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Introduction

When Appiano Buonafede was ready to publish the first volume of his Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia (Lucca, 1766), just over 20 years had elapsed since the publication of Brucker’s Historia critica philosophiae (1742–1744). Yet in this brief period of time, the historiography of philosophy had reached full maturity, not only attracting the universal attention of men of learning but also gaining the same recognition enjoyed by other historical disciplines. Indeed, it was in the field of the historiography of philosophy that the different concepts of history, and even religion, were to clash in their defence of one or other ideological standpoint. Thus, for example, to find in the history of philosophy a series of authors who rejected not only divine providence but even the very existence of a superior being, seemed to be a confirmation of the attitudes of atheists and unbelievers of the most radical Enlightenment, going back to the historiographical interest that had characterized the libertine literature of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (cf. Models, II, pp. 10–11). To succeed in proving that some notion of the divine (the so-called universal consensus) could be found in all, or nearly all, thinkers and nations, on the other hand, sounded like a denial of the misbelief professed by the most insouciant philosophes. In short, from unbiased, erudite, and antiquarian research the history of philosophy had gradually become a field favoured for critical or apologetic activity.

It is in the latter category that we have to place Appiano Buonafede, ever ready to defend the rights of the historically revealed religion of the Catholic faith. Apologetics is not the only significant aspect of this work, however, which also reveals a certain Italian revanchisme that also characterized Tiraboschi’s Storia della letteratura italiana (1772–1782). Italy has no representative among the “population of writers” of histories of philosophy, observes Buonafede in the ‘Preface’ to his Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia. With his work, therefore, he dares “almost to hope that Italy, too, will have some historian of philosophy who will not claim to achieve perfection but will perhaps remedy our past sterility a little” (I, p. xxxviii).Footnote 1 His would, moreover, be ‘our’ (Italian) way of writing the history of philosophy. Buonafede does not speak of a “critical history”, as was then the custom, but aims rather to capture the “nature” of the philosophy of nations, that is, the characteristics of their philosophy, almost echoing the ancient Aristotelian category, inherited from the Schools, which sought not so much the dynamic aspect of ideas but rather their ‘quiddity’.

This does not mean, however, that this man, author of the first great general history of philosophy published in Italy, was not of his times, as he accepted almost unconsciously some aspects of the Enlightenment mentality. Buonafede was an anti-Enlightenment figure as a religious apologist, but a man of the Enlightenment in his acceptance of the philosophy of nature and a moderate empiricism inspired by Bacon and Locke. Indeed, in the eighteenth century the Catholic Church had not yet imposed its own official philosophy, which it would do in the nineteenth century: engaged as it was more on a theological plane (in countering, for example, the Jansenist movement) than on the philosophical one, it oscillated between the new and the old, between a moderate sensationalism and a weary Scholastic Aristotelianism, both of which were left to the free choice and convictions of the teachers at the seminaries and ecclesiastical schools. So it was that the monk, Appiano Buonafede was also permitted to move freely within the great literary circles of his time: his violent clash with Baretti, his regular presence in the literary salons, and his noteworthy didactic poetry itself, with its often frivolous tones, document his intent to become part of that worldly, secular society.

6.1 Appiano Buonafede (1716–1793)

Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia

Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia ne’ secoli xvi, xvii e xviii

6.1.1 Benvenuto Buonafede was born in Comacchio, in the Papal Legation of Ferrara, on 4th January, 1716, and, under the name of Appiano, entered the congregation of reformed Benedictines known as the Celestines, founded in the thirteenth century by Peter of Morrone (Pope Celestine v). He studied philosophy for 3 years at the University of Bologna and theology for 3 years in Rome, where he graduated in theology. In 1740, he was appointed lecturer of theology in Naples, where, besides teaching, he engaged in the art of public preaching, at which he was particularly gifted. He was first elected abbot of the monastery in San Severino di Puglia, then of the monastery in Bergamo and after that of the S. Nicolò abbey in Rimini. His numerous commitments in the Order did not prevent him from dedicating himself to fervent literary production, with works mainly aimed against the “poetasters” and men of learning of his century. One of the most famous controversies he engaged in was with Giuseppe Baretti, whom Buonafede tried have removed from the Papal States.

In 1754 Buonafede was accepted into Arcadia, the most famous of the Italian academies, under the name of Agatopisto Cromaziano i.e. “Buonafede of Comacchio” in Greek (according to legend, Comacchio had been founded by Chromatius, a mythical companion of Homer’s hero Diomedes). In the following year, he was elected abbot of the S. Stefano monastery in Bologna, a city where he was able once again to frequent literary salons and circles, befriending the most learned men of the time and cultivating the themes that were dear to him: the apology of Christian revelation, the defence of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church, and the Pope. In 1758, he became abbot of the monastery of S. Giovanni Battista in the same city. This was a period of intense literary production, inspired by philosophical and moralizing themes. The prestige and fame Buonafede enjoyed led the Celestine monks to elect him general procurator of the Order at the Holy See in 1771. In 1777, he became general prefect, which obliged him to take up permanent residence in the principal monastery of the Order, in Morrone near Sulmona. Three years later he was re-appointed general procurator and, finally, permanent abbot of S. Eusebio in Rome. This latter position, proposed by Pope Pius vi himself, who was very fond of Buonafede, was mainly honorary, which meant that the learned Celestine monk could devote himself to his literary and apologetic activities: he completed his great history of philosophy and, by means of bitter and occasionally unseemly criticism, tried to demythologize the widespread deist and materialistic ideas of his time. With his usual polemical intolerance, he also took part in the struggle against the Jansenist movement, which wanted to impress a more austere and rigorous spirituality on the Catholic Church. He died in Rome on 17th December, 1793.

6.1.2 Throughout his long life, Buonafede’s literary output was considerable. It began with his early Ritratti poetici, storici e critici published in Naples in 1745 under the nom-de-plume Appio Anneo de Faba Cromaziano. In these, he reviews over a hundred “modern men of letters”, in alphabetical order, among whom are not only philosophers (Bacon, Bruno, Descartes, Erasmus, Galileo, Gassendi, Genovesi, de Groot, Leibniz, Locke, Malebranche, Hobbes, Pomponazzi, Rousseau, Spinoza, Wolff, and Voltaire), but also historians of philosophy (Bayle, Buddeus, Burnet, Cudworth, Cumberland, Launoy, Lips, and Huet). This work almost constitutes a history of philosophy in verse, in the taste of the century, with a long series of “portraits”, where the brevity required by the metre is compensated for by copious explanatory notes providing the historical and philosophical information indispensable for an understanding of the poetic text. Buonafede’s poor opinion of most modern thought is apparent in his strenuous defence of the Catholic Church, although there are some positive judgements here and there, on Descartes and the Italians Genovesi and Vico, but also on Locke, who had “unveiled” the secrets of human knowledge. More than this early work, it is Buonafede’s Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio ragionato (Lucca, 1761) which comes closer to constituting a history of philosophy, reconstructing the attitudes of the ancients and moderns towards suicide. The work contains a wealth of anecdotes, with moralizing and edifying aims, in defence of the principles of Christian ethics.

Buonafede’s most important work, Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia [= Ist.], was printed in Lucca from 1766 to 1781 in a total of seven volumes. In 1782, the Venetian publisher, Lodovico Antonio Loschi, made a “rapid reprint” in six volumes, introducing an index of names and subjects and, he claimed, correcting typographical errors (‘Avvertimento del Veneto Editore’, in Della istoria, 1781, I, p. iv). The other work on the history of philosophy by Buonafede, Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia ne’ secoli xvi, xvii e xviii [= Rest.], is presented as the continuation of the Della istoria and was published in Venice, by Graziosi, from 1785 to 1789 in three volumes (quotations here are from the Pasquali Venetian edition, 1792, 3 vols). Both works were intended to contrast Brucker’s Historia critica, which was however also Buonafede’s most important source, and the other general histories of philosophy of the early eighteenth century, in particular the Histoire critique de la philosophie (1737) by Deslandes, “a typical product of the Enlightenment culture that Father Buonafede intended to imitate, not, certainly, in its contents, which criticized religious tradition, but in the lively, easy, light and agréable style, quite different from Brucker’s academic Latin” (Piaia, Appiano Buonafede, p. 217). Yet the work also contrasted with Bayle, Buddeus, and all the other modern authors who had described the “splendours” of atheism throughout the course of the history of philosophy, instead of acknowledging that in no epoch had “Truth” hidden itself from any man who sought it with a sincere spirit.

Buonafede’s fame does not depend only on these famous historiographical works. He became particularly well-known in the second half of the eighteenth century due to a long list of pamphlets, speeches, panegyrics, epistles, dissertations, and poetic compositions. In particular, we can mention the Lettera del sig. A.A. medico socratico al sig. G. Bianchi medico Riminese in occasione delle nozze del sig. Duca di *** colla signora Principessa di *** celebrate in Napoli nel 1753 (Pesaro, 1753), which playfully advises the numerous ‘poetasters’ of the time to nourish themselves on the food of the philosopher Anaximenes, that is to say, on air; the De Coelestini Galiani Archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis vita commentarius (Calogerà2, 1766, XIV, pp. 89–115), an elegant commemoration of Bishop Celestino Galiani; the play in proparoxytone pentameters I filosofi fanciulli (1754), inspired by Ariosto, which ridicules ancient men of learning (Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, Orpheus, Thales, Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Democritus); and the Bue pedagogo. Novelle Menippee di Luciano da Firenzuola contro una certa Frusta letteraria pseudo epigrafa di Aristarco Scannabue (Lucca, 1764), a pamphlet fiercely opposing Giuseppe Baretti, who had accused I filosofi fanciulli of lacking humour in the review La frusta letteraria. It is also worth pointing out the Sermone apologetico di T.B.B. per la gioventù Italiana contro le accuse contenute in un libro intitolato: Della necessità e verità della Religione naturale e rivelata (Lucca, 1758); Delle conquiste celebri esaminate col naturale diritto delle genti (Lucca, 1763), with which Buonafede contributed to the heated debate on the theories of natural law; and the Epistole Tusculane di un solitario ad un uomo di città (Gerapoli [probably Rome], 1789), where he maintained the supremacy, both spiritual and temporal, of the Catholic Church over all secular institutions.

6.1.3 Buonafede often repeated his conviction that “without philosophy” it was impossible to “write the history of philosophers” (Ist., IV, p. 259: henceforth the work will be quoted as Ist.). In the preface, he defines philosophy as “the light and companion and almost the element and universal spirit of all [sciences]”. First of all, it “distinguishes, clarifies, and makes ideas certain, puts them together in well-regulated judgements, and sets them out in well-ordered discourses”, giving rise to logic. It then examines the “principles, natures, qualities, and regulations of corporeal substances”, presented as the science of physics. Philosophy also “enriches” and “amplifies the soul”, “provides for the needs and sincere delights of life”, “develops the notions of rectitude and virtue and the foundations and demonstrations of laws, human duties, and natural happiness”, thus revealed as ethics and politics. It becomes rational theology when “through reason one ascends to the first author and most knowledgeable governor” of the universe. The final application of this “highly noble discipline” is “when it approaches the threshold of the temple and accompanies the priests and masters of divinity, and defends revealed religion from the fraudulence of sophists”, thus becoming an apology for religion (I, pp. xvi–xvii).

Buonafede, therefore, maintained the ancient Ciceronian definition of philosophy as “a very extensive, almost infinite, science of human and divine things” (I, p. xviii). However, the noblest expression of philosophy is mainly that which concerns ethics and religion. “We have no doubt when we repeat”, he writes towards the end of his Istoria, “that dialectics, metaphysics, optics, mechanics, astronomy, and other similar treatises are not the true, perfect philosophy, but are preparations and human aids, which together with divine aid lead to the science of God, laws, customs, and well-founded blessedness, which is the true, perfect philosophy”. If, on the other hand, these treatises “presume to stand proudly on their own, they become narrow items of knowledge, of transient utility, pleasing and sterile curiosities compared to man’s highest goal” (VI, p. 13). This principle is reiterated, for example, in the conclusion to the treatise on Thomas Aquinas, written against Brucker, who did not acknowledge Aquinas’ philosophical or theological greatness, although Brucker regretted the presumed loss of some of his scientific works: “If we had his books on mechanics and hydrostatics”, Buonafede writes, “we would perhaps discern the pupil of Albert more clearly in physics; and if he had lived in more enlightened times, Thomas would have been Descartes, as Fontenelle said, and he might have said more. But”, Buonafede concludes vehemently, “this is of little pertinence. The philosophers of the world do physics, and the philosophers of man and God do theology and morals” (VI, p. 109). Without “divine authority”, Buonafede remarks when speaking of the elevated ethical doctrines of the ancient Chinese philosophers, “morals might appear beautiful, but they can be neither stable nor good” (I, p. 179).

The history of philosophy is also seen by Buonafede from an ethical religious point of view, even as the most suitable tool for Catholic apologetics. The history of philosophy is above all the history of good rather than evil. “I shall, therefore, write”, he declares in the ‘Preface’, “of the splendours of the human mind and the annals of truth, virtue, and happiness”. The history of philosophy is the “history of reason and man”, hence “we shall visit wise men’s private gardens and their solitude, and we shall lay bare their studies and customs and the origins and developments and majesty of philosophy” (I, pp. xv–xvi). With the confidence of someone who is convinced he is on the side of truth, a truth that is ultimately founded on Christian revelation, Buonafede writes that he fears no rivals in the difficult task of writing a history of philosophy, at which so many illustrious men had tried their hand.

Thus Buonafede professes himself to be a historian of philosophy, and also indeed a Christian philosopher, in opposition to those, like the Protestant Brucker, who would have liked to “proscribe the name of philosophy from the Christian system” (IV, pp. 153–154). While acknowledging that “in order to write the history of philosophy worthily it is necessary to be a great philosopher”, he gives the following self-assessment: “not only do I not feel so great but neither do I feel mediocre” (I, p. xxv). This attitude can also be perceived when Buonafede wonders “whether it is allowable to think metaphysically and reflect subtly over and above narrating the bare historical facts”. “We wish to grant this permission with discretion and sobriety”, he states against those who “permitted it as much as they liked”, or “rigorously forbad it”, “above all in the history of philosophy, which as the journal of reason must not reject the exercise of this faculty, should it be useful or necessary” (V, p. 58). It is with this attitude that Buonafede becomes an “explorer” of “philosophical natures” in order to discover “the characteristics and natures of things” and to take useful lessons from them (II, pp. 28 and 168).

In his work as a historian of philosophy, Buonafede conceives of himself as an unbiased judge, frequently appealing to the “rich tribute” of the “truth of history” and to “historical candour”, or what we would call historical objectivity: “We will consult history, without which any verdict would be reckless” (V, p. 10; VI, pp. 154, 196). In this ‘consultation’, however, contrary to the ideal history of the good, philosophical history presents itself as a series of conflicts between the innumerable philosophical schools that followed on from one another throughout the centuries, “from the disputes and darkness of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, India […], Greece, and ancient Italy […], the Arab and Scholastic centuries” up to “the quarrels and disdain and bravado and obscurities of our highly cultured and enlightened days”. Rather than a history of the good and a description of the annals of truth, the history of philosophy would therefore seem to be the “narration of the aberrations of the human intellect”, “a great emporium of fake merchandise”, “the annals of error and contradiction”, “the weakest and most insubstantial of all histories”, a history that reveals “the disgraces of the human mind” (I, pp. xx–xxi; V, p. 242). Yet against all forms of scepticism and historical pessimism, Buonafede still reiterates in the preface how some benefit may be drawn from the very errors themselves. “It it thus a strength even to know that the history of truth, virtue, and happiness, which are the ends of philosophy, cannot be separated from the history of errors, faults and baseness; and that a candid narration of the rocks and the famous shipwrecks of the human intellect may well be said to be the most judicious guide, the healthiest warning and the gravest and most useful of all histories” (I, p. xxii).

However, the history of philosophy is not only one of errors: it is also one of “memorable precepts”, “elevated thoughts”, “broad views”, and “useful discoveries on earth, in the heavens and in the heart of man”. Its pedagogical value must not be forgotten either, because “in vividly presenting the truths and errors of great minds, it teaches us to be modest in our investigation into truth and it prohibits us from submitting our reason and freedom like cowards to the haughty domination of men who were not infallible; it also teaches us about the strengths and limitations of the human intellect and about the series of philosophical notions with which we distinguish known notions from doubtful, unknown, or impossible ones, and we do not waste the little time we have in repeating things that have already been done or in chasing after phantoms: thanks to it, we come to learn that vain speculation, the spirit of bias, pride, disdain, and a shadowy, enigmatic mind are the characteristics of a false philosophy, and we thus learn to distinguish it from the legitimate one” (I, pp. xxii–xxiii). At this point Buonafede’s apologetic intention reappears, an intention clearly perceived by Lodovico Antonio Loschi in the ‘Avvertimento’ that precedes the historiographical work: “This is the first and only [history] written philosophically, while others are written only eruditely, including even that by Deslandes, since, according to the opinion of sensible, prudent men, besides its superficiality, irreligiousness can never be philosophical” (I, p. viii).

6.1.4 Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia

Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia ne’ secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII

6.1.4.1 The work Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia opens with the ‘Dedica dell’autore a sua Altezza reale l’infante don Ferdinando duca di Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla ecc.’, where Buonafede expresses the hope that “philosophical reasons” may always “be friends to reasons of State” and that “legislators and philosophers may reason and reign together in harmony” because “truth, virtue, and natural beatitude are the subjects and ends of sincere philosophy and are equally the basis and goals of orderly society and public law” (Ist., I, p. ix). The ‘Dedica’ is followed by a ‘Prefazione’, where the author describes the concepts of philosophy and the history of philosophy and expresses his opinions on ancient and modern works on the history of philosophy. The Venetian edition (1782–1783), to which we refer here, is preceded by an ‘Avvertimento agli amatori delle filosofiche discipline’, signed by the publisher Lodovico Antonio Loschi which contains, among other things, praise of Agatopisto Cromaziano. The Venetian edition, the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia consists, as we have said, of six volumes rather than seven (as there had been in the original Lucca edition), of a total of 2,000 pages divided into 89 chapters numbered consecutively; each volume, on the other hand, has its own page numbers. The first volume contains pre-Greek philosophy; the second is devoted to pre-Socratic “fabulous” philosophy, the seven wise men, Thales, Pythagoras, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, Leucippus, and Democritus. The third volume begins with Epicurus and moves on to deal with Socratic philosophies. Roman and Hebrew philosophy is set out in the fourth volume. Eclecticism, the thought of the Fathers of the Church, the “philosophical heresies” that arose in the early Christian age, the development of Arab philosophy, and the beginning of the Middle Ages (the sixth to the eighth centuries) are the topics of the fifth volume. The sixth and final volume is dedicated entirely to Scholasticism.

In the Venetian edition of 1792, the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia ne’ secoli xvi, xvii e xviii is divided into three volumes, each with its own page numbers but with the 45 chapters numbered consecutively, for a total of 662 pages. The first volume comprises the philosophical “restoration” engendered by humanists and philologists and the rebirth of ancient philosophies. The second describes the “restoration” of philosophy according to geographical areas (England, Italy, Flanders, France, and Germany) rather than by schools. The third volume is dedicated entirely to the various phases of the “restoration” of moral philosophy: the “reasoned” (that is “rational”) theology of the last period of Scholasticism, the moral philosophy of the Protestants, Hobbes and Spinoza, the natural law of de Groot and Pufendorf, and modern political and social doctrines (Montesquieu, D’Alembert, Diderot, and the philosophes in general, in particular Rousseau).

6.1.4.2 Buonafede’s treatment of the history of philosophy extends from the “philosophy of the earliest times of the world” to the eighteenth century. The obscure period that precedes Greek philosophy is articulated according to the facts that traditional historiography of philosophy has always recorded: the periods of the proto-relatives and proto-patriarchs before the Flood, the postdiluvian age, the various intermingling of peoples throughout the centuries (Hebrews, Chaldeans, Persians, Indians, Chinese and Japanese, Arabs, Phoenicians, Scythians, Thracians, Celts, Egyptians, Ethiopians, etc.), up to the “fabulous” age of Greek philosophy, characterized by myths and cosmogonies.

Again following Brucker, Buonafede follows a more precise division of the various periods when dealing with real historical events. At the end of his treatment of Greek philosophy, which takes up half the entire work, he thus summarizes its most important phases: “At first the savage Greeks” (here the similarity with Vico is clear) “were led to a more human state by foreign colonies; then, by means of travels and philosophical navigation, they sought knowledge among the most famous peoples; they then cultivated it at home, and when they became adults, they scorned their fathers and rose up to become the masters of the world; finally, they disseminated it abroad, and this sowing was so fruitful that they began to return to savagery in their own country. Since from small things large ones grow, so it was that from two very tenuous cases far removed from philosophy [that is, the birth of Alexander and Romulus] the dissemination of philosophy took place through the arcane power of the universal chain, which caused so many upheavals in the system and in the history of the human mind” (Ist., III, p. 331). Buonafede had previously distinguished between the Ionic, Italic, and Eleatic schools, commonly believed to be “the mothers of all the ancient schools of Greece”, and to these he added the schools of Heraclitus, Democritus, and Leucippus, which must be considered “separate families”, and therefore independent (II, p. 273).

Roman philosophy lasted until the time of Severinus Boethius, who was “one of the last few western philosophers” (V, p. 298). Buonafede’s division of the history of philosophy in the Middle Ages adds some new aspects to the traditional chronology, and distinctions of a chronological nature give way to those of a judgmental nature. The early Middle Ages are dealt with by centuries, while Scholastic thought is first classified according to the customary threefold chronological division: from Lanfranc of Pavia to Albert the Great; from Albert the Great to Durand of Saint-Pourçain; and from Durand to Gabriel Biel. After this, in order to distinguish between a ‘positive’ and a ‘negative’ form of Scholasticism, Buonafede reclassifies the entire movement according to three “lines” of thought which correspond to three different intellectual attitudes: the first “starts with the abuses of reason and philosophy and the subtle, adventurous disputes of the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and Pelagians and goes through the rash questions of Felix of Urgel, Elipandus of Toledo, Ratramnus of Corbie, Gottschalk of Orbais, and the enthusiastic ideas of Scotus Eriugena and the errors of Berengar and Roscelin”. This line, therefore, consists of poor masters who “drove reason beyond its limits and forced philosophy to tyrannize theology”. They gave rise to “the intemperate, vitiated Scholasticism that Abelard, a famous master, transmitted to his disciples” and which was then passed on to several others. “The other line, ignoring the first and oldest confuters of this intemperance, started with the good monks who studied the holy books in depth and were cultivators of reason and science to the advantage, and in defence, of theology, as far as this was possible given the obscurity of the times. This line passed through the divine and human studies of Cassiodorus, Theodulf of Orléans, Gerbert of Aurillac, Fulbert of Chartres, Lanfranc of Pavia, and Anselm of Canterbury”. Here we find thinkers who – according to Buonafede – placed restrictions on unbounded reason: they were “true disputers, regulators of holy and human confines, and masters of temperate Scholasticism”. Midway between these two lines of thought is “a third line of doctors who shared the vices and virtues of both” (VI, pp. 62–63).

The “obscure” centuries of the Middle Ages were followed by “the times of light” or the “restoration” of philosophy, which began in the fourteenth century with Lull, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio and which was to continue uninterrupted, its progress due not so much to the advent of Protestantism, but to those brave men who managed to demolish Aristotelianism, renew studies, and produce the best results in the philosophy of nature. For Buonafede, the restoration of philosophy had deep roots which went as far back as the early Middle Ages, the time of Charlemagne. It is significant that it is in the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia, the work which was to celebrate modern times, that Buonafede was to write of the history of the oldest “restorations”, which came before Humanism and the Renaissance. These began in the East with the Arabs and in the West with Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Henry the Fowler, and the Ottonian dynasty, which, “preceded, accompanied, and taught by monks, priests, and popes, constituted the first dawn of the literary and philosophical restoration in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries” (Rest., I, p. 4). A “step forward, albeit interrupted, in scientific awakening” was seen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, starting with Gerbert, Lanfranc, and Anselm. Here we have “confutations of Peripatetic and Scholastic excesses” thanks to John of Salisbury and John of Paris, erudite travels, contacts with Arab cultural centres, the great personalities of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Raymond Lull, and studies encouraged by sovereigns such as Frederick ii and Alfonso x and many popes. Then came the third period of “restoration”, when “a praiseworthy competition” in the fifteenth century, above all in Italy, between men of the Church and rulers, and a host of intellectuals (from the Cardinals Pierre d’Ailly and Nicholas of Cusa to Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa and Richard Swineshead, Peurbach, Regiomontanus) “opened up great pathways” in all fields of knowledge and “partly drove back the enemies of light”. The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, finally, make up the fourth era (Rest., I, p. 5).

6.1.4.3 Buonafede’s historiographical theories are closely connected to his philosophical and theological outlook. From the very first pages of the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia we can see his dominant concern to retrace the principles of natural religion which would later become explicit in Christian revelation to the earliest days of humankind. He strives to show that philosophers of all ages, with a few aberrant exceptions, believed in the existence of God and in the spirituality and immortality of the human soul. He consistently aims his remarks, therefore, against those historians of philosophy, particularly Brucker and Bayle, who saw atheism and impiousness everywhere (Rest., II, p. 18). Buonafede insists that the main philosophers of ancient Greece should be acquitted of any accusation of atheism, from the mythical Orpheus to the Stoics, devoting particular attention to Pythagoras, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Bion, Plato, Diogenes, Aristotle and, finally, Strato. When discussing Aristotle, for whom, as we shall see, Buonafede had little esteem, he points out that while some historians completely absolved this philosopher from all accusations of atheism, others, on the contrary, attributed him with impious beliefs. On this point he invites his readers to re-read Aristotle’s statements on the unmoved mover, which are irreconcilable with any profession of atheism. As to the objections that Aristotle maintained the eternity of matter and the world (“to which God is necessarily linked as a universal soul”) and claims that he restricted the action of divine providence to the first celestial sphere and denied the immortality of individual souls, Buonafede appeals to the following general rule: if a philosopher clearly teaches the existence of God, it is not right to turn him into an atheist merely because of a few errors and consequences for which he was probably not responsible and which might encourage impiety; otherwise, if these accusations were brought forward, “nearly all the human race would be guilty of atheism” (Ist., III, pp. 248–249).

For Buonafede there was only one philosopher in ancient Greece who could be called a true atheist: Protagoras of Abdera. Diagoras, on the other hand, who was traditionally believed to be an atheist, in actual fact denied the provident action of the gods but not their existence, since nobody would want to show that he despises things that do not exist (Ist., II, pp. 325 and 327–328). No atheism can be found in Roman thinkers, either: Cicero, Virgil, Livy, and the Latin Stoics were in this sense unjustly accused. In his historical analysis, Buonafede warns the reader of the fact that some had even seen the Scholastics themselves as “generators of atheism”, because with their mania for debating everything they ended up by subjecting even the existence of God to discussion (Ist., VI, p. 141).

Theism is also subject to Buonafede’s constant concern to trace belief in the spirituality and immortality of the human soul back through the history of philosophy. Along with ethics, God and the soul, which were Augustine’s two great themes, are thus the subjects by which Buonafede steers himself through the history of philosophy: “Without God, morality is absurd, and without the immortality of souls, it is useless” (Rest., III, p. 167). The unity of God and the immortality of the human soul are, therefore, the two truths that he looks for in almost every thinker, regardless of their period, who became witnesses to the philosophia perennis that runs through the history of humanity from the divine origins of man as narrated in the Bible. In Buonafede this perspective becomes not only the key to interpreting philosophical history but an apologetic religious argument against the “devastating philosophy” of his century, when “the goddess of matter”, who in other centuries had always been “deaf and dumb”, had suddenly started “to hear” and “to speak” (Rest., III, pp. 176, 180).

However, if Buonafede does not allow the history of philosophy to be read in an atheist or impious light, neither can it be read in a pantheistic, or Spinozist key; and this is the other dominant concern that runs throughout his work. Buonafede declares himself to be against “those who seek pantheism everywhere” (Ist., I, p. 228), thus distorting the moral spirit and disrupting orderly civilized life. In the interpretation of the history of philosophy, looking for the “horrendous monster” of Spinozism everywhere (Rest., I, p. 204) was a widespread tendency of historians of philosophy, who frequently sought the precursors of, or references to, this doctrine before Spinoza, even in the ancient philosophies of India. This is not only a “useless” and “pernicious curiosity”, but above all a “violation of doctrine”: there is a difference between “old and new impieties”, which is why Spinoza “could only have pulled his monster out from his haughty, difficult, and licentious mind” (Rest., III, p. 17).

To these impieties and errors (atheism, materialism, and pantheism) Buonafede also adds “that culprit, Machiavellianism, that disrupts morals”, which played such a role in the modern age, above all in his “poor times, when it is the stupid who triumph” (Ist., IV, p. 140; V, p. 116). Machiavellianism must be traced back in the history of philosophy to be disproved and condemned. The moralistic spirit that pervades all Buonafede’s historiographic work, even to the point of intolerance, can be seen, for example, in his comment on the dreadful fate of Giulio Cesare Vanini, who was burnt at the stake after having had his tongue cut out for having rejected “spirits and God publicly”: “the inhumanity may be called injustice; yet curbing and punishing monsters that are enemies of heaven will always be praiseworthy and right” (Rest., III, p. 10).

In Buonafede, the history of philosophy, therefore, is presented as an apology for Biblical Christian revelation and the Catholic Church, which he sees as the guardian of this revelation. This gives rise to his continual polemic with Protestantism, which, together with the spirit of free enquiry, had introduced principles that perturbed morals and theology and separated many believers from the Church of Rome. Buonafede’s historiographical theories are thus interwoven with his theology of history, completely centred on the “axiom” with which he concludes the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia: “Without heavenly order there never was, nor will there ever be, any order on Earth”. Indeed at the beginning of the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia, almost like Vico, he declares that at the very outset of history “the founders of nations and kingdoms were always accompanied” not only “by arts and sciences”, but also, and above all, “by priesthood and religion”, in a close alliance between the altar and the sword, “and they thus obtained respect and love”. The philosophers of the various ages have to be judged in the light of these eternal principles, which constitute the “principal highways of sound truth” (Ist., I, p. 245; Rest., I, p. 8).

This attitude might also be at the root of Buonafede’s aversion to all philosophies of “enthusiasm”. The first to be affected by “enthusiasm” was the philosophy of Plato: “Everything of his is metaphysical”, and, as it is a metaphysics that is “spoilt by the boldness of poetry and by enthusiasm”, it comes as no surprise that there should be an “innumerable multitude of comments, doubts, questions, quarrels, and complaints” concerning his theories (Ist., III, p. 145). The entire Platonic, or Platonizing, tradition is accused of “enthusiasm”. One great “enthusiast” was Marsilio Ficino, who “was convinced that he would always find the truth in his Plato and even went so far as to attribute him with the dogmas of faith and revealed mysteries, to such an extent that he distorted his thought and subjected him to the visionary interpretations of the Alexandrian Platonists, who added their endless absurdities to the sublime shadows of this philosopher” (Ist., VI, p. 198). The Alexandrian philosophers were also “sublime doctors of enthusiasm”, especially Plotinus and Iamblichus, whom Buonafede liberally targets with his derogatory epithets (“visionary, melancholic, and, we can also say furious and insane”: Ist., V, p. 10). The heirs to this “philosophical enthusiasm” were the theosophs of the modern age, headed by Paracelsus, and the Cabbala, which arose in the first centuries of the Diaspora: “The theoretical cabbala was a mixture of Hebraism and Christianity contaminated by Oriental, Greek, Egyptian, Alexandrian, and eclectic enthusiasm and frenzy, aggravated by a very strange use of language, with monstrous images and delirious reasoning”; the “cabbalist madness” was a “shapeless and vulgar compound of almost all the impious and brutal forms of madness spoken or written in theogony and cosmogony by thoughtless or reckless minds” (Ist., V, p. 240). Indeed all “enthusiasts” and “fanatics”, from the Gnostics to the Quakers, always ended up by “becoming delirious” (Rest., I, p. 160).

By contrast, and again following Brucker, eclecticism seems to Buonafede to be the most mature and valid of all the schools of philosophy. Above all he appreciates the method adopted by the eclectics: “Without regard for anyone and without being slaves to tradition, consensus, age, authority, and other prejudices, whatever they be, they examine, discuss, choose, reject, and think for themselves, and they make from all the philosophies one that is a friend to freedom and to truth, wherever it is to be found”. This is, Buonafede remarks again, echoing not only Brucker but also the article Éclectisme in the Encyclopédie (see above, Sect. 1.3), “a noble and very ancient type of philosophizing, which was born when great souls wanted to be lords and free, like men in the state of nature, where everything belonged to everybody. They read, saw, travelled, questioned the Egyptian, the Chaldean, the Indian, the Phoenician, and the Greek, collected the scattered truths and returned laden with the knowledge of all peoples”. The syncretists were also eclectics, but in a perverted way, since they claimed to “reconcile contradictions”, rashly adopting doctrines near and far, true and false, in order to put them together and create “monsters” (Ist., V, pp. 1–2). Buonafede also, therefore, supports eclecticism in its modern version, that is to say, the “critical and judicious way of choosing […], ordering, assembling, and legitimately reconciling the sentences and truths scattered around in the various sects”. In the course of history there have been many attempts to formulate this philosophy, which were “not always fortunate” but “always praiseworthy” (Rest., I, p. 113). Without touching the rights of religious dogma, “eclectic realism” (not an “eclecticism that goes as far as enthusiasm”, as in the case of Ammonius: Ist., V, p. 52) corresponds to Buonafede’s philosophical position, and it is in the light of this that he judges virtually all the history of philosophical thought.

These considerations throw some light on Buonafede’s continual polemic against Aristotle and Peripateticism, in particular Scholastic Aristotelianism, which he perceives as having led to much vacuity and subtlety, spreading “shadows” and “obscurity” (Ist., III, p. 252; Rest., I, pp. 53 and 103). With Aristotelian commentators, both ancient and modern, night became “blacker than chaos” (Rest., I, pp. 43 and 237). For Buonafede, even Aristotle can be compared to the ‘enthusiasts’, since in metaphysics and physics he “listened to his fantasies”; his moral and political doctrines, moreover, are unwieldy and antiquated (Ist., I, p. 239; III, p. 266). Some “Aristotelian merits” are acknowledged, but only in the field of natural history and anatomy. For the rest, negative judgements follow thick and fast, even becoming offensive: “infamous philosopher”, “plebeian, puerile, and reckless”, “ungrateful” and “without virtues” (Ist., III, pp. 168, 230, 245, and 254). Buonafede writes that it is only out of respect for history, and bearing in mind the “corruptions” and the “confusion of Aristotle’s books”, both of which have accumulated over the centuries, that he dwells upon the cornerstones of Aristotelian doctrine: prime matter, substantial form, nature, privation, and entelechy.

Scholasticism is also drawn into this criticism of any form of philosophical extreme. Having become “great and superb”, dialectics ended up governing philosophy and theology, and united with Aristotle’s metaphysics gave rise to Scholasticism, which for a long time represented “an insult to reason and the corruption of theology” (Ist., VI, pp. 27–28). Here, too, there is no lack of polemic: Buonafede speaks disparagingly of the “Scholastic dunghill”, in which, however, Leibniz had seen “hidden gold”; he also uses the term “Scholastic mud” (Rest., I, pp. 15 and 95), making no distinction between his own expression and Brucker’s “sterquilinium scholasticum”. That being said, he does concede, that not all Scholastics were the same, “neither did they [all] shamefully confuse philosophy and theology”. This is why the Protestant Brucker’s depiction of Scholasticism seems to Buonafede to be “murky”, a “romance that is not only imaginary but also slanderous” (Ist., VI, pp. 12 and 89). Buonafede therefore feels the need to give a more nuanced interpretation of Scholasticism, one in which he is more benevolent towards the main thinkers, from Gerbert of Aurillac to Duns Scotus himself: Scotus let himself be carried away by his love of subtleties, but he also devoted himself to commenting on the Holy Scriptures and theological studies without committing any errors. It seems clear, however, that this reappraisal of Scholasticism serves to defend Catholicism against the malevolent criticisms of the Protestant world, particularly those of Brucker.

Yet Buonafede reveals himself to be not only anti-Peripatetic and anti-Scholastic, but also equally anti-modern, continually at war with his age, wanting to strike out at the widespread attitude of unbelief, “the enthusiasm of the libertine revolution”, the perversion of those who deny that revelation has any value, thus undermining the foundations of all morals (Ist., I, p. 198; III, p. 100; V, pp. 116, 213, and 249; Rest., I, p. 173; III, pp. 28, 105, 177, and 209). Bayle is accused of promoting atheism, while the Enlightenment is accused of having reduced morals to the “benefit of society” and to the search for utility, producing “ruins rather than restoration” in the field of philosophy (Ist., III, p. 209; Rest., III, pp. 159–160 and 181). Yet not even Father Buonafede is completely free from the influence of Enlightenment culture. In this regard it is sufficient to think of the anti-metaphysical spirit that can be sensed throughout his history of philosophy, which is blatantly expressed not only in his criticism of Aristotle and the “enthusiasm” of the Neoplatonists, but also when he mentions, for example, the monumental theoretical treatises of Christian Wolff. As he himself states, even his judgement of the Middle Ages is, at least in part, in line with that of the Enlightenment, while he clearly appreciates the scientific progress of modern times and the protagonists of the scientific revolution: first of all, Bacon, Kepler, and Copernicus, but also Galileo, who knew how to bring to fruition what others had only glimpsed.

Finally, he perceives the questionable Locke, together with John Selden and Samuel Clarke, to be one of the “least erroneous” of the British thinkers in the field of moral science (Rest., III, p. 115). “Without being a physicist and far less a mathematician, he overcame all these and other contemporary dialectics, and then rose to the same level as the elegant and lively English writers, illustrious physicians, free jurists, politicians, legislators, and bold theologians. Such a man, who aroused so much controversy in his days and still arouses it in every region of this new philosophical country, deserves our attention for a moment” (Rest., II, p. 176). Thus, in a truly uncharacteristic tone, Buonafede justifies his lingering over Locke’s works, in particular the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which hold the essence of what he defines as “logical and metaphysical Lockism”. All told, we can say that Buonafede did actually try to a certain extent to find a compromise between Catholicism and modern culture.

6.1.4.4 From the methodological point of view, Buonafede’s history of philosophy presents two perspectives: one is biographical and narrative, where the moral and intellectual portrait of the various thinkers or philosophical schools is set out with material taken from ancient and modern authors; the other is critical, which is why Buonafede contests, frequently in a polemical tone, those historians of philosophy who criticized the Catholic tradition or rejected the set of natural truths that he sees as having always existed for mankind. In this perspective, he reinterprets not only the ancient Greek and Roman age but also the earliest philosophical periods, with the aim of stressing the moral and religious values of those epochs. On more than one occasion, however, he claims that he is an impartial judge who does not wish to go beyond the “restrictions of history”, even in the case of more recent ages (Rest., III, p. 105). A historical account, therefore, “must be purged of fables” and brought as close as possible to truth; yet on the contrary, there are many who “wishing to be interpreters, ceased to be historians” (Ist., III, pp. 69, 135). When writing of Leibniz, for example, after mentioning the consensus and criticism that greeted his doctrines, Buonafede declares: “As is our style, we shall follow a middle course, and, far both from excessive admiration and from ill will, we see in him not the counsellor and courtier and idol of Mainz, Hannover, Berlin, and Vienna, not the friend of the greatest sovereign of Russia, nor the confident of Sophia, Queen of Prussia, of Wilhelmina, Princess of Wales, and of Elisabeth, Duchess of Orléans, but Leibniz, the bare philosopher; and we shall see, hearkening more his doctrines than others’ hearsay, that he had much credit in the restoration of philosophy: not all those that his worshippers attribute to him, but neither did he have all the defects denounced by his detractors” (Rest., II, pp. 86–87).

For this reason, when wondering “whether it is possible to think metaphysically and reflect subtly in history going beyond the bare narration of facts”, Buonafede says that he did not want to leave any room for “useless, repetitive reflections”, and declares: “We intend to write for men who like to reflect for themselves, not for boys who want to be led step by step” (Ist., III, p. 58). When history provides few “truthful records” and it is not possible to subject the “genuineness” of the documents in our possession to a critical verification, as is above all the case with ancient times, it will be opportune to stay on the level of a “modest historical Pyrrhonism” (Ist., I, p. 155; II, p. 240). Contrary to the contemporary taste for anecdotes, Buonafede says he does not wish to linger over biographical episodes which may be of greater or lesser significance, but wants to hasten “towards doctrines, which are always the greatest, or certainly the least small, part of philosophers’ lives” (Ist., III, p. 287).

Buonafede’s work also aims to distinguish itself by its accessibility compared to previous works on the history of philosophy. “The nature of my work”, he stresses, “rejects presentations that are too detailed” and “prolix discussions” (Ist., III, pp. 69 and 299–300). In dealing with the philosophy of the Arabs, for instance, he intends “to restrict himself to a sober idea of some of the main characters” (V, p. 251). Similarly, in his treatment of Stoic doctrine, Buonafede aims to restrict himself to the “simplicity of the main themes” (III, p. 307). “I do not like the accusation of being a man of quantity”, he explicitly states: “philosophy is expressed in two words, ignorance in a thousand” (I, p. 69). Therefore, all the modern historians of philosophy, in particular Brucker (whose Historia critica can however be included “among the greatest literary achievements, not only of Germany but of all our age”), are accused of prolixity. Their books, Buonafede observes, repeating fairly widespread criticism, “are of excessive prolixity”; in them “the same stories are repeated”, “minor things, such as chronological matters, are expounded and discussed with a diligence that is wearisome”; in the end philosophical systems come to seem fragmentary and tiresome, lacking an underlying theme, and “frequently, after endless discussions one feels disappointed at not having gleaned anything” (I, pp. xxxiii–xxxiv). Hence, with regard to his own history of philosophy, he warns readers: “I shall use the information and discoveries of the scholars praised in this preface and of others I have not yet mentioned, and above all I shall make use of the stupendous work of the brave Brucker, revealing and correcting, however, as far as my fragility will permit, their gravest misunderstandings, particularly in the field of religion. […] I shall reject prolixity, pettiness, superfluity, and erudite ostentation; I shall narrate and almost depict customs and systems in their essential and true aspects; I shall not corrupt others’ opinions with my own; I shall love modest conjecture instead of inventing rash theories; I shall know how to doubt and fear; I shall remain silent when history, whose laws I respect, remains silent; I shall not presume to defeat invincible shadows and, when necessary, I shall not be ashamed to confess candidly an unavoidable ignorance” (I, p. xxxvii).

Buonafede’s presentation of Platonic thought provides an example of his independence from traditional historiography of philosophy. He does not accept the threefold division into dialectic, “contemplative”, and ethical philosophy and rejects a systematic treatment, “because we know that Plato himself did not want it, and he scattered his doctrines around without any order, some in one place, some in another, according to his mood”. His dialectics, whose borders are hazy, will thus be considered together with “contemplative philosophy”, and subsequently his most famous ethical doctrines will be mentioned; “Anyone who would like to exhibit greater diligence, would be tediously useless” (III, pp. 139–140). Faithfulness to history is, therefore, the characteristic of Buonafede’s method, or at least that is his avowed intention. However, his professed narrative sobriety does not exclude his widespread apology of the Catholic tradition, which is often irrelevant. Thus his methodological choices also serve his religious purposes, which are always the principal aim of his work: identifying the “nature”, or the characteristics, of the various philosophical systems, and his subsequent critical evaluation of these systems, always serves to defend the perennial Christian truth which, for Buonafede, can be traced throughout the history of mankind.

6.1.5 Upon their publication, the two works by Buonafede, which together constitute his general history of philosophy, received both criticism and praise. In the république des lettres this ‘history’ must have seemed rather pretentious, since Buonafede assumed the role of critic and master, even of Brucker, the father of modern historiography of philosophy. Such temerity gradually turned into a sort of bravado, accompanied by the dogmatic certainties of this man of the Church. This provoked irritation among French intellectuals, but it also explains the praise that the work received in Catholic circles in Italy. Reviewing the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia, the journal Efemeridi letterarie di Roma highlighted the war waged “with very forceful reasoning” against “libertine spirits, enemies of the gentle yoke” of the Christian religion, such as Rousseau. Thus the “brief defence of the spirit of intolerance” that Buonafede had written at the end of his treatise on Christianity was reiterated: “If the Christian religion is true and useful, which is most clearly proven, it must be in the interest of laws and magistrates to propagate and defend it from the fraudulence and attacks of its enemies, first by persuasion and then, should the latter have no effect, by force”. However, some critical observations were made concerning Buonafede’s historiographical method: the style is “elegant” but “verbose”; “although the portraits of the philosophers are well drawn, we would have preferred a livelier, more general picture of philosophy and of the progress of the human spirit in their place; in short, a history of philosophy rather than a history of the philosophers” (ELR, 1772, i, pp. 52–53 and 55). Yet some years later, when the Efemeridi letterarie presented the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia, there was no such criticism, and the “criterion”, the “doctrine”, the “historical, erudite and philosophical choice” of the work were praised, as finally providing “a complete history of philosophy which Italy had lacked” (ELR, 1785, xiv, p. 158).

The Venetian Giornale della generale letteratura d’Europa e principalmente dell’Italia also welcomed the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia as an antidote to Brucker’s “irritating prolixity” and above all to his “biased spirit” (GGLEI, 1767, iii, pp. 34–35). Another Venetian journal, the Giornale enciclopedico, taking up the judgement expressed by the Novelle letterarie di Firenze, pointed out the author’s apologetic commitment against a horde of enemies of Catholicism: Daillé, Bayle, Le Clerc, Pfaff, Buddeus, Barbeyrac, Fréret and, of course, Brucker (GE, 1781, July, vii, pp. 17–18). However, the Nuovo giornale enciclopedico, a continuation of the former, in reviewing the second Venetian edition of the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia, did not share Buonafede’s opinions concerning Rousseau and Voltaire, whom he had presented as two highly contradictory figures (Rousseau: “half Manichean, half Judaistic, half Mohammedan, and all chaos”; Voltaire: “bold and an adulator, […] tolerant and a persecutor; an enemy of envy in others, but himself envious to the point of delirium”) (NGE, 1789, April, pp. 36–38).

Outside Italy, it is worth noting the highly critical verdict on the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia that appeared in Poland in the Monitor and was reported in Italy in the Bolognese Memorie enciclopediche: “No, Very Reverend Cromaziano, the time for rhapsodies, patchwork, dictionaries, and gossip is over. You cannot produce an endless list of names […]; you cannot mention a thousand writers offering information about each one’s birthplace, profession, frontispiece of book […]; but you must go through the systems, compare them, combine them, and with keen, sagacious intelligence set in order the series of errors and truths, which joined together, under one certain aspect, do indeed form the history of philosophy and the arts. Copying the indices from the Traité des opinions by Le Gendre, articles by Father Niceron and Moreri, and stealing from Stanley and Brucker is not writing a history. There is a singularity in this writer, and it is that he quite openly copies Brucker but at the same time contests him; and he quotes him at the same time as he copies him […]. One must confess that he has a way of speaking that is his, and his alone. He is bitter, pungent and, if one might say so, salacious. It is, then, also true that he is extremely uniform and monotonous, so his readers very soon become bored” (MEB, 1785, pp. 310–311).

Both positive and negative verdicts were passed by historians of philosophy as well as eighteenth-century ‘journalists’. Carl Adolph Cäsar was one of the first German authors to review Buonafede’s work, which, even if it took Brucker as a model, was in any case “pleasing to read and very precise” (Betrachtungen über die wichtigsten Gegenstände der Philosophie, Leipzig 17842, p. 42). Along with him, one of the first to point out Buonafede’s work in Germany was Johann Gottfried Gurlitt in his Abriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Leipzig, 1786, pp. 3 and 210, in the entry ‘Neue Systeme der Geschichte der Philosophie’). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, in the introduction to his Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, Buhle declared that the Istoria e indole di ogni filosofia was nothing but a “sort of declamation” (Buhle, I, p. 9). Tennemann also mentioned Buonafede’s two historiographical works, refraining from any judgement on their merit but underlining their unity (Tennemann, I, p. lxxxi). For his part, the Frenchman Degérando wrote that Buonafede’s books constituted “the most complete work that Italy has on this subject”, but that they “are full of historical imprecisions and declamations little befitting such a subject” (Degérando1, I, p. 57). Ernesti (pp. 83 and 110) credited Buonafede with “at least correcting Brucker’s unilateral judgements”, even if he was indebted to him. Carus (pp. 76–78) even places him before the French historians of philosophy (“revealing greater depth”), and observes that the best aspect of his work is the treatment of the Fathers of the Church, who are properly represented.

However, the person who most honoured the Arcadian Agatopisto Cromaziano was undoubtedly Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (1764–1806), who with his unfinished German translation (it ended at Ch. 22, at the end of vol. II) of the Restaurazione di ogni filosofia provided the Germans with a work that filled a gap in the historiography of philosophy of the time: the history of philosophy in modern centuries, above all in the last.Footnote 2 In Italy, not even the great Tiraboschi had devoted himself to the treatment of the eighteenth century. In Germany, Heydenreich himself observes in his preface, much progress had been made in the field of the history of ancient philosophy (by Meiners, Tiedemann, Klenger, and Plessing), but little had been done as far as modern philosophy was concerned. This is why he considers it opportune to translate only the Restaurazione della filosofia, and not the Istoria into German. However, to Heydenreich, Appiano Buonafede seemed to lack the “pragmatic” spirit that had by then been introduced into the historiography of philosophy by Kant’s critique of reason. He does not consider him to be “dogmatic” or “sectarian” but a Selbstdenker, for the most part well-balanced in his judgement, favourable towards modern Aristotelians and lacking the enthusiasm that was fashionable for Bacon, Descartes, and Leibniz, although he was unfairly critical of Protestantism (a comment which is quite understandable given that Heydenreich was a Lutheran).

In Italy Buonafede’s work was readily cited by historians of philosophy at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and it inspired the Sonetti storici e filosofici (1789) by Girolamo Murari Dalla Corte (see above, p. 322). The Venetian Giovanni Triffon Novello (see above, p. 255) also praised Buonafede as the first great Italian historian of philosophy, but did not fail to point out his contradictory attitude; the fact that his excessive defence of ancient philosophers from the accusation of impiety was accompanied by his continual criticism of Protestant writers (Sui principi e progressi della storia naturale (Venice, 1809–1811), I, p. ix; VI, p. 357). For his part, Defendente Sacchi, Professor at the University of Pavia, in his vast Storia della filosofia greca (Pavia, 1818, I, p. xxvi) remarked that Buonafede, in his intention to “tear the fame of great men to pieces”, ended up by “not respecting anyone”, and thus “having little merit, he earned the scorn of most men of letters”. Buonafede is cited by Antonio Lombardi in his Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo xviii (Modena, 1827–1830, I, pp. 261–264), which was designed to be a continuation of Tiraboschi’s history. Antonio Rosmini mentions him in a letter to Pier Antonio Paravia of 23rd September, 1820 (Epistolario completo (Casale Monferrato, 1887), I, p. 365), and in his early works shows an appreciation of Buonafede’s scholarship, the “soundness” of his criticisms, his “power and elegance of speech”, and his “moderation when confuting” (G. Radice, Annali di Antonio Rosmini Serbati, I: [1797–1816], Milano, 1967, pp. 146, 155, 163, and 237). Buonafede was also remembered for a long time in nineteenth-century Italy thanks to the elegant editions of the Istoria and the Restaurazione which appeared in the series “Classici italiani del secolo xviii” (Milan, 1837–1838, 4 vols). Towards the end of the century, Giacomo Zanella, poet and man of letters, mentioned Buonafede in his Storia della letteratura italiana; even though his judgements were usually very well-balanced, his verdict sounds rather harsh when he writes that: Buonafede “falsified” Brucker, and in a “turgid and pompous style” “created a crazy mixture of the highest doctrines and most poisonous invectives against those who emulated him”, so that “nothing remained” of his historiographical work (Zanella, p. 101).

A theologian and man of letters, philosopher and historian, polemicist and man of spirit, adversary of the philosophes but in his own way a man of the Enlightenment, Buonafede combined diverse gifts and interests in his multifaceted character, but the glory on which he undoubtedly set his sights was to become the first Italian historian of philosophy. Yet his history of philosophy has been described more recently as a “not always successful compilation” of Brucker’s Historia critica, “frequently badly patched up and deformed” (Garin, III, p. 1000). It had previously been quite literally torn to shreds by Benedetto Croce, who judged it lacking in “any spark of true genius”, while its author was considered totally incapable of comprehending “the concepts of earlier philosophers critically” (‘La Storia della filosofia del padre Buonafede’, pp. 225 and 239). In reality, new historiographical theories (such as the attempt to reappraise medieval thought, at least in part) and new intentions, which gave an impetus to the history of philosophy in Italy, do emerge from this work, which is not merely a compilation. Neither was Buonafede devoid of a “philosophical mind” and a critical spirit: it was simply that his ‘criticism’ was mainly, if not fully, at the service of his apologetic commitment.

6.1.6 On Buonafede’s life and works: Elogio storico letterario di Agatopisto Cromaziano scritto da Agatopisto Cromaziano giuniore (Ferrara, 1794) (cf. ELR, 1794, xxiii, pp. 300–302; GLI, 1794, iii, p. 389; 1794, iv, pp. 89–101; GL, 1794, xcvi, pp. 191–207; MSSLC, 1795, xx, pp. 33–37); ‘Lettera del sig. Antonio Buonafede patrizio di Comacchio, scritta al sig. Co. Giulio Bernardino Tomitano di Oderzo, in morte di d. Appiano Buonafede, 11 febbraio 1794’, MSSLC, 1794, x, pp. 59–60; ‘Necrologio di Appiano Buonafede’, GLN, 1795, August, xxxiii, pp. 84–89; G. Mazzucchelli, Gli scrittori d’Italia, vol. II, Part iv (Brescia, 1763), pp. 2305–2308; Lombardi, I, pp. 261–264; BUAM, VIII, pp. 310–311; De Tipaldo, I, pp. 402–406; DBI, XV, pp. 100–104.

Reviews of Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia: GGLEI, 1767, iii, pp. 34–35; GA, 1772, pp. 386–390; 1783, p. 454; ELR, 1772, i, pp. 52–55; 1781, x, pp. 27–30; 1782, xi, pp. 163–166; EL, 1772, February, iii/2, pp. 32–41; GE, 1781, vii, pp. 17–23; PSUSA, 1782, pp. 284–286; NGE, 1789, April, pp. 36–38. Reviews of Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia…: MEB, 1785, pp. 310–312; ELR, 1785, xiv, pp. 155–158; 1787, xvi, pp. 26–30; 1789, xviii, pp. 290–293; AM, 1791, pp. 212–215; PhB, 1791, iv, pp. 235–236. Reviews of other works by Buonafede: FL, 1764, II, pp. 278–282 (Saggio di commedie filosofiche); Minerva, 1762, June, no. 4, pp. 39–42 (Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio).

Criticism: K.A. Cäsar, Betrachtungen über die wichtigsten Gegenstände der Philosophie (Leipzig 17842), p. 42; J.G. Gurlitt, Abriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Leipzig, 1786), pp. 3 and 210; Buhle, I, p. 9; Carus, pp. 76–78; Degérando1, I, p. 57; Ernesti, pp. 83 and 110; Tennemann, I, p. lxxxi, G.D. Romagnosi, Opere storico-filosofiche e letterarie edite ed inedite (Milan, 1844), p. 1394; Cantù, Storia della letteratura italiana, pp. 567–568; Landau, pp. 36–38; Motzo Dentice d’Accadia, pp. 95–105; B. Croce, ‘La Storia della filosofia del padre Buonafede’, in Id., La letteratura italiana del Settecento. Note critiche (Bari, 1949), pp. 225–240; Natali, I, p. 401; II, pp. 463–469, 504; Banfi, pp. 111–112; Geldsetzer, pp. 19, 140, 224; Braun, p. 202; M.A. Del Torre, Le origini moderne della storiografia filosofica (Firenze, 1976), pp. 71–73); Garin, III, pp. 1000–1001; G. Piaia, ‘Appiano Buonafede e le origini della storiografia filosofica cattolica’, in Id., Vestigia philosophorum. Il Medioevo e la storiografia filosofica (Rimini, 1983), pp. 215–232; L. Scarduelli, ‘Cattolicesimo e pensiero moderno nell’opera storiografica di Appiano Buonafede’, Studia Patavina, XXX (1983), pp. 469–493; Appiano Buonafede, un intellettuale cattolico tra l’Arcadia e i Lumi: Comacchio 1716-Roma 1793. Atti della giornata di studi tenuta a Comacchio il 31 ottobre 1987 (Ferrara, 1988); Schneider, p. 56; R. Ruggiero, ‘Strategie dell’anonimato. Arti della confutazione tra Galilei e Appiano Buonafede’, Lavoro critico, nos. 28–30 (1996–1998), pp. 119–142; Alle origini di una cultura riformatrice. Circolazione delle idee e modelli letterari nella Comacchio del Settecento, ed. A. Cristiani (Bologna, 1998) (see in particular: G. Piaia, ‘Un filosofo senza qualità? Il caso Appiano Buonafede’, pp. 135–148; A. Battistini, ‘Maschere e idoli biografici: i Ritratti poetici di Appiano Buonafede’, pp. 221–255; B. Capaci, ‘Le postille della fama: dai Ritratti di Appiano Buonafede agli epitaffi di fine Settecento’, pp. 257–274); G. Solari, ‘Il caso Lucrezio e la Chiesa cattolica nel Settecento. La testimonianza di Appiano Buonafede e Francesco Saverio Quadrio’, Res publica litterarum, XXVII (2004), pp. 172–176; Ricci, Dal “Brunus redivivus” al Bruno degli Italiani, pp. 20–22; C. Borghero, in Ueberweg, III, pp. 228–232.