument of your
great favor toward myself and of my esteem toward you.
(Bellarmine 1626, F. A3r–v)28

Bellarmine remarked that the importance of a book should not be judged
by its dimensions (De ascensione is a small, octavo format book), but rather
from its fruits. He declared himself incapable of anticipating its inﬂuence.
Cependant, he stated that his writing had been very useful to himself. Ce

28.

“Si qua enim utilitas ex hac mea lucubratione peti potest, ea praecipue ad homines
occupatos publicis negociis, quales inprimis sunt Ecclesiae Principes, redundabit. Tu vero
ex Principibus Ecclesiae negociorum mole gravatis, unus inprimis es: quippe Cardinalis,
Archiepiscopus, sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Camerarius, ex Praepositis universalis inqui-
sitionis ofﬁcio, et multarum gravissimarum protectionum sollicitudine distentus. Accessit
et illa causa huius operis nuncupandi tibi, ut extaret ex me ad memoriam posterorum
aliquod ingentium tuorum in me beneﬁciorum, et meae in te qualiscumque observantiae
monumentum.”

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889

was the only book of his that Bellarmine felt necessary to re-read several
times:

Normally, I do not read other books of mine, if I am not forced by
circonstances, but I already re-read this one three or four times. je
often promised myself to meditate the lessons [entailed in this book].
Cependant, the reason that makes it so dear to me is not its own merit
but perhaps love, for I generated it in my very old age like a
Benjamin. (Bellarmine 1626, F. A4r)29

The book looks like a collection of Biblical and patristic passages inviting
the believer to a meditation aimed at gradually lifting one’s soul to God.
Although Bellarmine invited his readers to contemplate God in nature and
through His Creation, he felt no need to resort to other sources than
Scriptural and theological ones. Science and natural philosophy were
obliterated in his treatment, but only at first sight, since natural and
cosmological conceptions were ingrained in the structure of the argument.
En effet, the ambiguity emerges from the beginning, since Bellarmine
merges two meanings of the adjective coelestis (“heavenly”) to refer to both
the heavens occupied by planets and stars, and those populated by angels
and the blessed souls.30

For Bellarmine, the cosmos includes material and immaterial entities,
the elements, the heavenly bodies, and the stars, as well as angels. Bellar-
mine takes on the tropos of the cosmic travel, which is neatly represented
in the frontispieces of later editions of the De ascensione (voir la figure 1). Le
contemplation of God through nature typically receives legitimation from
the Liber sapientiae and Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellarmine declared that
theology’s maid, philosophy, conﬁrms the possibility of a cosmo-
theological ascent. As he asserted, reason conﬁrms (ratio conﬁrmat) que
the efﬁcient cause can be known from its effects and the model (exemplar)
from its image. Bellarmine argued that nature is the work of God, c'est,
the effect from which some knowledge of its Architect could be gained.

29.

30.

“Reliquos libros meos nisi necessitate cogente non lego: hunc sponte terque qua-
terque iam legi, et deinceps frequenter in eius lectione versari mihi propositum est, nisi
forte chariorem illum mihi faciat, non meritum eius, sed amor, quod illum, ut alterum
Beniaminum in extrema senectute genuerim.”

“Porro S. Bernardus, ut Eugenium Papam, suum quondam disciplulum, serio
admoneret, ut non tantum se actioni daret, sed quotidie certo tempore se colligeret, ac
sancto otio et caelesti pabulo frueretur, scripsit libros quinque De considerations, in quibus
non solum exhortatur illum ad assiduam meditationem rerum caelestium, sed etiam ratio-
nem et modum meditandi, et meditando ascendendi, et ascendendo transformandi se in
Deum per intellectum et affectum, perspicue tradit.”

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

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Chiffre 1. Frontispiece of the 1626 Cologne edition of Bellarmine’s De ascensione
mentis in Deum per scalam rerum creatarum. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
(Allemagne).

Perspectives on Science

891

Humans and angels are the image of God, from which the quality of their
highest Creator has to be inferred (Bellarmine 1626, F. A7r).31

The tract is subdivided into ﬁfteen sections, the ﬁrst seven of which deal
with the material world and the last seven with the immaterial world, dans
particular with God and His attributes. Chapter VIII, which connects
those on the lower and the higher realms, or immanence and transcen-
dence, is devoted to the rational soul seen as a bridge between the cosmos
and the lofty spiritual realms. An overview of the topics of the booklet
chapters here follows:

je. Consideration of man, who is a smaller world,
II. Consideration of the bigger world,
III. Consideration of the disc of the earth,
IV. Consideration of waters,
V. Consideration of air,
VI. Consideration of ﬁre,
VII. Consideration of the sun, moon and stars,
VIII. Consideration of the rational soul,

IX. Consideration of the angels,
X. Consideration of God’s essence,
XI. Consideration of God’s power,
XII. Consideration of God’s theoretical wisdom,
XIII. Consideration of God’s practical wisdom,
XIV. Consideration of God’s mercy,
XV. Consideration of God’s justice.32

Although the book prima facie looks like a collection Biblical references on
the various cosmic stages that lift the contemplative soul to God, at a
closer look it is evident that Bellarmine’s cosmology follows a basic cosmic
scheme that matches with a Christianized version of Aristotle’s world view.
Chapters III through VI structurally follow Aristotle’s theory of the

31.

“Posse autem hominem per opera Dei, id est, per creaturas ascendere ad notiam et
amorem Creatoris, docet liber Sapientiae, et Apostolus ad Romanos, et ratio ipsa satis con-
ﬁrmat, cum ex effectis causa efﬁciens, et ex imagine exemplar cognosci possit: et dubium
esse nequeat, res omnes creatas esse opera Dei; et hominem atque Angelum, non solum
opera, sed etiam imagines Dei esse Scriptura sancta nos doceat.”

32. These titles are taken from the table of contents of the 1615 edition. They are
slightly different in the heading of the corresponding book sections. Among other small
changes, the ﬁrst chapter is shortened as “Ex consideratione hominis.” Other chapters are
expanded as follows. Chapter X reads “Ex consideratione essentiae Dei, per similitudinem
magnitudinis corporalis”; chap. XI “Ex consideratione magnitudinis potentiae Dei per
similitudinem magnitudinis corporalis”; chap. XII “Ex consideratione magnitudinis
sapientiae Dei per similitudinem magnitudinis corporalis”; chapter XV “Ex consideratione
magnitudinis Iustitiae Dei per similitudinem magnitudinis corporalis.”

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elements. Bellarmine addresses them separately, in separate sections, dans
correspondence with the cosmic position of their concentric spheres in
the sublunary world: the heavy element of the earth at the center and
the other elements ordered according to their decreasing weight and
increasing “lightness”. The considerations of Chapter VII concern the
sun, moon and the stars. They are markedly pre-Copernican, if not
“anti-Copernican.” As Bellarmine explained in the foreword to his per-
spective readers, the ﬁfteen chapters constitute progressive steps upwards
to God. An important motivation for him was the Augustinian precept
to “meditate on God through the creatures” (meditatio Dei ex creaturis)
(Bellarmine 1626, F. A7r–v).

The ﬁrst degree of Bellarmine’s spiritual ascension is a reﬂection on man
(ex consideratione hominis). Like all other chapters, this one takes its point of
departure from a Biblical passage. Dans ce cas, Bellarmine refers to Moses’s
recommendation, “attende tibi” (take care of yourself ) to argue that “he who
wishes to erect a stair to God must begin from himself” (Bellarmine
1626, 1).33 As he explains, humans are made in God’s image. Although
the authority Bellarmine refers to in the ﬁrst place is Scriptural, his
method is Aristotelian. After arguing for the importance of beginning
the exploration of the world from oneself, c'est, from man, he explains that
one has to investigate man from four viewpoints, in accordance with the four
“common causes,” These are the four Aristotelian causes: efﬁcient, matériel,
formal, and ﬁnal. Accordingly, the relevant questions to ask in the investi-
gation of man are the following ones: “Who is my Creator? Of what matter
did He make me? What form did He give me? And to what end did He
produce me?» (Bellarmine 1626, p. 1).34 The fourth question, about the
telos, is the most important one. The uppermost and most fundamental
human goal, as Bellarmine contends, is to ﬁnd God as the summum bonum.
The second degree of Bellarmine’s stair to God removes the sight from
the mundus minor, the microcosm man, to the mundus maximus, the world
as a whole. The main reason for the necessity of a contemplation of the
cosmos in its entirety, as one reads, is to get a glimpse into God’s admi-
rable power and wisdom through the wonderful multiplicity, variety and
beauty of His creatures. Bellarmine’s starting quote for this section is
Sirach 1:2–3: “Latitudinem terrae, et profundum abyssi quis dimensus est?»
[“Who can measure the earth’s breadth and deep abyss?»]. Bellarmine on this

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33.
debet.”
34.

“Si quis vere cupiat scalas in Deum erigere, a sui ipsius consideratione incipere

“Sed ego in praesenti nihil aliud investigare decrevi, nisi quatuor communes caus-
sas; qui sit auctor meus, ex qua materia me fecerit, quam formam mihi dederit, et ad quem
ﬁnem me produxerit.”

Perspectives on Science

893

occasion refers to the astronomers (astrologi) to argue that we are like a point in
relation to the world. If the stars of the ﬁrmament are bigger than the earth
(orbis terrarum), as is generally accepted, who will be able to intellectually
grasp (cogitando) the immensely wide heavens? The world teaches us modesty
as it instills in us the awareness of how small we are: “Who will be able to
count the multitude of things created by God, the Creator of the heavens and
earth? As the Sirach says, Who can count the grains of sand in the seas, the drops of
rain?» (Bellarmine 1626, p. 22).35

After considering the micro-macrocosm, Bellarmine proceeds, as his
next steps, to discuss the “main partitions” of the world, beginning with
the terrestrial element. Although earth it is the lowest of all elements and
might appear as the less noble, it is actually the most important as far as
its “dignity” is concerned. The Scriptures sanction its unique value. En fait,
in Genesis, it is said that in the beginning “God created the heavens and the
earth” [“Deum fecisse caelum et terram”] (Bellarmine 1626, p. 37). Bellarmine
interprets Genesis as asserting that the earth is one of the two main parts of
the world. He explains that, while the heavens are the receptacle of God
and the angels, the earth is a “palace” that was erected to the beneﬁt of
humankind. Just like the heavenly palace is embellished by brilliant stars,
the earth is endowed with precious metals and stones in abundance, aussi
as with plants and animals.

According to Bellarmine, the dignity of the earth can be evidenced by
considering three main characteristics: ﬁrst, the stability of its foundations;
second, the way it nourishes humans and animals through the production
of food; and third, the fact that it produces [producit] a great wealth of
materials. As for the ﬁrst aspect, this is the most important in view of
the Copernican controversies of the time, as it is directly linked to the
immobility of the earth. The auctoritas is David who, in the Psalms
asserted: “Firmavit… orbem terrae, qui non commovebitur” (Psalms 93:1, King
James Bible: “the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved”), et
“Fundasti terram super stabilitatem suam, non inclinabitur in saeculum saeculi”
(Psalms 104:5, KJV: “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should
not be removed for ever.”). The immobility of the earth is put in connec-
tion with its symbolic meaning. It is the symbolum Conditoris [“The symbol
of the Creator”] (Bellarmine 1626, p. 38). According to the Gospels
(Matthew 7:24–5), it is like a house that God created for us on a solid
rock that will resist rain, winds, and thunders (Bellarmine 1626, p. 42).
Ainsi, it is the symbol of the stability of faith, aussi.

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35.

“Iam vero multitudinem rerum creaturarum ab uno Deo conditore caeli et terrae

quis enumerabit? Arenas maris, et pluviae guttas, inquit Ecclesiasticus, quis dinumeravit?»

894

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Chapter VII (the gradus septimus, the seventh step upwards to God) is of
particular cosmological relevance. It deals with the sun, moon, et le
stars. The most important Scriptural reference, the one that introduces this
section stems from the Psalms: Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum
eius annuntiat ﬁrmamentum (Psalms 19:1, KJV: “The heavens declare the
glory of God; and the ﬁrmament sheweth his handywork.”) (Bellarmine
1626, p. 102). As for the sun, the Holy Spirit extolls its merits through
David’s words. The most important of its qualities is its indefatigable
capacity to travel through the heavens “like a running giant” (Psalms
18:6, Vulgata: ut gigans ad currendam viam suam) (Bellarmine 1626, p. 102).
Bellarmine explains that, as we can see with our own eyes, the sun accom-
plishes an entire circle around the earth in twenty-four hours and therefore
it moves incredibly fast, as it makes thousands of miles per hour (ut singulis
horis multa milliariorum milia sol currendo conﬁciat). Bellarmine himself experi-
enced such rapidity making the following naïve experiment:

Once I desired to know, out of curiosity, how much time the sun
takes to set in the sea, therefore I started to read the Psalm [51]
Miserere mei Deus [Have mercy on me, O God] at the beginning of the
sunset and I could barely read it twice in its entirety that the sun had
already completely set. (Bellarmine 1626, p. 106)36

This passage and its context are remarkable not just for the pious parody of
an empirical observation of nature in a time of rising experimental science,
but especially as a witness of Bellarmine’s attitude towards the standard
conceptions on spherical astronomy of his time. En fait, no supporter of the
material-spheres heaven would have ascribed the daily motion of the sun to
the sun itself. The solar motion that the astronomical opponents of
Copernicus rejected was the annual revolution along the ecliptic and by no
means the daily rotation of the heavens, which was in fact ascribed to the
sphere of the fixed stars and transmitted by them to the planets (y compris
the sun). Par contre, Bellarmine suggests here a different cosmological
conception, in line with the theses about the fluidity of the heavens on
which he already taught in Louvain. As Ugo Baldini and George Coyne
have pointed out, Bellarmine still defended in private and in his
correspondence those conceptions in Rome. Sur 25 Août 1618, he wrote
to Cesi (in Baldini and Coyne’s translation, 1984, p. 4):

But that which I wished from Your Excellency [Prince Cesi] is not to
know that the Sacred Scripture and the Fathers held that the heavens

36.

“Ego ipse volens curiose aliquando cognoscere, quanto temporis spatio sol totus
occumberet in mari; coepi ad initium occasus eius legere Psalmum Miserere mei Deus, et vix
totum bis legeram, cum iam sol totus occumbuisset.”

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are ﬁxed and the stars move and also that the heavens are not hard
and impenetrable like iron but rather soft and very easy to penetrate
like air; these things I knew already; but what I wished to learn from
Your Excellency is how to save the motions of the sun and of the stars
and especially of those which are ﬁxed […]. When I was young, je
tried to save the motion of the planets from west to east […] par
saying that their motion from east to west was not in twenty-four
hours for all of them but for the Sun it was twenty-four hours, for the
moon it was twenty-four and a quarter, making it appear that the
moon in its own motion had turned somewhat backwards, so that
little by little it went away from and then approached the sun. As for
the motion of the planets from the south to the north, I tried to
explain it by saying that the motion of the planets was not a perfect
circle but a spiral, and so little by little they would pass from the
south to the north and then would return by the same route […].
There is some additional indication in the 1615 booklet that Bellarmine’s
Biblical cosmology departed from the “Ptolemaic-Aristotelian paradigm”
(to use Kuhn’s expression) in relation to the causation of celestial motions
through material spheres. In discussing the nocturnal motion of the moon and
the stars, Bellarmine expressed some doubt concerning the quintessential
nature of heaven:

“We are not unaware that some inferred from the motion of the stars
that the nature of the heaven is a ﬁfth essence, which is simple,
incorruptible, and is continuously moved in circle [in orbem]. But we
also know that others contended that the heaven is [made out of]
elemental ﬁre, which does not move in circle nor is incorruptible
insofar as its parts are concerned. Cependant, we do not seek for
opinions but for certain science [scientiam certam] and the doctrine of
faith. (Bellarmine 1626, p. 111)37

For Bellarmine, the fixed stars are an indication of God’s glory. God
inhabits the heavens and illuminates the world through the sun, moon,
and stars (Bellarmine 1626, p. 116). The most remarkable aspect of the
ﬁxed stars, as one reads, is that they move very rapidly and with different
velocities (c'est, varying linear velocities, depending on their latitude)
but are able to always maintain the same conﬁguration ( proportio cum aliis)

37.

“Non ignoramus quidem, non defuisse, qui ex motu siderum naturam caeli deﬁ-
nierint quintam essentiam, simplicem, incorruptibilem, et quae perpetuo moveatur in
orbem; sed scimus etiam, non defuisse alios, qui caelum esse voluerint elementum ignis,
quod non moveatur in orbem, nec sit incorruptibilem secundum partes; nos autem non
opiniones, sed scientiam certam aut doctrinam ﬁdei quaerimus.”

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in the most harmonious manner (concentus harmonicus). As one reads in Job:
Quis enarrabit caelorum rationem, et concentum caeli quis dormire faciet? (“Who
can declare the order of the heavens, or who can make the harmony of
heaven to sleep?) ( Job 38:37). As Bellarmine explains, this concentum is
no vocal harmony but an admirable proportion of motions, which relates
both to the ﬁxed stars and the planets (Bellarmine 1626, pp. 117–18).

Bellarmine ascribes to the moon a special symbolic meaning. Its phases
are a representation of the importance to join God and to mistrust natural
reason. En fait, the moon represents man while the sun represents God.
When the former is most distant from its source of light, its disk is fully
illuminated and induces us to look down to terrestrial things. En conséquence-
quence, we forget the heavens and God. Par contre, when the moon is
conjoined with the sun, its disk is entirely dark. In this manner we are
induced to raise our eyes and souls to the starry heavens, and leave the
lower nature behind (Bellarmine 1626, pp. 112–13). This is the reason
wherefore Augustine established that Easter should be celebrated after
the full moon, when the moon starts to rejoin the sun (Bellarmine
1626, p. 113). Ainsi, the moon is the symbol of human sin and redemp-
tion. In the moment in which it is more brilliant and invites the natural
reason to look down to the illuminated earth, it is actually most deceitful.
Bellarmine asserts that after the contemplation of the material cosmos,
the soul has to make a further step and abandon the external nature that is
offered to the senses in order to focus on the inner world, which is imma-
terial. “Above all corporal things, we encounter the dignity of human
souls” (Bellarmine 1626, p. 119).38 From Section VIII onward, Bellarmine
abandons the consideration of the corporeal world to discuss, in the second
part of his ascension, the soul, the angels, and God. The ultimate impor-
tance of cosmology is located beyond cosmology. It prepares the contem-
plator of God’s Creation to reach beyond the “vanity of vanities” of this
monde. This position is antipodal with respect to Cremonini’s cosmology
without transcendence.

Concluding Remarks

5.
The Aristotelian philosopher Cremonini and the Jesuit
theologian
Bellarmine entered the cosmological controversies of the early seventeenth
century by promoting cosmological conceptions that were closely tied to
arguments from authority. Far from constituting a unique front according
to the historiographical simpliﬁcation of the “Ptolemaic-Aristotelian par-
adigm,” the interpretations that these intellectuals (geocentric, anti-
Copernican, variously Aristotelian and, in Bellarmine’s case, theological)

38.

“Iam vero supra omnium corporum dignitatem invenimus animas humanas.”

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Perspectives on Science

897

offered were quite different, especially as far as the crucial question of
authority in matters of natural philosophy is concerned. The Paduan pro-
fessor propagated a “radically secular” interpretation of Aristotle, tandis que le
Jesuit Cardinal and Inquisitor embraced a theological interpretation in line
with the cultural requirements of post-Tridentine Catholicism. Bellarmine
subordinated natural philosophy to exegesis and the authority of the Scrip-
photos, whereas Cremonini adhered to a double truth position that insulated
cosmology from revealed theology. The two thinkers also shared the criti-
cism of the major astronomical innovation of their time, namely the plane-
tary system of Copernicus and his followers, although their objections
hinged on different worldviews and authorities, Aristotle and the Scriptures,
respectivement. De plus, Cremonini supported a vision of celestial animation
that was received with much concern by the Roman religious authorities as
they feared that it might revive forms of paganism.

En résumé, Cremonini and Bellarmine received the cosmological tra-
dition, in particular the Aristotelian conception about the geocentric order
of the cosmos, in very different, even opposite, manners, especially in rela-
tion to the connection of natural philosophy and theology, and the recon-
cilability of cosmology with the Scriptures. As a perspective of further
recherche, it should be investigated how far such differences can be
explained against the background of institutional and political conﬂicts
between university education and Jesuit teaching, as well as between
the interests of the political authority of Venice and the religious ones of
Rome. To be sure, Cremonini was a champion of the autonomy of cosmol-
ogy from theology as much as he was a defender of university autonomy
from the Church.

As for his role and that of Bellarmine’s pious cosmology in the scientiﬁc
debates of their time, Cremonini’s views were widely received and dis-
cussed by natural philosophers and theologians, as the reactions among
Roman circles witness. As for Bellarmine, his booklet De ascentione mentis
directly tackled the Scriptural concerns raised by cosmological debates and,
less directly, the physical problem (c'est à dire., natural philosophical) in a moment
in which the Copernican debate made them of crucial cultural relevance in
Italy. The time and impact (which still needs to be fully assessed) of these
two publications makes the Disputatio de coelo and the De ascentione mentis
particularly relevant sources in the context of early modern cosmological
controversies and disputes of authority in matters of natural knowledge.
This reassessment of Cremonini’s and Bellarmine’s positions invites us
to reconsider the pluralism that characterized the conceptions, the legiti-
mation strategies, and authorities that were mobilized and reinterpreted in
the polemical context of the early-seventeenth century. Just as there was no
uniﬁed Aristotelianism that opposed the new cosmology, there was no

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Intellectual Legitimacy in Italian Cosmology

uniﬁed geocentrism, even before the geo-heliocentric option was estab-
lished as an inﬂuential third way among Catholics who cared for orthodoxy,
particularly the Jesuits, after the 1616 censorship of the Copernican system.
There were multiple “Aristotles” whose authority was used in different
instances, showing a high degree of ﬂexibility in the use of his “authority.”
In conclusion, we ought to reach a sharper and more differentiated vision of
the conceptions and epistemic values, which were both intellectual and
institutional, of the multiple fronts of the cosmological controversies, comme
these cannot be reduced to a “Copernican” or “Galilaean” pro- or contra-
battle. Building upon these premises, we can gain a more integrated picture
and a more nuanced comprehension of the events, the actors’ choices, et
their ideas in crucial years for the history of modern scientiﬁc culture.

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