Lucilio Vanini (1585 – February 9, 1619) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 free-thinker, who in his works styled himself Giulio Cesare Vanini.

He was born at Taurisano

Taurisano

Taurisano is a town and comune in the province of Lecce, in the Apulia region of south-east Italy., the population was 12,675. Nearby towns are Acquarica del Capo, Casarano, Ruffano and Ugento....

, near Lecce

Lecce

Lecce is a historic city of 95,200 inhabitants in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Lecce, the second province in the region by population, as well as one of the most important cities of Puglia...

, and studied philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. After his return to Lecce he applied himself to the physical studies which had come into vogue with the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. Like Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno , born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited...

, he attacked scholasticism

Scholasticism

Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

. Vanini resembles Bruno, not only in his wandering life but also in his anti-Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 ideas.

From Naples he went to Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

, where he came under the influence of the Alexandrist

Alexandrists

The Alexandrists were a school of Renaissance philosophers who, in the great controversy on the subject of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the De Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias....

 Pomponazzi

Pietro Pomponazzi

Pietro Pomponazzi was an Italian philosopher. He is sometimes known by his Latin name, Petrus Pomponatius.-Biography:...

, whom he styled his divine master. At Padua he studied law, and was ordained a priest. Subsequently he led a roving life in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

, supporting himself by giving lessons and disseminating anti-Christian views. He was obliged to flee from Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1614, but was imprisoned in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 for an unknown reason for forty-nine days.

Returning to Italy, he made an attempt to teach in Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, but was driven once more to France, where he tried to clear himself of suspicion by publishing a book against atheism

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

, Amphitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae Divino-Magicum (1615). Though the definitions of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 are somewhat pantheistic, the book served its immediate purpose. That the book does not expound Vanini's actual views, the author expressly stated in his second work, De Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deaeque Mortalium Arcanis (Paris, 1616), which, originally certified by two doctors of the Sorbonne

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

, was later re-examined and condemned.

Vanini was a polygenist, who argued that Africans are descended from apes because of their skin colour, while other races are not. In his book De Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deaeque Mortalium Arcanis (1616), he wrote that only the Negro descends from the monkey and that there are lower and higher levels within humanity (a race hierarchy); he also reported in the book that other atheists supported this position as opposed to the theory of monogenism.

Vanini then left Paris, where he had been staying as chaplain to the marechal de Bassompierre, and began to teach in Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

. In November 1618 he was arrested, and after a prolonged trial was condemned to have his tongue cut out, and to be strangled at the stake, his body to be afterwards burned to ashes. The sentence was executed on 9 February 1619.

Further reading

• Francesco De Paola, Vanini e il primo '600 Anglo-veneto, Cutrofiano, Lecce (1980).
• Francesco De Paola, Giulio Cesare Vanini da Taurisano Filosofo Europeo, Schena Editore, Fasano, Brindisi (1998).
• Giovanni Papuli, Studi Vaniniani, Galatina, Congedo (2006).
• Giovanni Papuli, Francesco Paolo Raimondi (ed.), Giulio Cesare Vanini - Opere, Galatina, Congedo (1990).
• Francesco Paolo Raimondi, Giulio Cesare Vanini nell'Europa del Seicento, Roma-Pisa, Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, Roma (2005).