Pietro Pomponazzi and the Debate on the Four Elements

This contribution offers a systematic survey of Pietro Pomponazzi’s lectures concerning the theory of the four elements. This theory represented one of the cornerstones of Aristotle’s natural philosophy, as the four elements were presented as the fundamental ingredients for the constitution of physical bodies. However, the Aristotelian doctrine left doubts and theoretical problems that the late-ancient and medieval philosophical traditions tried to address. In particular, Aristotle left unclear whether the elements are substances in their own right, which means that they are endowed with prime matter and a substantial form; and how these substances can combine to generate new, more complex substances (i.e. mixed bodies). Pietro Pomponazzi addressed these theoretical doubts in his lectures on De Caelo and De Generatione et corruptione, in which he collected and critically expounded the entire ancient and medieval discussion (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas, Scotus). In these lectures, he also offered his personal position on the essence and the relations between elements, finding a synthesis of the Avicennian, Averroist, and Scotist doctrines.