e university.
As early as 1300, at Padua, Petrus Aponensis, a notable expositor of
medical theories, had betrayed a heterodoxy in faith; and John of
Jandun, one of the pamphleteers on the side of Louis of Bavaria, was a
keen follower of Averroes, whom he styles a "perfect and most glorious
physicist." Urbanus of Bologna, Paul of Venice (d. 1428), and Cajetanus
de Thienis (1387-1465), established by their lectures and their
discussions the authority of Averroes; and a long list of manuscripts
rests in the libraries of Lombardy to witness the diligence of these
writers and their successors. Even a lady of Venice, Cassandra Fedele,
in 1480, gained her laurels in defence of Averroist theses.

With Pietro Pomponazzi (q.v.) in 1495, a brilliant epoch began for the
school of Padua. Questions of permanent and present interest took the
place of outworn scholastic problems. The disputants ranged themselves
under the rival commentators, Alexander and Averroes; and the
immortality of the soul became the battle-ground of the two parties.
Pomponazzi defended the Alexandrist doctrine of the utter mortality of
the soul, whilst Agostino Nifo (q.v.), the Averroist, was entrusted by
Leo X. with the task of defending the Catholic doctrine. The parties
seemed to have changed when Averroism thus took the side of the church;
but the change was probably due to compulsion. Nifo had edited the works
of Averroes (1495-1497); but his expressions gave offence to the
dominant theologians, and he had to save himself by distinguishing his
personal faith from his editorial capacity. Alessandro Achillini, the
persistent philosophical adversary of Pomponazzi, both at Padua and
subsequently at Bologna, attempted, along with other moderate but not
brilliant Averroists, to accommodate their philosophical theory with the
requirements of Catholicism. It was this comparatively mild Averroism,
reduced to the merely explanatory activity of a commentator, which
continued to be the official dogma at Padua during the 16th century. Its
typical representative is Marc-Antonio Zimara (d. 1552), the author of a
reconciliation between the tenets of Averroes and those of Aristotle.

Summary.

Meanwhile, in 1497, Aristotle was for the first time expounded in Greek
at Padua. Plato had long been the favourite study at Florence; and
Humanists, like Erasmus, Ludovicus Vives and Nizolius, enamoured of the
popular philosophy of Cicero and Quintilian, poured out the vials o