generation of Greek teachers in the West who helped to
encourage the revival of classical learning.
Arias (y) Montano, Benito (1527–1598) Spanish priest
and writer
Arias Montano was born at Fregenal de la Sierra, near
Badajoz, and studied oriental languages at Seville, Alcalà,
and Leon. He accompanied the bishop of Segovia to the
Council of TRENT, and was noted for his ability and erudi-
tion. He returned to a hermitage at Aracena, near Seville,
and later was appointed professor of oriental languages
and librarian at the ESCORIAL. As editor of the Antwerp
Polyglot Bible (1568–73) he was denounced to the Inqui-
sition for attaching too much importance to the Hebrew
and Aramaic texts; tried and acquitted, he afterwards re-
tired to Seville. He was the author of theological and his-
torical works, including one on Jewish antiquities (1593),
and a poetic paraphrase of the Song of Solomon.
Ariosto, Ludovico (1474–1533) Italian poet
Ariosto was born at Reggio, in Emilia. He studied law by
necessity and literature by inclination at Ferrara, then
joined the household of Cardinal Ippolito d’ Este, whom
he served from 1503 to 1517. After this he entered the ser-
vice of the cardinal’s brother, Duke Alfonso I, who ap-
pointed him ducal commissioner at Garfagnana (1522).
Ariosto spent three testing years there, after which he re-
tired (1527) to Ferrara where he devoted his remaining
days to meditation and the revising of his masterpiece OR-
LANDO FURIOSO, which he had started in 1502 and com-
pleted only a few months before he died.
Ariosto’s other major work belongs to the period
1517–25, a set of seven Satires or verse epistles in the Ho-
ratian manner, written in terza rima and depicting Fer-
rarese court life. Ariosto has also been seen as a pioneer
dramatist, since his verse comedies, such as I suppositi
(1509), though minor works in themselves, were the ear-
liest vernacular plays based closely on Latin models which
were to be a feature of European domestic comedy. He also
supervised the building of a theater at Ferrara in which his
plays were performed. He died in Ferrara, having achieved
recognition during his last years as Italy’s greatest contem-
porary poet.
Further reading: Albert Russell Ascoli, Ariosto’s Bitter
Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987).
Aristotelianism, Renaissance The first printed edition
of ARISTOTLE’s Opera omnia appeared in Padua in 1472–74;
it was followed in the period 1495–98 by the publication
of the Greek princeps. Thereafter the continuing impor-
tance of Aristotle to the Renaissance scholar is revealed by
the publication of 13 further editions of his collected
works during the 16th century. For some, the Aristotelian
canon was both comprehensive and authoritative. So
much so, according to a well-publicized minority, that
anything unrecorded by Aristotle was obviously fictitious.
Such obtuseness was shown, for example, by the Paduan
philosopher Cesare Cremonini in 1610 in response to
Galileo’s reported discovery of the moons of Jupiter. As
they were unrecorded by Aristotle, Cremonini objected,
they could not possibly exist. Equally dogmatic positions
were adopted by RAMUSand BACONin opposition to Aris-
totle. Ramus had reportedly argued in Paris in 1536 that
everything taught by Aristotle was false. More reasonably,
Bacon had warned his contemporaries to apply themselves
to “the study of things themselves. Be not for ever the
property of one man.”
The majority of scholars, however, adopted neither
extreme position. For them Aristotle offered a compre-
hensive account of the universe, together with detailed
textbooks on virtually all branches of knowledge. Conse-
quently most scholars worked unthinkingly within the
confines of Aristotelianism, and even those wishing to
break free often found they could do no more than mod-
ify its basic structure. In many areas Aristotelian princi-
ples emerged from the Renaissance unscathed. When, for
example, Isaac Newton entered Cambridge in 1661 he
studied as an undergraduate Aristotelian physics, logic,
rhetoric, ethics, and metaphysics. Missing from the list are
astronomy and cosmology, the first discplines, under the
influence of COPERNICUS, GALILEO, and KEPLER, to break
away from their classical assumptions.
With regard to the more basic concepts of matter, mo-
tion, and change, less progress was apparent. Aristotle had
rejected the atomism and the monism of his predecessors
and argued that matter was formed from four basic el-
ements: earth, air, fire, and water. While many Renais-
sance scientists quarrelled with details of this account,
none could break away completely. The names of the el-
ements might be changed and the numbers decreased to
three, or increased to five or more, but the theory re-
mained in essence Aristotelian. Equally, while all agreed
that Aristotle’s account of motion was inadequate, it was
less easy to find an acceptable replacement. The problem
lay with the motion of projectiles, falling bodies, and the
planets. What kept them in motion? Aristotle’s answer in
terms of “natural” motion, or the action of the medium,
had never proved popular, not even to otherwise commit-
ted Aristotelians. No significant advance could be made,
however, until the concept of inertia was introduced into
physics, and this was a post-Renaissance development. At
a more fundamental level Aristotle had insisted that
change of all kind must be explained in terms of his four
causes: material, efficient, formal, and final. Thus, for
Aristotle, a statue would have been caused by the material
it was made from, the sculptor who made it (efficient
cause), the object it represented (formal cause), and its
final cause or purpose. While much of the Aristotelian vo-
cabulary survived the Renaissance, some scholars beganAArriissttootteelliiaanniissmm,, RReennaaiissssaannccee 2299