The Pisan Circle of Claude Bérigard of Moulins, formerly at Pisa and now first philosopher in the Paduan Lyceum: On Ancient and Peripatetic Philosophy in Aristotle's eight books of Physics, four on the Heavens, two on Coming-to-be and Passing-away, four on Meteorology, and three on the Soul

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Original title: Circulus Pisanus Claudii Berigardi Molinensis olim in Pisano, jam in Lyceo Patavino philosophi primi: de veteri et peripatetica philosophia in Aristotelis libros octo Physicorum, quatuor de Coelo, duos de Ortu et Interitu, quatuor Meteorologicos, et tres de Anima A large composite Neo-Latin course in natural philosophy, issued in six separately titled and paginated parts and cast as a disputation between the interlocutors Charilaus and Aristaeus, which works successively through Aristotle's Physics, De caelo, De ortu et interitu, Meteorologica, and the three books De anima. Its guiding argument is that Aristotle's substantial form is a mere figmentum and the fertile principle of the errors of natural philosophy; in its place Bérigard sets the arrangement, configuration, and local motion of pre-existing corpuscles, redefining form as symmetry, harmony, or concentus, while expressly excepting the rational soul. Related Peripatetic entities are dismissed in turn — singular formative natures, the Intelligences of the spheres, real qualities, spiritual species and visual rays, the reaction of contraries, horror vacui — and replaced by corporeal explanations drawn from the ancients (Democritus, Empedocles, Plato, Pythagoras), from chemistry, anatomy and medicine, and from new instruments such as telescopes and burning mirrors. Particular topics include the origin of the soul in the semen and embryonic development, weight, fall and hydrostatics, place and motion, indivisibles and interrupted motion, action and the nature of cold, a fiery heaven with stars as fountains of purified fire, natal astrology as corpuscular influxus, magnetism, vision by corporeal rays, and meteorological questions such as the salinity of the sea, springs, subterranean heat and the tides explained as fermentation. Throughout, a theological reservation is maintained: universal nature is God alone, nature being only divinae artis instrumentum, the instrument of the divine art, so that divine concurrence remains the principal cause of every natural effect. The parts carry separate dedications to successive Medici patrons, and the whole concludes with an Index rerum et verborum totius operis. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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