Pomponazzi, Pietro

Pomponazzi, Pietro (pyĕ`trō pōmpōnät`tsē), 1462–1525, Italian philosopher, b. Mantua. He was a professor at Padua, Ferrara, and Bologna. Pomponazzi aroused great interest in intellectual circles when he questioned St. Thomas Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle. In his De immortalitate animae (1516), Pomponazzi argued that evidence suggests that the soul is mortal; its immortality, therefore, must be accepted as an article of faith. His naturalist position is developed in De incantationibus (1520), in which he stressed the evolution of man and of nature. He sought to reconcile this position with the dogmas of the church by distinguishing between faith and knowledge and by asserting that what is true in theology may not be true in philosophy.