Review
Reviewed Work(s): Simone Porzio: Un aristotelico tra natura e grazia by Del Soldato
Review by: Martin L. Pine
Source: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 877-879
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of
America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/662854
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REVIEWS 877
Eva Del Soldato. Simone Porzio: Un aristotelico tra natura e grazia.
Istututo nazionale di studi sul rinascimento 6. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010.
xvi + 352 pp. index. append. bibl. €42. ISBN: 978–88–6372–275–8.
The sixteenth-century Aristotelian philosopher Simone Porzio (1496–1554)
has been studied by scholars from Fiorentino to Garin and Vasoli. Although each
of these scholars has made significant contributions to central aspects of Porzio’s
thought, until now there has been no comprehensive examination of his works.
It is this gap that Soldato successfully fills. In her complete study of published
and manuscript sources (including a useful appendix of transcribed manuscripts),
Soldato examines Porzio’s wide range of philosophical and theological interests that
include love, miracles, physics, immortality, and free will.
As examining all these views in a brief review is not possible, I will limit the
discussion to three of the most important: immortality, the nature of faith, and free
will. Like his earlier predecessors in the Aristotelian tradition, Porzio rejects the
Thomistic agreement of aspects of faith with reason. Unlike them, however, he has
a deep interest in theology. Porzio’s originality clearly appears in his discussion of
immortality. Agreeing with the Aristotelian view that only the intellect has the
capability of surviving the corruption of bodily functions, Porzio strongly supports
the mortality of the soul as the doctrine of natural reason. Yet he maintains this view
with greater consistency than his predecessors in the Aristotelian tradition, Alexander
of Aphrodisias, Thomas Aquinas, and Pietro Pomponazzi. In Aristotle’s view, the
soul’s immortality can only be proven if the intellect, its highest power, can function
without a material base, without the body. And the only way to prove this is to show
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878 RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY
that the highest power of the soul, the agent intellect, which actualizes universals, does
not corrupt with the lower vegetative and sensitive powers, thus surviving the body.
Alexander, while maintaining the soul’s mortality, identifies the agent intellect with
God. Pomponazzi, likewise asserting the soul’s mortality, maintains that the agent
intellect is one of the Intelligences. By granting immaterial substance to the agent
intellect, both of these thinkers compromise their view of the soul’s mortality. For, if
the agent intellect is immaterial, it is not dependent on bodily powers, and survives
the decay and death of the body. Thomas maintains that natural reason supports the
doctrine of immortality. Holding that the intellect cannot possess rational discourse
without the powers of the agent intellect, he claims that it must be part of bodily
functions. At the same time, however, he says that the agent intellect (and the intellect
as a whole) is a self-subsistent substance capable of a separate existence, thus surviving
the death of the body. As Pomponazzi would point out, this view is contradictory, for
the intellect, including the agent intellect, cannot be both an inherent bodily power
and a power totally separate from the body. Porzio, however, presents an entirely
different view that is more consistent than that of these earlier Aristotelians. He argues
that the whole intellect, created by God, is part of human, not divine, powers. As
such, it is corruptible and mortal. This interesting position is never fully explained, as
Soldato notes.
Porzio’s theological views represent a sharp break with the naturalistic
Aristotelian tradition, whose fundamental method insists on the acceptance of
faith without a discussion of its central tenets, which are beyond the powers of
human reason. Influenced by the Italian evangelism of Naples, especially the
preacher Juan de Valdes, Porzio analyzes the transformative power of faith through
inner renewal, on Soldato’s account. This view echoes, she believes, Erasmus and
Luther. Elevating man above the material world, grace allows man to seek Christ
and ultimately leads him to eternal salvation. This redeemed soul now has a direct
communication with God and renders works unnecessary for salvation. But, as
Soldato notes, at the time of the Council of Trent, this was declared a heretical view.
So Porzio covered his tracks by adding passages on the necessity of works for
salvation, thus denying his earlier statements. This formula, Soldato holds, is a form
of Nicodemism (the dissimulation of true religious belief ) and hides an apparently
Protestant view.
Related to the discussion of the power of grace is Porzio’s praise of celibacy. His
discussion eliminates the sacramental character of celibacy, arguing instead for its
spiritual transformation, which conquers the passions. Man is purified through
Christ’s sacrifice, not through the mystical power of the priesthood. On the issue of
free will, Porzio rejects both the Stoic and Platonic theories. He claims, as Soldato
argues, that each of these positions fails to demonstrate how human reason can
subdue the passions so that the intellect can freely make decisions that the will can
then carry out. But where philosophy fails, faith succeeds. The only power capable
of freeing the will from the passions, Porzio decides, is God’s direct action. It is
God’s grace alone that frees the intellect from the passions and thus frees the
will.
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REVIEWS 879
Soldato’s presentation of Porzio’s views depicts a fascinating figure. Although
he lacks the analytic power of the great Aristotelians like Pomponazzi and Zabarella,
Porzio’s original philosophical and theological views deserve the thorough
examination Soldato presents. This fine work will be of interest to all scholars
of Renaissance thought.
MARTIN L. PINE
Queens College, The City University of New York, emeritus
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