Lucilio Vanini

Vanini's birthplace, Taurisano

Lucilio Vanini was born in 1585 in Taurisano, Terra d'Otranto, Italy. His father was Giovan Battista Vanini, a businessman from Tresana in Tuscany, while his mother was the daughter of a man named Lopez de Noguera, a customs contractor of the Spanish royal family's lands in Bari, Terra d'Otranto, Capitanata, and Basilicata. A document dated August 1612, discovered in the Vatican Secret Archives, describes Vanini as of Apulia, which is consistent with the native land he mentions in his own works.

The government census of the population of the hamlet of Taurisano, in 1596, includes the names of Giovan Battista Vanini, his lawful son Alexander, born in 1582, and his natural son Giovan Francesco, while there is no mention of Vanini's wife or of another lawful son called Lucilio (or Giulio Cesare). In 1603 Giovan Battista Vanini is reported for the last time in Taurisano.

Lucilio Vanini entered the University of Naples in 1599.[3] In 1603 he entered the Carmelite order,[4] taking the name of Fra Gabriele. He earned a doctorate in canon and civil law from the University of Naples on 6 June 1606.[3]

Afterwards, he remained in the Naples area for two years, apparently living as a friar,[3] or alternatively he returned to Lecce and studied the new Renaissance sciences, chiefly medicine and astronomy. By now, he had assimilated much knowledge and "speaks very good Latin and with great ease, is tall and a bit thin, has brown hair, an aquiline nose, lively eyes and a pleasant and ingenious physiognomy".

Statue of Paolo Sarpi in Venice

In (probably) 1606, Vanini's father died in Naples. Vanini, now come of age, was recognised by a court in the capital as heir of Giovan Battista and guardian of his brother Alexander. With a series of deeds and power of attorney drawn up in Naples, Vanini began to settle the financial consequences of the death of his father: selling a house he owned in Ugento, a few miles from his home country; in 1607 mandating a maternal uncle to fulfil assignments of the same type; in 1608 instructing friend Scarciglia to recover a sum and sell some goods remaining in Taurisano and held in custody by the two brothers.

In 1608, Vanini moved to Padua, a town under the rule of Venice, to study theology at that university (although there is no record of him subsequently obtaining a degree).[3] While there he came into contact with the group led by Paolo Sarpi that, with the support of the English embassy in Venice, fueled anti-papal polemics. In 1611 he participated in the Lenten sermons, attracting the suspicions of the religious authorities. During that period, the controversy over the 1606 interdict placed on the Republic of Venice by Pope Paul V was still raging, and Vanini showed himself unambiguously in favour of the Republic.[3] Consequently, the Prior General of his order, Enrico Silvio, commanded him to return to Naples, where he would have been disciplined, probably severely, but instead Vanini sought refuge with the English ambassador to Venice in 1612.[3]

Vanini then fled to England, along with his Genoese companion Bonaventure Genocchi. They passed through Bologna, Milan, the Swiss canton of Graubünden, and descended via the Rhine, through Germany and the Netherlands, to the North Sea coast and the English Channel, finally reaching London and the Lambeth residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here the two remained for nearly two years, hiding their true identity from their English guests. In July 1612, they both renounced their Catholic faith and embraced Anglicanism.

By 1613, however, Vanini was having doubts, so he appealed to the Pope to be allowed back into the Catholic fold, but as a secular priest rather than as a friar; the request was granted by the Pope himself.[3] Around the start of 1614, Vanini visited the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and confided to some acquaintances his imminent flight from England, so in January, he and Genocchi were arrested on the orders of the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot. They managed to escape however, Genocchi in February 1614 and Vanini in March. The Spanish ambassador in London and the chaplain of the embassy of the Venetian Republic were thought to have engineered their escapes. The two passed through the hands of the papal nuncio in Flanders, Guido Bentivoglio, to the papal nuncio in Paris, Roberto Ubaldini.

In Paris, in the summer of 1614, Vanini subscribed to the principles of the Council of Trent, to prove the sincerity of his return to the Catholic faith. He then journeyed to Italy, going first to Rome, where he had to face the difficult final stages of the process in the court of the Inquisition, then to Genoa for a few months, where he found his friend Genocchi and taught philosophy to children of Scipio Doria for a time.

Line engraving of Lucilio (Giulio Cesare) Vanini

Despite assurances, the return of Vanini and Genocchi was not entirely peaceful; in January 1615 Genocchi was arrested by the Inquisitor of Genoa. Vanini therefore, fearing the same fate, ran away again to France and headed to Lyon. There, in June 1615, he published Amphitheatrum, a book against atheism, which he hoped would clear his name with the Roman authorities.

A short time later Vanini returned to Paris, where he asked Nuncio Ubaldini to intervene on his behalf with the authorities in Rome. Insufficiently assured, Vanini decided not to return to Italy, and instead cultivated connections with prestigious elements of the French nobility.

In 1616, Vanini completed the second of his two works, De Admirandis, and got it approved by two theologians at the Sorbonne. The work was published in September in Paris. It was dedicated to François de Bassompierre, a powerful man at the court of Marie de' Medici, and was printed by Adrien Périer, a Protestant. The work was immediately successful among those aristocratic circles populated by young spirits who looked with interest to the cultural and scientific innovations that came from Italy. The De Admirandis was a summa, lively and brilliant, of the new knowledge, and became a kind of "manifesto" for these cultural free spirits, giving Vanini a chance to stay safe in circles close to the French court. However, a few days after the publication of the work, the two theologians at the Sorbonne who had expressed their approval were presented to the Faculty of Theology in formal session and the outcome was a de facto ban on the movement of the text.

Now, unwelcome in England, unable to return to Italy and threatened by some circles of French Catholics, Vanini saw his room for manoeuvre shrinking and his chances of finding a stable place in French society failing. Fearing that a court case would be started against him in Paris, he fled and went into hiding at Redon Abbey in Brittany, where Abbott Arthur d'Épinay de Saint-Luc acted as his protector. But other factors gave cause for concern: in April 1617 Concino Concini, favorite of Marie de' Medici, was killed in Paris, giving rise to a wave of hostility to Italian residents at court.

In the following months, a mysterious Italian, with a strange name (Pompeo Uciglio[3]) and in possession of great knowledge but an uncertain past, appeared in some cities of Guyenne, then the Languedoc and finally Toulouse. Duke Henri II de Montmorency, protector of esprits forts of the time, was the governor of this region and seemed to grant protection to the fugitive, who still continued to keep carefully hidden.

The presence of this mysterious character in Toulouse did not however pass unnoticed and attracted the suspicions of the authorities. In August 1618 he was apprehended and interrogated. In February 1619, the Parlement of Toulouse found him guilty of atheism and blasphemy and, in accordance with the regulations of the time, his tongue was cut out, he was strangled and his body was burned. After the execution it emerged that the stranger was in fact Vanini.

Amphitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae divino-magicum, christiano-physicum, necnon astrologo-catholicum adversus veteres philosophos, atheos, epicureos, peripateticos et stoicos (possible translation: "Amphitheatre of Eternal Providence – Religio-magical, Christian-physical and Astrologico-Catholic – against the Ancient Philosophers, Atheists, Epicureans, Peripatetics and Stoics"), published in Lyon in 1615, consists of 50 exercises, which aim to demonstrate the existence of God, to define His essence, to describe His providence and to examine or refute the opinions of Pythagoras, Protagoras, Cicero, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, the Epicureans, Aristotle, Averroes, Gerolamo Cardano, the Peripatetics, the Stoics, etc. on this subject.

De Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deaeque Mortalium Arcanis (possible translation: "On the Marvelous Secrets of Nature, the Queen and Goddess of Mortals"), printed in Paris in 1616 by publisher Adrien Périer, is divided into four books:

1. On Sky and Air
2. On Water and Land
3. On Animals and Passions
4. On Non-Christian Religions

These contain a total of 60 dialogues (but really only 59, as dialogue XXXV is absent), which take place between the author, in the role of disseminator of knowledge, and an imaginary Alessandro, who urges his interlocutor to list and explain the mysteries of nature found around and within man.

In a mixture of reinterpretation of ancient knowledge and the dissemination of new scientific and religious theories, the protagonist discusses: the material, figure, colour, form, energy and eternity of heaven; the motion and the central pole of the heavens; the sun, the moon, the stars; fire; comets and rainbows; lightning, snow and rain; the motion and rest of projectiles in the air; the impulsion of mortars and crossbows; winds and breezes; corrupt airs; the element of water; the birth of the rivers; the rising of the Nile; the extent and saltiness of the sea; the roar and the motion of the water; the motion of projectiles; the creation of islands and mountains, as well as the cause of earthquakes; the genesis, root and colour of the gems, as well as spots of stones; life, food, and the death of the stones; the strength of the magnet to attract iron and its direction toward the Earth's poles; plants; the explanation to be given to certain phenomena of everyday life; semen; the reproduction, nature, respiration and nutrition of fish; the reproduction of birds; the reproduction of bees; the first generation of man; stains contracted by children in the womb; the generation of male and female; parts of monsters; the faces of children covered by larvae; the growth of man; the length of human life; sight; hearing; smell; taste; touch and tickle; the affections of man; God; appearances in the air; oracles; the Sibyls; the possessed; sacred images of the pagans; augurs; the miraculous healing of diseases reported in pagan times; the resurrection of the dead; witchcraft; dreams.