Vanini

Vanini, LUCILIO, freethinker, was born at Taurisano in the Neapolitan territory in 1585, and at Naples and Padua studied the new learning of the Renaissance and the newer learning of physical science, qualified as doctor utriusque juris, and took orders as priest. But his 'naturalist'—anti-Christian and anti-religious—views soon brought him into collision with the church. Having taught in various parts of France, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, he had to flee from Lyons to England, where also he was imprisoned. At Genoa, Paris, and Toulouse he was constantly in trouble for his heresies, and at Toulouse he was arrested and condemned to first have his tongue cut out, then to be strangled, and finally to be burned to ashes (19th February 1619). From his Amphitheatrum Æternæ Providentiæ (1615) and his De Admirandis Naturæ Areamis (1616) it is plain that, if he was not an atheist, he taught pantheism of an extreme type; and he was more notable for vanity and audacity than for learning or speculative originality. But as an innovator he has many points in common with Brnno (q.v.). There are monographs by Fuhrmann (1800), Vaisse (1871), and Palumbo (1878). See John Owen's Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (1893).