Franciscus Patricius (Croatian: Franjo Petriš or Frane Petrić,[1] Italian: Francesco Patrizi; 25 April 1529 – 6 February 1597) was a philosopher and scientist from the Republic of Venice, originating from Cres.

Patricius responded to the censor's attack with a letter of defense, the Apologia ad censuram, in which he basically declared his submission, but defended his position aggressively and assumed Saragoza incompetence.

The Latin part of the oeuvre primarily includes two monumental works: the Discussiones peripateticae, an extensive pamphlet against Aristotelianism, and the Nova de universis philosophia, the unfinished overall presentation of his teaching.

[48] When dealing with peripatetic thinking, Patricius attaches great importance to taking Aristotle's doctrine directly from his own words and not - as has been customary since the Middle Ages - to be influenced by the interpretations of the numerous commentators.

[51] He sees a fateful development in philosophy: the first pupils of Aristotle still thought independently and also contradicted their teacher; later, however, Alexander of Aphrodisias surrendered unconditionally to the school founder and, thus, renounced free thinking.

The first medieval Arabic-language interpreters, Avicenna, Avempace and Alfarabi, were still relatively unbiased, but then Averroes had the absolute authority of Aristotle proclaimed and thus pointed the way to sterile, scholastic Aristotelism.

[57] According to his plan, Patricius's main work, the Nova de universis philosophia (New Philosophy of Things in its entirety) should consist of eight parts and explain its entire world interpretation.

The second part is called Panarchia (Omnipotence or All-causality), a word derived the Greek noun archḗ ("origin", "cause", "rule"), which refers to the hierarchical world order and its divine source.

[63] In addition to the source texts, attached are two digression s by the author on special topics: an attempt to determine the order of Plato's dialogues and a compilation of contradictions between Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy.

Ten dialogues of the Venetian scholar, which he published in 1560 under the title Della historia diece dialoghi, deal with the basics of History of philosophy and the methods of historical research.

Here he analyzes the sonnet La gola, e'l sonno, e l'ociose piume of the famous poet Francesco Petrarca from a philosophical perspective, giving him a symbolic meaning in the context of the Platonic Soul Doctrine.

[76] Patricius draws a cultural pessimistic image of human history, emphasizing fear as a decisive factor that led to the deplorable state of civilization in his time and dominated social life.

When he published an edition of his friend's collected poetic works in Venice in 1560, he added his discorsi et argomenti, introductory and explanatory texts, in which he laid out a philosophical basis for the love poetry.

[90] The first of the two poems of praise, L'Eridano (Der Po), was created when the philosopher unsuccessfully sought employment at the court of the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole II D'Este, tried.

[94] According to a hypothesis by John-Theophanes Papademetriou, which is considered plausible,[95] Patricius has printed in Ferrara in 1583 the Italian translation of an oriental fairy tale collection under the title Del governo de 'regni' .

In doing so, he came across one of the main obstacles that he tried to remove: the relatively rigid housing of Aristotelism, which dominated in school philosophy, which had developed over the centuries through the extensive Aristotle commentary and allowed innovation only within a predetermined, narrow framework.

[113] In cosmogony, the doctrine of the origin of the world, Patricius adopted the basic principles of the Neoplatonic Emanationism, which represents the creation of everything created as a gradual emergence from a divine source.

[123] In the writing La gola, e'l sonno, e l'ociose piume, Patricius cited the characteristic of the specifically human in addition to access to knowledge that goes beyond what is perceived by the senses, the impulse control.

For Patricius, like for other humanists, the optimum that can be achieved in earthly existence is the felicità, the happiness that he, like ancient Peripateticians and Stoics, does with the practice of virtue (operazione della virtù) .

[136] Patricius rigorously opposed this way of dealing with historical materials, which had been common for thousands of years, although he ultimately also pursued an ethical goal and enthusiastically affirmed the role model function of great figures from the past.

Furthermore, there are important obstacles to fulfilling the claim to truth: Because of the obvious subjectivity of perceptions and points of view and the inadequacy of the source-based tradition, historians have only a very limited access to historical reality.

[140] For Patricius, the train of thought can now be continued like this: A representative of the conventional moralizing, rhetorically embellishing presentation of history may concede, because of the weak points mentioned, that the pure truth must remain hidden.

Patricius rejected the connection between philosophy and historiography, as it did for example Polybios;[143] In his opinion, the historian should not philosophize about the hidden causes of the course of history, but only with facts - including the recognizable motives of actors - deal.

First and foremost, he opposed the ancient thesis, taken up by the influential contemporary Aristotle commentator Lodovico Castelvetro, that the task of the poet was to imitate natural or historical facts.

This also results in an analogy in the order of rank of those who work: Just as the exercise of reason places man above all other animated beings, so the linguistic design of the mirabile elevates the poet above all others who write texts of any kind .

A poet may and should exceed the limits of what is allowed by the theoreticians, he should consciously disregard norms such as imitation of the natural and conformity with normal life experience and include the unusual and improbable.

A Latin translation, De legendae scribendaeque historiae ratione dialogi decem, appeared in Basel in 1570,[178] one of English abstract, Thomas Blundeville, `` The true order and method of wryting and reading hystories, 1574 in London.

Paul Oskar Kristeller expressed a widespread opinion when he 1964 stated that there were good reasons to count Patricius among the natural philosophers who "paved the way for the new science and philosophy of the 17th century and modernity".

[191] Rainer Stillers highlighted the highly developed methodological awareness in 1988, which is reflected in Patricius's careful consideration of tradition and his methodical progression from facts to theory show.

[195] Similar comments were made on Patricius's pioneering role in the establishment of scientific history research u. a. Giorgio Spini (1948),[196] Rüdiger Landfester (1972)[197] and Thomas Sören Hoffmann ( 2007).