CREMONINI, Cesare. — Philosopher, b. at Cento in 1550 or 1552, d. in 1631. After teaching at Ferrara, he was a colleague of Galileo at the University of Padua, where he enjoyed such esteem that he received double the salary of the Pisan. Cremonini was called the last great Italian Aristotelian, but in reality his doctrinal position cannot be so simply defined. Though professing himself a staunch follower of the Stagirite to the point of refusing to look at the heavens through the telescope so as not to contradict the philosopher’s astronomical system, he always wavered between the Alexandrian and the Averroist interpretations.
Cremonini’s orthodoxy is also highly questionable; he defended himself by asserting that he was merely reporting others’ opinions, yet he seems to have done so solely to avoid the condemnations that had already befallen Pomponazzi, 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 Jan. 1622; 3 July 1623). By granting the world a soul, an eternal principle of its existence, he seems to deny the dogma of creation and to ignore Providence. Free will is barely salvaged, once the fatality of the stellar influences under which one is born is admitted, from which one can free oneself only by an effort of the will. Concerning the soul, Cremonini writes that it is impossible for there to be an anima without its being in a body, and yet he still wishes to uphold its immortality.
The less favorable interpretation we have given of Cremonini’s theories seems confirmed by the maxim he cherished and which clarifies many of his ambiguities: intus ut libet, foris ut moris est.