Vanini and the “Prudence” of Christ: from Cardano to d’Holbach

Abstract

Andrzej Nowicki, one of the most distinguished scholars of Giulio Cesare Vanini, wrote that "the work vaniniana [...] is one of the first in European culture, in which the person of Jesus, as a man, is completely devalued". In fact, Vanini likens Christ to a Machiavellian politician, that is, a wily politician, amoral, dissembler and liar, addicted to the exclusive achievement of the goals is proposed. In support of its argument, the philosopher burnt at Toulouse in 1619 cites four Gospel episodes, three of which taken from the De sapientia of Cardano. The same "Machiavellian" interpretation of Christ and the same Gospel episodes are taken literally by the anonymous author of the Traité de trois imposteurs, the clandestine manuscript more prevalent throughout the eighteenth century. One of the cases cited by Vanini and by the anonymous author of the Traité will eventually be taken to support the same interpretation of the figure of Christ, in the Histoire critique de Jésus-Christ, ou Analyse des raisonnée Evangiles of Baron d'Holbach, demonstrating the role of "bridge" between the legacy late Renaissance and modern rationalism that Vanini overlaid.