Francesco Buonamici (philosopher)

Francesco Buonamici (* 1533 in Florence ; † 29. September 1603 in Orticaia at Dicomano ) was an Italian philosopher who in Pisa teacher of Galileo Galilei was.

Buonamici was most likely born in Florence, where his father was a notary. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Pisa , where he studied Greek texts in particular (as a student of Piero Vettori , Ciriaco Strozzi). In 1565 he became associate professor of philosophy in Pisa and in 1571 professor of natural philosophy, where he primarily taught Aristotle's natural philosophy. He taught in Pisa until his death. In 1598 he turned down an offer to succeed Francesco Piccolomini as professor in Padua. He died in his country estate in Orticaia about 40 km from Florence.

He is best known for his book De Motu , in which Aristotelian mechanics is analyzed in 10 books on over 1000 pages. It was completed in 1587, but did not appear until 1591. The book influenced Galileo Galileo's early thinking about mechanics in his De Motu Antiquiora .

The book probably emerged from controversy with his colleague Girolamo Borro (who followed the Aristotle commentator Averroes , Buonamici more like Greek commentators) specifically on the case of light and heavy bodies. Borro, Buonamici and also Jacopo Mazzoni in Pisa, like Galileo, advocated experimental testing (similar to the drop tests from the Leaning Tower that Galileo is said to have carried out according to tradition). Galileo was a lecturer in Pisa from 1589 to 1592, but his position was not extended because of his anti-Aristotelian stance.

In 1603 he published a book on nutrition and the development of the fetus (De alimento, Florence).

literature

• Mario Otto Helbing La filosofia di Francesco Buonamici, professore di Galileo , Pisa 1989
• Michele Cameroto, Mario Helbing: Galileo and Pisan Aristotelianism. Galileo's De motu antiquiora and the Quaestiones de motu elementorum of the Pisan Professors , In: Early Science and Medicine 5 (2000) 319-365.
• Michele Camerota in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (older article there by William Wallace)