POMPONAZZI (Pompacius, de Pomponaciis), MAESTRO PIETRO. — Aristotelian philosopher, born at Mantua on 16 September 1462, son of Gian Niccolò, died at Bologna on 18 May 1525, and commonly called the “little Mantuan” because of his small stature. At Padua, before 1487, he had VERONICA (v.) and Pietro Trapolino, metaphysics under Francesco Securo da Nardò, a Dominican, and medicine under Pietro Roccabonella.
In 1488 he began teaching as magister artium in the second school of extraordinary philosophy, later moving to the first, and in 1492 to the second ordinary school. The beginning of his commentary on the De anima belongs to this period; he had to interrupt it after a few lectures because that year he was scheduled to lecture on the Physica. After three years he moved to the first ordinary school, NIO (v.) was promoted to the second, thus becoming his rival, and with whom the first disputes began. But just one year later he resigned in order to go, almost certainly, as Oliva has demonstrated, to the court of Alberto Pio da Carpi, whom he followed into exile at Ferrara. With Pio he discussed the doctrines of the calculatores, which had come into fashion. In October 1499, after Vernia’s death, he was called to succeed him at Padua, and in 1500 he dictated the commentary on the De anima preserved in the Bibl. naz. of Naples, cod. VIII. D. 81, written by Antonio Surian, nephew of the patriarch of Venice, and already noted by Kristeller. The short treatise De maximo et minimo (Bibl. Ambrosiana, cod. R. 96 sup.), concerning Heytesbury’s well-known doctrine, must also belong to these years. From 1504 dates the second commentary on the De anima, of which the Neapolitan codex preserves only the section concerning Book I, together with a quaestio soul (v.), another on the unity of the intellect, another on the act of understanding in Averroist doctrine, and yet another derived from a commentary on Book VIII of the Physica of 1500. During these years Gaspare Contarini was his student, and he was perfectly right when he later reminded his teacher that he had changed his opinion on the question of immortality, as on other questions. In 1507 he commented on Averroes’ De subst. orbis (cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 1279). In 1509, because of the siege of Padua and the subsequent closure of that university, he accepted an invitation to go to Ferrara, where he lectured on philosophy for only one year, and then to Bologna, where he remained uninterruptedly until his death.
In addition to the writings mentioned above, the fragments of a commentary on the Physica, written by his student and later faithful friend and colleague Lazzaro Bonamico, also belong to the Paduan period (cod. Ambros., J. 220 inf., ff. 89–149). All the other published and unpublished writings known thus far belong to the Bolognese period, in the following order: 1) The commentary on the first 22 texts of Book XII of the Metaph. (preserved in two distinct versions: one in the cod. of the Bibl. naz. of Paris, lat. 6537, and in cod. Ambros. A. 52 inf., and another in the cod. of the Frat. de Laici of Arezzo, 390, and in the same Ambrosian codex, in which folios from two different mss. have been badly sewn together), bears the date 1511–12. 2) The commentary on the Physica in the Paris codex, lat. 6533, for the first five Books, and in cod. Aretino 389 for Book I and part of Book II, and 390 for Book III, dates from 1513–14. From the summer of 1514 comes an accusation of heresy which, however, led to no action. 3) The Quaestio de intens. et remiss. formarum also dates from 1514. 4) In the De reactione of 1515, dedicated to Gaspare Contarini, the doctrines of Susset, Heytesbury, Giovanni Marliani, Giacomo da Forli, and others are discussed anew. 5) Between 1511 and 1515 the commentary on the De Anima was dictated (mss. lat. 6448–49 of the Bibl. naz. of Paris; the cod. of the Angelica in Rome, 1317, is an extract of quaestiones from this commentary and from others written later; the same must be said of the cod. Magliabechiano XII, 16). The problem of the immortality of the soul is treated there at length both for and against; in the end P. seems still to regard a rational demonstration of immortality as possible. 6) The Quaestiones breves XXIV date from 1515 (cod. Ambros. R. 96 inf.). 7) The Quaestio an actio realis immediate fieri possit per species spirituales also dates from 1515. 8) The commentary on Book I of the De caelo dates from 1515–16 (ms. lat. 6534 of the Bibl. naz. of Paris). 9) De immortalitate, dedicated to M. A. Flaminio Contarini, September 1516. 10) Apologia, completed on 21 December 1517 and published together with the Tractatus contradictoris in February 1518. In June of that same year Leo X threatened to have P. prosecuted unless he recanted, but Cardinal Bembo diverted the storm. 11) In November 1517 P. began the commentary on Book VII of the Physica (cod. of Arezzo, 389, ms. lat. 6533 of the Bibl. naz. of Paris, and ms. n. 45 of the Campana collection of Osimo). 12) The commentary on Book VIII of the Physica would seem to date from 1518–19 (in the aforementioned manuscripts of Arezzo and Paris, which also contain an important fragment of an earlier commentary [1514]). 13) In May 1519 the Defensorium against Nifo was published. 14) Between 1519 and 1520, P. commented on the final five Books of the De caelo (cod. lat. 6534, Bibl. naz. of Paris). 15) The Quaestiones on the De anima date from 1520 (cod. Angelico 1317, ff. 248–67; the date of those preceding, ff. 193r–247r, is uncertain). 16) In 1520 the De fato etc. was published. 17) In the same year, the De inconstatissibus was completed (Basel 1556). 18) In September 1521 the De nutrit. et augment. was completed, dedicated to Cardinal Domenico Grimani. 19) The commentary on the De generat. et corrupt., begun in 1519 and resumed from April 1521 to May 1522 (Vat. Regin. lat. 1279 and, for Book I, the Campana codex of Osimo). 20) In November 1521 P. began the commentary on the De partibus animalium, which he subsequently left unfinished (ms. lat. 6537 of Paris, for Books I and II; ms. Ambros. D. 417 inf. for all three books, but in a shorter version). 21) The commentary on the Meteore dates from May 1522 and probably continued until December 1523 or even later (ms. lat. 6535 of Paris, for the first three books; ms. lat. 6448 for Book IV; another version of Books II and III in cod. Ambros. R. 96 sup.; Excerpta in the codex of Osimo). The young son of the marquis of Mantua, the future Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, also attended the lectures on the Meteore. 22) The Dubitationes in quartum Meteor. (Venice 1563) are something different; the date of composition is uncertain, but they seem to belong to the Bolognese period. 23) P.’s final work appears to have been the commentary on the De sensu et sensato, completed by Easter 1523 (ms. lat. 6536 of Paris; identical with that of Osimo, Bibl. Campana collection, no. 45; Arezzo, ms. 390, incomplete and in a different version). Shortly before his death, he was able to see gathered into a single volume the De intens. et remiss., the De react., the Q. an actio realis, the De immort., the Apol., the Defens., and the De nutr. et augm. (Venice 1525). Other writings mentioned by Tomasini (Bibl. patav., Udine 1639, pp. 97 ff.) remain unknown.
As may be seen, P.’s activity encompasses the whole of Aristotelian natural philosophy, although he particularly likes to dwell on certain problems then under discussion, such as that of the eternity of the world, the immortality of the soul, intellect (v.), the freedom of the will, and others no less important, such as that of periodic floods and the “great cosmic year,” or that of the Averroistic copulatio of the possible intellect with the agent intellect. But historians’ attention has focused above all on the problem of the immortality of the soul (v. ALESSANDRISMO) and on the violent controversy that arose from it, as though P. had denied immortality rather than the possibility of demonstrating it by Aristotelian arguments: “Dico Aristotelem errasse, et tu plus erras dicendo Aristotelem omnia scivisse” (In VII Phys., Arezzo, ms. 389, f. 228ᵛ). Obliged by the academic statutes to explain the Aristotelian text and the Averroistic commentary at Bologna, he replied to Nifo, who was working to induce Leo X to condemn him (Defens., 29): “Ex mandato D. n. Leonis decimi et Senatus Bononiensis teneor legere et interpretari et secundum iudicium meum sententiare quid senserit Aristoteles quod per principia naturalia haberi potest: et de hoc quaesio et de aliis adstrictus sum ex iuramento fideliter mentem Aristotelis aperire...”. And the Pope left him in peace.
An Aristotelian, he does not have the Averroist’s obstinacy; rather, he maintains a certain independence in relation to Aristotle, which often leads him to declare that he does not understand him, so that once, apropos of the habitability of the southern zone, he exclaimed: “Ea quae hic dicuntur ab Aristotele sunt fatuitates” (In 2ⁿᵈ Meteor., ms. Ambros. R. 96 sup., f. 69ᵛ). Unacquainted with Greek, he surpasses the other Aristotelians through his particular acuity in interpreting the text; he despises the humanists’ “lectio fucata” and does not disdain being regarded as a “Bergomensis subtilis ingenio, grossus verbis” (Paris, ms. lat. 6533, f. 426ᵛ), as indeed he was. In P.’s lectures one senses something telling us that Aristotelianism is now on the point of dissolution; a serious problem emerges: when reasoning and experience conflict, “cui standum”? It is already the problem of method. And P. senses it, or at least anticipates II.