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Odoardo Gualandi
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Odoardo Gualandi represents a practical philosophical culture adequatly described in a study of Montaigne's Essays as a culture '...that centers on the persona of the priest-philosopher who both teaches and embodies a re-invented, more methodical and applied form of moral philosophy, who interacts in civic life with the secular noble elite, and with scholars and bibliographers, offering physic for the soul.'  He was reputed for his clear explanation of moral philosophy in general and that of Aristotle in particular. That reputation was based on just one book, De civili facultate..., published after his death. It shows Gualandi as an eclectic Aristotelian who attracted attention not so much as an original thinker as well as for the way he organized the material in his explanation of ethics and politics. His fame as a teacher lasted till the beginning of the eigtheenth century. Since then his name and work passed into forgetfulness.

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Life and work
 

Poets, rhetoricians and philosophers
 

Ethics and politics
 

Spreading and reception
 Life and work'''

Gualandi descended from an old and famous patrician family from Pisa. At the university of Bologna he graduated summa cum laude in civil and canon law. This is all we know about his origin and youth. From 1557 till 1588 he was Bishop of Cesena in northern Italy. In that capacity Gualandi was a valuable member for Cesena's community and left many traces in the history of the town. In 1564 and 1566 he organized a diocesan synod on health care, and he also founded an orphanage in 1576. In 1569 he was one of the first to respond to the call by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to ensure better seminaries and to establish a seminar in each and every diocese. Two years later he facilitated the establishment of a university in Cesena. In 1572 the cathedral of Cesena, the San Giovani Battista, was substantially rebuilt and renovated at his instigation. Another synod in 1582 resulted in Gualandi's first publication, Constitutiones, et decreta condita ab illustri...Adoardo Gualando...Caesenae. 1584. In 1588 Gualandi retired and succeeded as Bishop of Cesena by his nephew Camillo Gualandi. During his retirement Gualandi wrote his only known philosophical treatise, De civili facultate Libri XVI. It was published by his nephew in 1598, i.e. a year after his death in Rome, 17 March, 1597.

Poets, rhetoricians and philosophers

At his inauguration as Bishop in Cesena the Accademia de' Riformati, a literary society, established about 1557 by the historian and poet Giuliano Fantaguzzi, organized a festive reception. Gualandi was so taken with this initiative that he proposed to hold the meetings of the society henceforth in the episcopal palace. For over thirty years he was patron of this Accademia where, like with other academies, the focus on literature was combined with a strong interest in philosophy. Possibly it also was through this society that Gualandi met the eclectic philosopher, man of letters and astronomer Jacopo Mazzoni (1548-1598), a prominent member of the Academy. They probably became good friends. Gualandi introduced Mazzoni to cardinal Filippo Boncompagno and once gave him a commentary on Pindarus. During the first decade of his episcopacy Gualandi was also well acquainted with the humanist and preceptor of, among others, Jacopo Zabarella, Francesco Robortello (1516-1567) who taught, among other subjects, ethics from an aristotelian point of view. Gualandi praised the famous Cesenat physician Nicolò Masinius (1533-1602) who als was a philosopher and informant of Vasari concerning the art in Cesena. Another member of the Accademia de' Riformati. The communal library of Cesena, the Bibliotheca Malatestiana, owns a manuscript by Masinius, dated 1584 and titled Animadversiones ad regimen puerorum spectantes. It is procured with two prefaces, one of which is addressed to Adoardo Gualandi. Masinius' nephew, the painter and architect Francesco Masini, also dedicated a treatise to Gualandi. The latter was greatly interested in literature indeed. He was praised for his poetics. The Florentine poet and historian Benedetto Varchi (1503-1565) devoted a sonnet to Gualandi.

Ethics and politics After his retirement Gualandi wrote De civili facultate libri XVI. The book remained incomplete. At the instigation of his nephew and successor as Bishop of Cesena, Camillo Gualandi, the work was published posthumously in 1598. The title alone already divulges something about Gualandi's ideas regarding the nature of ethics and politics in general as well as about their relationship. These ideas are closely allied to those of the philosopher, humanist and translator Johannes Argyropoulos (1415-1487), as well as those of the historian and translator Bernardo Segni (1504-1558). In the Latin and Italian translations of Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea the term politikos is interpreted in different ways. Differences that correspond to varying views on the relationship between ethics and politics. A translation, for example, as 'politica' stresses the communitarian aspect of Aristotele's views. In that context the primary object of ethics is not the body of the individual person but the corpo civile della societa, i.e. the body politic or nation as a whole. Bruni's choice for a translation as 'civilis' shows that he conceded to a certain ambiguity. The term refers both to the social character of man as well as to the social structure in which man lives. Finally, someone like Argyropoulos translates the word with 'facultas civilis' and thus resolves the ambiguity. To him civility as an ability of the individual man ranks first. 'Civil faculty' is also the expression used by Segni in his Italian translation. According to Matteo Rolandi the use of that expression signifies that in Segni's view the architectonic element of ethics is not to be looked for primarily in society, but in the acting of the individual, in human being as such, either as political action for the common good, or for the pursuit of power. The highest goal of man, happiness, is the object of the architectonic element of ethics. That is of political science, or, in other words, of the law giving science that stipulates the norms for proper regulation in all fields. The conclusion that in that case ethics would be subordinate to politics is unacceptable to Segni. To him it is just ethics that is the structuring discipline and guiding principle of all other moral disciplines. Gualandi also uses the expression civilis facultas which carries the same meaning as moralis facultas for him. Thus, he rightly states that his treatise on political philosophy at the same time is an exposition of moral philosophy in general. Philosophia civilis is nothing else but philosophia moralis. The civilis facultas, i.e. politics, or the art of citizenship is, according to Gualandi, the highest ars and consequently also architectonic, that is, the structuring element. As an ars the civilis facultas does not, like scientia, supply knowledge of truth, purely theoretical knowledge, but applied knowledge in the form of an action plan to realize the goal of politics. That is exactly what he misses in Aristotle's work, but whom he otherwise highly appreciates as a philosopher. After all, Aristotle was the only classical philosopher to present us, in his Ethica Nicomachea, with a complete philosophy of life. What he says about our education as social beings, about the development of our ability to live together, our talent for citizenship ('ad civilem formandum artificem') only requires replenishment. Gualandi misses instruction in the Ethica Nicomachea regarding right, decency, virtue, dignity, honour, faith and trust. Without these, he states, there can be no well functioning society. Gualandi addresses matters of public interest here and therefore indispensable to all. He aims to teach us how to attune the powers of the soul in such a way that this will result in a unity aiming at tranquility of the soul ('animi tranquilitas'), and a constitution 'ad bene beateque vivendum'. At the end of the sixteenth century, that replenishment of Aristotle was dearly needed according to Gualandi. There were conflicts all over Europe. Rulers forgot their duties. Guided by anger and avidity, rulers, swept their subjects, for no particular reason, into ruin. In fact these rulers are sick, insane. Their minds have to be cured. According to Gualandi philosophy can, and has to, bring relief here. In De civilis facultate he describes in what way the goal of politics, a peaceful and prosperous society can be realized. According to a letter to the reader from Giuseppe Iseo, also someone Gualandi might have met through the 'Riformati', he did not want to imitate but to complete Aristotle and in doing so, equal or even surpass his great precursor. This does not mean that he was an Aristotelian. Neither was he a Platonist as in some referenceworks unjustly is said. Gualandi was a pronounced eclectic. He drew in other words from many sources. His book teems with references to scientists and philosophers among which Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicurists, Cynics, atomists and sofists, to theologeans, writers and poets like Homer, Hesiod, Terentius, Vergil, and Ovid, but also to rhetoricians like Demosthenes and Quintilianus, lawgivers such as Ulpianus, historians like Plutarch and Xenophon, as well as to the physicians Galen and Hippocrates. Thus he uses sources from Greek and Roman antiquity as well as patristic (Augustinus) and scholastic writings (Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Eustratius). However he does not mention any contemporaries. Apart from this eclecticism Gualandi's didactically inspired choice of Aristotelian texts also mark De civili facultate as a typical product of the Renaissance. The same is true for the themes he broaches such as, for example, the question of the highest good, the relationship between happiness on earth and heavenly happiness, that is, between felicitas and beatitudo, the relationship between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa, the Aristotelian virtues, justice in particular, the relationship between the moral and the intellectual virtues or the relationship between virtue and pleasure. Last but not least typical for the Renaissance is the completion of ethics instruction with political philosophy, and especially the discussion of the relationship between ethics and politics. In Gualandi's view politics consists of two parts: first man as an individual and second man as a member of a community. In Book I of De civili facultate Gualandi discusses the question of the highest good. The next four parts, books II to V, cover man as such which in fact means an exposition of moral psychology. Man as a member of society constitutes the theme of the next eleven parts, i.e., Books VI to XVI. Books VI and VII address society in general, its nature, necessity, its origin and its foundation. The theme of books VIII and IX is philosophy of law. In Books X to XIV Gualandi discusses the notions of virtue, honor and fame, that is, the qualifications a ruler or magistrate can and has to acquire by acting virtuously, in order to perpetuate a peaceful and prosperous society. The last two parts of De civili facultate are dedicated to dignity. First Gualandi discusses the different degrees of dignity. He compares in that respect the active and the contemplative life, the components of a society and those of a republic, the parts of man and his mental powers, plus the external senses as well as their objects. Finally, in the last book he explains how the dignity of a discipline can be determined and then compares a number of groups of disciplines in terms of their dignity.

Spreading and reception De civili facultate was published in 1598. Apparently it was much in demand for in 1604 a second edition followed. The book could be found in libraries all over Europe. The German Lutheran minister Paulus Bolduan included the book in his Bibliotheca philosophica. Gabriel Naudé (1600-1653), librarian of Mazarin, recommends it in his political bibliography for its style and method. Hermann Conringh and Hugo de Groot repeat that recommendation. Daniel Morhof (1639-1691, literary historian and polyhistor, brackets him together with Descartes and Campanella as methodological innovator.  The German theologian Johann Franz Buddeus praises him for his original method too.  At the end of the seventeenth century Thomas Pope Blount marks him as one of the famous writers of his day.  Particularly in the seventeenth century Gualandi was praised for his linguistic usage. He is referred to not only as a teacher of moral philosophy but also, and especially in the eighteenth century, in his capacity of jurisconsult and philosopher of law.  His book is often mentioned because of the original arrangement of the material in its presentation and explanation of moral philosophy.  The 'protestant scholastic' Rudolphus Goclenius (1547-1628) adopts a few notions from De civili facultate in his famous Lexicon philosophicum.  Others refer approvingly to various views of Gualandi in the fields of psychology, ethics  and political philosophy. There are also, albeit not much, critical commentaries. For example from the theologian and philosopher Bartholomaeus Keckermann (c. 1572 - c. 1608) concerning Gualandi's ideas about magnanimity, and from the physician, philosopher and theologian Giovanni Battista Persona (1575-1620) who questions Gualandi's statements about the subject of moral virtue, as well as his definition of prudence. Gualandi's qualification of the Pope as being holy is met with criticism in Holland. After the seventeenth century Gualandi's book falls into oblivion. His name is only mentioned in Tiraboschi's history of Italian philosophy from the sixteenth century. In the other histories of philosophy, especially those written after the eighteenth century, Gualandi's name is conspicuous in its absence. Until the second half of the nineteenth century his name is mentioned in several encyclopaedias. Since then, Gualandi and his work, De civili facultate, were not mentioned anymore, until recently, when, at the close of the twentieth century his name appeared again in a philosophical referencework.

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Websites
'''                                                                                                                                                                                                  http://serviziweb.comune.cesena.fc.it/sezione%20monumenti/sangiovanni.htm https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gualandi http://users.libero.it/giocama/ospedali1.html

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