CREMONINI, CESARE. – Philosopher, b. at Cento in 1550 or 1552, d. in 1631. After teaching
at Ferrara, he became Galileo’s colleague at the University of Padua, where he enjoyed such esteem that he received twice the salary of the Pisan. C. was called the last great Italian Aristotelian, but in reality his doctrinal position cannot be defined so simply. Although he professed himself a staunch follower of the Stagirite, to the point of refusing to look at the heavens through a telescope lest he see the philosopher’s astronomical system contradicted, he always wavered between the Alexandrian and Averroist interpretations.
C.’s orthodoxy, too, is highly questionable; he defended himself by asserting that he was merely reporting the opinions of others, but he seems to have acted in this way solely to escape the condemnations into which Pomponazzi had already fallen, whose spirit is often alive and operative in his theories. One of his works, however, the Disputatio de coelo, was placed on the Index (decrees: 15 January 1622; 3 July 1623). By attributing a soul to the world, as the eternal principle of its existence, he seems to deny the dogma of creation and consequently to disregard Providence. Free will, too, is only barely preserved, once the fatality of the stellar influences under which one is born is admitted, influences from which one can free oneself only through an effort of will. Of the soul C. writes that it is impossible ut sit anima et non sit in corpore, and yet he wishes to preserve its immortality.
The less charitable interpretation we have given of C.’s theories seems confirmed by an axiom dear to him, which clarifies many of his ambiguities: intus ut libet, foris ut moris est.