DE FERRARIIS, ANTONIO. - A Catholic priest of the Greek rite, known as Il Galateo, because he was born in Galatone (Otranto) in 1444. In Naples he attended the Accademia Pontaniana and from 1490 was court physician to the Aragonese. He died in Gallipoli on 12 November 1517, leaving more than 60 short works of various content.
He placed at the foundation of his philosophical thought the belief in transcendence: metaphysics, logic, and ethics were informed by that concept of Providence which he reiterated in the *Esposizione del Pater Noster* (1504), his only work in the vernacular. Besides the *De educatione*, he wrote medical treatises aimed at purging medical culture of superstition. A great stir was caused by the publication of a harsh polemical pamphlet, *Heremita* (1496), in which De F. did not clearly distinguish between the Church as an institution and the conduct of some of its members. Among his moralistic writings are remembered: *De gloria contemnenda* and *De inconstantia humani animi*.
Antonio Altamura
PEDAGOGY. - The treatise *De educatione*, written between 1504 and 1505, is addressed to the Pontanian academician Crisostomo Colonna, tutor to Ferdinand, the eldest son of King Frederick of Naples.
De F. wished the education of the young prince to be entirely imbued with a lofty and sincere spirit of Italian identity. Thus he outlines an ideal program for the prince’s education in perfect harmony with the best classical and Christian traditions of Italy. In De F. there are some traits that bring him close to his great contemporary Machiavelli: the same aversion to the barbarian invaders of the homeland and the same desire to see it freed from them. The *De educatione* in its first part deals above all with education among the ancients, without failing to admire that of the Greeks and Romans, as well as that of the ancient Italians—sober, active, lovers of Latin and Greek letters, of music, of physical exercise, and of the chase. The education of the young man, he continues, should be simple and always inspired by truth, because “nihil homine indignius quam mentiri et simulare.” Let him read the poets, historians, philosophers, jurists, and theologians; let him also work and toil: “labor cibum antecedat et mane et vespere,” because “nemo est melior comes quam labor.” Frugality and exercise are the best path to holiness. The young man should also be religious; he should not have frequent dealings with women, for in them “non modo remittitur, sed extinguitur, igniculus animi adolescentium.” He should flee, as if it were the plague, games of cards or chess. Rather, let him love the pursuit of the chase, “quae imaginem quandam habet rei bellicae.” Let him then read the deeds of heroes, follow the example of the great, and with letters learn natural history and moral philosophy. De F., in keeping with humanist thought, extols man as a rational being; in fact, in his *De nobilitate et distinctione humani generis* he says that it is only the mind that distinguishes us from beasts; certainly, the more we excel in this, the more we partake of true humanity. In the *De dignitate disciplinae* he extols nobility and the study of letters. A man of Italian spirit, De F. believed that through such an education Italy could regain the ancient worth so despised and trampled underfoot by foreign domination.
Regarding the education of women, De F. shows a rather limited vision. In a letter to Bona Sforza he sketches an educational plan more suited to the upbringing of a man; it may serve Bona, who is a princess and thus born to rule, but for a woman, ordinarily, “è nata a far la lana, a trattare conocchie e fusi.” A woman, even if she must not be ignorant, should not venture “quanto è fuori la soglia di casa.” In keeping with humanist educators, De F. wished music to be cultivated, but a virile and robust kind, not an effeminate, languid, and mournful one.