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Censura Aratoris de nova Logica Foelicis Veri – an unknown review of Faust Vrančić’s treatise on logic in the State Archives in Zadar
Danko Zelić
; Institut za povijest umjetnosti, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
A hitherto unknown short script entitled Censura Aratoris de noua Logica Foelicis Veri, containing the review of Faust Vrančić’s treatise on logic is being published here for the first time. Its discovery instantly brought to mind an almost two and a half centuries old controversy stemming from an assertion made by the Paduan abbot Alberto Fortis in his book Viaggio in Dalmazia (Venice, 1774), i.e. his claim that the
censura autografa of Faust Vrančić’s logichetta he saw in Vrančić family archive in Šibenik in 1771 has been written by the great philosopher Tommaso Campanella.
However, the manuscript that was found among the relics of the Vrančić family archive in the State Archives in Zadar could not for a certainty be identified with the review mentioned by Italian scholar.
Unlike the friendly objections to Vrančić’s Logica that were given in yet another review, by Marko Antun de Dominis, Archbishop of Split (which is also mentioned by Fortis), the review made by Arator—as his name is noted in the title of the script—is a piece of severe adverse criticism. In the opening lines Arator states that “as the new Lutheran religion is battling with the ancient Roman [i.e. Catholic] faith, so is this new logic battling with all the ancient logic” and thus “deserves to be condemned
by the learned”. In the following paragraphs the reviewer criticises Vrančić’s overall definition of the logic as well as some of his particular statements in the opening chapters of the reviewed work. In conclusion, the unknown philosopher claims that “this new logic” could nevertheless “be printed since it does not contain anything contrary to the faith, but in that case its author would expose himself to the ridicule and the mockery of the learned”.
Without entering into the discussion about the contents of the script, some questions that seem rather important are being raised here: what was the purpose of the review, to which version of Vrančić’s Logica it was referring, i.e. at what time it could have been written, and by whom. Firstly, notwithstanding the phrase imprimi potest in the final paragraph, Censura Aratoris is obviously not an official document, or a
censure in the narrower sense of the word. On the contrary, in view of the fact that the author of the Logica is repeatedly being addressed to directly (male definitis; dicis; reiceistis, etc.), it is presumable that the script at issue is an appraisal communicated in the form of a private letter, which has been sent to Vrančić upon his own request.
Secondly, there can be no doubt that the reviewed work was still in the manuscript stage, i.e. supposedly a version of the treatise that has been written considerably before 1608, the year when it was first printed in Venice. What is more, the reviewer’s lines clearly reveal that he was unaware of the identity of the author; the scrutinised work was in all probability signed with the pseudonym, Foelix Verus, as it appears in
the title of the script.
As regarding the identity of the reviewer, if Censura Aratoris is indeed the script that Alberto Fortis was referring to, one wonders what made him believe that it had been written by Campanella, particularly in view of the fact that the document is neither dated nor signed. In addition to being a naturalist, devoted to the study of geology, Fortis was as well a man of wide culture, but it is however fairly unlikely that he would have come to such a conclusion in his own intelligence. Hence, his assertion
concerning the relationship between Vrančić and his renowned contemporary might have originated from a family legend that Alberto Fortis had heard of during his stay in Šibenik.
The reviewer should nevertheless be sought among the philosophers attached to Aristotelian concept of logic or, in Vrančić’s words, peripatetics. Campanella was most certainly not one of them. On the other hand, Arator, or Stephanus Arator Pannonius, was a Latin name of one of Vrančić’s contemporaries―Hungarian Jesuit István Szántó (1540–1612), a philosopher and theologian best-known for his harsh
criticism of Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei adversus hujus temporis Haereticos written by Robert Bellarmine, the most famous Catholic theologian of the post-Tridentine period. Szántó’s censure of Bellarmine’s work, addressed directly to Claudio Acquaviva, the general superior of the Jesuit order in Rome, was sent in 1591
from Vienna, where Szántó / Arator would be teaching philosophy and theology (at the Jesuit college) from 1592 to 1601. Hence, following the examination of available facts, the script Censura Aratoris de nova Logica Foelicis Veri is here arguably attributed to István Szántó and dated to the last decade of the sixteenth century, presumably to 1592–1594―the final years of Vrančić’s stay at the Prague and Viennese courts in the service of the Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg and his brother Archduke Ernest.
Keywords
Faust Vrančić; logic; censure; István Szántó / Stephanus Arator Pannonius; Alberto Fortis
Hrčak ID:
200259
URI
Publication date:
12.1.2018.
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