PENDASIO, FEDERICO. - Mantuan philosopher; from 1564 to 1570 he was Francesco Piccolomini’s rival for the chair of natural philosophy at Padua. From 1571 until his death (19 Dec. 1603) he taught philosophy at Bologna. He accompanied Card. 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, National Library, Fondi minori, 1728–29; Ambrosiana of Milan, 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, Classense Library, 463). An Aristotelian of moderately 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—an anti-Averroist—engaged in a bitter controversy, documented by the Apologies of both. Portrait at the Civic Library of Mantua.