De veris principiis […] — Parma, 1553

De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudophilosophos, libri IIII. — Parmae, apud Septimum Viottum [Seth Viotti], May 1553.

First edition

4to (197 x 138 mm). *6 A-Z4 Aa-Yy4 a4 b6: (6) leaves, 360 pp., (10) leaves. Quires R and T browned, last quires waterstained in upper outer corner, otherwise in very good condition. 19th century half leather.Provenance: Some contemporary marginal annotations, many of these cropped. Contemporary manuscript note on bottom of title-page. – BL/STC p. 468; not in Adams and Soltész.

¶ Mario Nizzoli (1488 – 1567), Italian humanist and philosopher, well known by his Thesaurus Ciceronianus (1536, frequently reprinted), lectured in Milan, Parma and Sabbioneta. Our book was preceded by an acrimonious controversy between Marco Antonio Maioragio (Reprehensionum libri II) and the recalcitrant Nizzoli, who criticised the prohibitiv supremacy of scholastic Aristotelism at Italian universities. The complete title reads: „… libri iiii. In quibus statuntur ferme omnia vera verarum artium et scientiarum principia, refutatis et reiectis omnibus Dialecticorum et Metaphysicorum principijs falsis: et praeterea refelluntur fere omnes Marci Antonij Maioragij obiectationes contra eundum Nizolium, usque in hunc diem editae.“

The tradition, in which Nizzoli is to be located, is that of Ockham’s nominalism, Valla’s philosophy of language, Agricola and Vives. In finding a new, non-scholastic philosophical language Nizzoli’s De veris principiis … was welcomed by the young Leibniz, who edited the book twice with his additional remarks: in 1670 and as Anti-Barbarus philosophicus, sive philosophia Scholasticorum impugnata in 1674.