PENDASIO, Federico. — Mantuan philosopher; from 1564 to 1570 he competed with Francesco Piccolomini for the chair of natural philosophy at Padua. From 1571 until his death (19 Dec. 1603) he taught philosophy at Bologna. He accompanied Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to the Council of Trent.
He wrote: *De natura corporum coelestium* (Mantua 1555); *Physicae auditionis texturae libri VIII* (Venice 1604). Various manuscript works (Rome, Bibl. naz., Fondi minori, 1728-29; Ambros. di Milano, D. 192 inf., 226 inf., 244 inf., 374 inf., 376-77 inf., 387 inf., 393-94 inf., 396 inf., 403 inf., D. 138 inf., 189 inf., O. 223 sup.; University of Padua, 663, I and 1264; Vat. Urb. lat. 1480; Ravenna, Bibl. Class., 463). An Aristotelian with modern Alexandrist tendencies, P. knew Plato and the Platonists in the Greek text and defended the individual immortality of the human soul. With Piccolomini, a Platonizing averroist, he engaged in a polemical exchange, documented by the *Apologies* of both. Portrait in the Biblioteca civica of Mantua.